Picture perfect capture by a Montana trail camera.
Just when you thought Mother Nature couldn’t surprise you anymore, she goes and creates an all white elk. It’s truly a stunning sight to see when all white animals pop up in nature, and the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks social media page recently shared images of one that was taken by a trail camera out in “Big Sky Country.”
Anytime there’s an animal without pigmentation, it can be attributed to albinism or leucism. There’s also a condition called piebaldism, but that doesn’t result in an all white body. It usually shows up as white and brown blotches on the skin. The pictures you’ll see below of the white elk would either be albinism or leucism, and if you aren’t familiar with those terms, both exhibit a lack of pigmentation, but they have distinct differences.
When it comes to albinism, the genetic mutation prevent the production of melanin, which is the pigment that gives color to skin, hair, and eyes. Albino animals will typically have all white skin an fur, generally accompanied by red or pink eyes (due to lack of pigmentation in the eyes). Albinism affects all melanin-producing cells, so any patterns or markings that would generally be present are not.
Albinism is a recessive genetic trait (having flashbacks to biology class?), meaning that both parents of the albino offspring must carry the trait. In the rare case that the pair both have the non-dominant trait, they can then pass it down to their baby and cause it to have a lack in hair, tissue and skin coloration.
Then you’ve got leucism, which is a different genetic mutation that causes skin, feathers, fur, or scales to have a partial loss in pigmentation. Unlike albinism, leucistic animals can still produce melanin in their eyes, so they often have normal-colored eyes (blue, brown, black, etc.) rather than red or pink. Patterns and markings may still be visible, but can appear faded or muted rather than completely absent.
Though you could take a look at the picture and try to decide which condition this elk possesses, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks social media account actually confirmed that this elk was leucistic. It’s estimated that leucism occurs in 1 out of every 100,000 elk. So we should all consider ourselves lucky that we got to see this, and it’s all thanks to the Montana FWP’s trail camera and subsequent post:
“These photos show a white elk, and to clarify, this is a leucistic elk. Leucism is a genetic condition that causes a partial loss of pigmentation. It’s different from albinism, and you can see that clearly here because her eyes are a normal color, not the pink/red eyes typical of albinos.”
Beautiful… but sticking out like a sore thumb.
That’s one of the issues that leucistic animals can run into: not blending in with the environment. As you might imagine, an all white animal can’t really camouflage from predators in an all green scenery. They tend to be targeted by predators because… well, they are easier to target. So that makes seeing one that much more rare, because typically, albino and leucistic animals don’t have that long of a lifespan.
