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.
Nearly a day after being downgraded from a tropical storm, Ophelia still threatened parts of the Northeast on Sunday with coastal flooding, life-threatening waves and heavy rain from Washington to New York City, the National Hurricane Center said.
Surgeons have transplanted a pig’s heart into a dying man in a bid to prolong his life – only the second patient to ever undergo such an experimental feat. Two days later, the man was cracking jokes and able to sit in a chair, Maryland doctors said Friday.
Tropical Storm Ophelia formed off the mid-Atlantic coast and was expected to bring heavy rain, storm surge and windy conditions over the weekend, the National Hurricane Center said Friday.
A storm churning in waters off the eastern U.S. has increased to tropical storm strength and is forecast to reach the North Carolina coast Friday morning, the National Hurricane Center said.
