An extremely rare white leucistic alligator has been born at a Florida reptile park.
The 19.2-inch (49 cm) female slithered out of its shell and into the history books as one of only seven known leucistic alligators, Gatorland Orlando said Thursday. Three of the seven are at the park, officials there said.
“This is beyond rare. It is absolutely extraordinary,” Mark McHugh, president and CEO of Gatorland, said in a statement.
The park is asking for the public's help in naming the alligator, which is descended from a nest of leucistic alligators discovered in the swamps of Louisiana in 1987. The blue-eyed newborn is the first solid white alligator ever recorded to have descended from those original alligators, McHugh said.
Leucistic alligators are the rarest genetic variation in the American alligator. They differ from albino alligators, which have pink eyes and a complete loss of pigment, according to Gatorland.
Park visitors will be able to see the leucistic alligator and her normal-colored brother early next year.
“For now, however, we continue to keep them safe where we can closely monitor their health and growth,” McHugh said.
Be Well: Incorporating Jump Rope Into Your Cardio Routine
Florida and Georgia residents living along Hurricane Idalia’s path of destruction are picking through piles of rubble where homes once stood, throwing tarps over roofs and gingerly navigating through mazes of streets left underwater or clogged with fallen trees.
A neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital says she plucked a wriggling worm from the patient’s brain.
Here is the national weather forecast for Tuesday, August 29, 2023.
A medical rescue helicopter caught fire and broke apart shortly after takeoff Monday before crashing into an apartment complex near Fort Lauderdale, killing a paramedic captain on board and a resident on the ground, authorities said.
Florida residents loaded up on sandbags and evacuated from homes in low-lying areas along the Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Idalia intensified Monday and forecasters predicted it would hit in days as a major hurricane with potentially life-threatening storm surges.
Cheddar News checks in with a coast-to-coast forecast of the weather for Monday, Aug. 28, 2023.
Retired Marine Tony Hernandez spoke with Cheddar News about the proper way to do those push-ups and how an incorrect form could lead to injuries.
A sick baby gorilla was nursed back to health in Australia thanks to a zookeeper.
New research has found that younger adults who snore at night are facing some long-term health risks.
