Wednesday, May 12, 2010

White otters born at aquarium

A pair of extremely rare white otter cubs seen scampering about at a tourist attraction are believed to be the first to be born in captivity in Britain. The creatures, noticably paler than normal cubs, took keepers at the Blue Planet Aquarium by surprise.

The pair are part of a litter of three baby Asian short-claw otters born at the Cheshire tourist attraction at the end of March. But it was only when they started appearing outside of their holt that keepers noticed their unusual colouring.



Exhibits manager Tom Cornwell said: ''Normally the cubs, like their parents, are dark brown in colour so it came as a major surprise to see these two tiny white cubs running around. We've been doing some checking but it would appear that this is a very rare occurrence indeed.

''There were sightings of a wild albino otter up in Scotland last year, but this is the first time we've seen anything like this in captivity in the UK.'' The cubs are believed to have leucism, which is a rare condition in which the animal's fur develops without its natural pigment.

11 comments:

Foreigner1 said...

And so cute!!!!! Just to die for.
:-D :-D :-D

annemarie said...

Totally adorable.

and a good excuse for me to share this very cute otter pic

<span>http://i42.tinypic.com/dc6d81.jpg</span>

Foreigner1 said...

Annemarie that pic :* :)  !

Arbroath said...

Heh heh, thanks for that Annemarie!

annemarie said...

I nearly emailed it to you Kev, but assumed you'd probably already seen it, its been around a while I think.

Foreigner1 said...

Kev didn't I see this pic before at your blog...? I have this vague memory of having seen this over here about 6 months ago or so.

Arbroath said...

Yes, I did, but I didn't want to be unkind to Annemarie.

Arbroath said...

:)

Foreigner1 said...

Please please please Pretty please post that picture of annemarie again and screenwide as an opener would you...?

:) :* :-D

Arbroath said...

I can do this big ...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_f98opUNuVXc/S-syE6nmeeI/AAAAAAAAPcc/I7OstjOits4/s1600/Mother+otter+with+baby.jpg

Foreigner1 said...

Ahhhhh (all tenderly moved) ..... thx!

:)