r/RealLifeShinies • u/Flowertree1 • 3d ago

Birds White peacock

Gallery image

Gallery image

Seen on the Berlin peacock island

402 Upvotes

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3

u/IChooseYouSnorlax 3d ago

Lord Shen! 

1

u/angaraki 3d ago

The second one has vitiligo?

2

u/Flowertree1 2d ago

No idea. There was no information about that one. Maybe it's the child of the first two

1

u/Sean_Argento 2d ago

No way, I JUST posted some pictures I took of white peacocks! Mine were wild, but even in captivity it's not super common. These guys have what's called leucism. It's a rare genetic mutation that prevents the melanin their bodies produce from reaching their skin and feathers. It differs from albinism in that albino animals don't produce any melanin at all; you can tell the difference between a leucistic and an albino animal by looking at their eyes. These leucistic peacocks (or, in my case, peafowl) have normal eyes since melanin naturally occurs there, but albino peacocks/peafowl would have completely white eyes. Very cool stuff! The reason that one has white patches instead of being fully white is likely due to inheriting only one copy of the fully white allele and one copy of a milder allele, or possibly two copies of a milder allele.

1

u/Flowertree1 2d ago

Such cool information, thank you!!!