#xanthochromism

[cannedpeachess]

No because the way I get so VISCERALLY angry when someone refers to an animal as albino when they’re actually leucistic, erythristic, or xanthochromatic is both deeply irrational and greatly unhealthy

ALBINISM

Total loss of melanin in the body, i.e. skin, hair/fur/feathers, and eyes (the eyes look pink/red because the lack of melanin in the eye exposes the blood vessels within it to light, which then reflects their red hue)

LEUCISM

Partial loss of melanin in the body; the pattern of melanin distribution is unique in each case, so some people or animals with this condition may have patches of typically-colored skin/hair/fur in addition to pigmented eyes, while others may only have the aforementioned ocular pigmentation

ERYTHRISM

Abnormal prevalence of reddish pigment in the skin/hair/fur/feathers of an animal; concentration of this pigment varies case by case, so humans/animals with the condition can present anywhere from only slightly pink to intensely red in color; to my knowledge, the condition does not affect the eyes

XANTHOCHROMISM

Abnormal prevalence of yellow pigment in the skin/hair/fur/feathers of an animal; similar to erythrism, color intensity can vary from light golden hues to deep yellows; again, to my knowledge, the condition does not affect the eyes

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

#don’t get me wrong #i didn’t always know the difference either #but still #pet peeves #biology #genetics #animals #albinism #leucism #erythrism #xanthochromism #autism #special interest #ted talks

[todaysbird]

this male northern cardinal is a bright yellow instead of the species’ typical red. this bird was spotted by amateur birdwatcher jeremiah vreeland in port st lucie, florida. this bird shows an example of xanthochromism, where a typically red pigment is muted and displays as yellow. it’s believed that this extremely rare mutation has very low odds, and this cardinal is probably one of less than 10-15 individuals on the planet with this appearance.

#xanthochromism #mutation #northern cardinal

[great-and-small]

Finally captured my holy grail! This extraordinarily rare yellow cardinal lives in a natural area that is literally 5 minutes from my old apartment and it took me MONTHS to finally get a good look at him, like one week before I moved out. I was out searching for this handsome bastard nearly every weekend, driving myself mad trying to get a photo of him, until finally he deigned to flit down right in front of me and pose AND he let me excitedly call over some nearby kids to share in the moment before he flew off. Couldn’t stop smiling.

This one-in-a-million mutation (called xanthochromism) occurs when the male cardinal lacks an enzyme responsible for converting yellow pigments in their food into the typical red of their feathers. I am a bit obsessed with the genetics of color and pattern mutations in wildlife and finally seeing this little dude up close was worth the wait.

#birds #birblr #yellow cardinal #xanthochromism #biology #wildlife #zoology #nature #animals #cute #cardinals #mutations #science #cool #photography

[saturnmortis]

They need to invent more pigment mutations in animals so I can be autistic about them

#saturn chatter #I think we should have vividly yellow squirrels #like we already have xanthochromism but it’s only in birds/reptiles/amphibians

[herpsandbirds]

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) male, Xanthistic, family Cardinalidae, order Passeriformes, eastern TN, USA

Xanthism (or Xanthochromism) is when an animal is mostly yellow, instead of its normal coloration.

Male Northern Cardinals are usually red.

photograph by Catherine Reddick

#cardinal #cardinalis #cardinalidae #xanthistic #passeriformes #bird #ornithology #animals #nature #north america

[eukaryotesrool]

Leucism and Kimba

So this is gonna be real life facts (ones I'd say are interesting) mixed with some fan stuff, you don't need to know about the franchise to understand this, but it will be long and only slightly hinged.

Grab a snack, a drink annnnnnd...

What is a Kimba?

(Kimba (1965) running)

This guy, the titular hero of Osamu Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion franchise (AKA Jungle Emperor Leo(direct translation), Janguru Taitei(untranslated title))

For now, all you folks need to know about him is that he comes from a long lineage of lions with uniquely white fur.

Gee, you know what else relates to lions, white fur, and genetics, oh boy, a segway into the next thi-

What is a leucism?

(Pronounced 'luke-ism')

(Animals with a leucistic disorder, leucistic peacocks look neat, though, they all do)

leucism is a variety of conditions causing a lack of pigmentation in animals.

"Isn't that albinism?"

They're comparable, but seperate, their causes are different, also no leucistic condition removes eye pigmentation, so, Kimba's blue eyes aren't a problem.

(Kimba (1965) running, he does that a lot)

Now I'd like to go over every major leucistic condition and compare/contrast them to what we can note about Kimba.

No, I am not joking.

(OH MY GOD ITS SO CUTE I- er, this is a real life white lion cub, owing its white fur to a leucistic disorder)

Something to remember, most of these conditions don't (or don't to our knowledge) affect lions and could be easily swatted aside as such, but KTWL (Kimba the White Lion) is a work of fiction which consistently does absurd things, for example, Great Mother, a surviving mammoth who lives on a magic mountain and has magic powers or a blue lion (no I won't tell you what makes him blue), so I'm willing to brush aside SOME realism... also I researched them so I want to talk about them.

Yes, there is a condition that causes real life white lions, buuuuut I'm saving that can of worms for later.

Easily disproven

These ones don't work for several reasons, I'll be using only the most glaring issues for the sake of brevity.

Vitiligo & flavism: These two conditions happen over the course of one's life, but we see Kimba near birth, and he possessed his white fur.

Chédiak–Higashi syndrome: Causes symptoms (including but not limited to: peripheral neuropathy) which Kimba almost certainly does not have.

Isabellinism: affects only birds and leads to a golden white, not a snowy one.

(An isabellinistic bird, majestic fellow, eh?)

Xanthochromism: Makes things fucking yellow.

(A xanthochromistic (pictured right) and normal (pictured left) Argentine horned frog, so cool.)

Axanthism: only affects things with light reflecting pigments, and can only make things with normally yellow color have white color.

Amelanism: Meaning lacking melanin, so those black tipped ears and tail would be a no-no, yet we observe numerous pelts of his ancestors all with the exact same ears, and, we have reason to believe, the exact same tail (his father also possessed the same tail)

Okay, that was the bulk of the list, we're making good progress.

Maybe

These ones are harder to disprove, but I'd still say they're obviously not what we're looking for.

Piebaldism: Now, this one seems convincing as it can generate black AND white fur, it is genetically dominant, therefore, could lead to the continous lineage (where at least one of few children seems to always inherit it) but it lacks the uniformity, as I said, every white lion posses the same pattern, with few inconsistently appearing exceptions within the franchise, we'll get to that later on, the point is, consistency is the rule, chaos is the exception, and piebaldism is too chaotic.

(Piebaldistic animals. That squirrel looks so neat! Like his back is covered in snow!)

Waardenburg syndrome: Specifically type two is a strong contender, most notably because it causes bright blue eyes (or a blue and brown eye, sometimes) along with its other effects, HOWEVER, it also causes congenital hearing loss, and in cats (Felis Catus or house cats, technically, but they're the closest comparison I have to lions) said hearing loss is more common and more extreme, I doubt Kimba has that. Type 1 and type 3 cause other malformities that Kimba visibly doesn't posses.

Not sure

I tried, but my research was not conclusive, if you have answers, I'd be glad to hear them.

melanophilin: it is listed, but isn't a disorder, it is a carrier protein, I did some research and disorders with this protein don't seem like they'd make the snow white color we're looking for.

Undisputable

Oh, uh, there's nothing here, we've gone over every major leucistic disorder, there ARE more, but we'd be here all day, and so little is known about them it'd be arbitary.

Well, we're not through with every leucistic condition on the agenda, there's still...

THE CAUSE OF REAL WHITE LIONS

That's right, we've made it.

There's obviously a myriad of similarities, Tezuka was probably inspired by the real life white lions.

For example

(Pictured left, Kimba (1989 anime series) and his love inyerest, Raiya, a fellow lion, but not a white lion. Pictured right, two lionesses, one being a white lion)

The jarringly (among other lions) snow white fur.

(Sorry the images of Kimba's paw sucks, you won't believe it, but it was SO difficult to find a pic online with his paw pads in it, real life white lions? Pfft plenty of pictures in an instant.)

(Yes, pink is the unpigmented color for paw pads)

The pink paw pads

(Pictured left, Kimba's father (2009 movie) pictured right OH MY GOD SO CUTE)

The genetic basis allowing for lineages that share the trait

So then, this is it?... no, no, no, no, sadly, no, not so simple, there is one glaring inconsistency.

Firstly, an aside: I tried researching the specific cause of white lion leucism (it comes from a mutation for tyrosinase) but very little is known about it exactly, though, I gleaned something just by using the oldest tool in the zoology briefcase, me own eyes.

Notice a difference between Kimba and EVERY image of a white lion I've provided? Here, have some more white lion.

(Look at 'em all!)

From male to female, newborn, to cub, to adult, one consistency that Kimba does not share, maybe you already noticed and want me to get to the fucking point, maybe I will, maybe I won't, okay, I will.

(Circles denoting where Kimba posseses the trait, 'x's denoting where the real lion cub does not)

Black fur, Kimba has black fur on the tips of his ears and tail, no image of a real life white lion that I've seen has that pattern, or ANY black fur (wait, did I just retread my point about amelanism? Damn), and I'm lead to believe that does not occur amongst real life white lions, so then...

Kimba is a an anomaly

(From top left to bottom right Kimba's aunt (1989) Kimba's father (2009) and Kimba's father (1989)

In the 2009 version the only white lions we see are Kimba and his dad, and his dad lacks the black fur, in the 1989 series the only white lions we see are Kimba, his dad and aunt, both of the latter lack the black fur, but Kimba retains it in all versions.

Perhaps the cause of white lions is the same as real life white lions, and Kimba is a very rare anomaly within an anomaly, I don't know a whole lot about genetics, but that sounds reasonable enough for KTWL standards.

Buuuuuut, every other version, including the manga that started it all has other white lions retain the same color palette, and even show dozens of white lion ancestors, and a DISTANT white lion ancestor who all have the same palette, so, this anomaly theory is ironically only relevent to anomalies, the 1989 series and 2009 movie, what about for the whole franchise, well...

I don't know

Here's where I'd like to pull something out my hat and save the day with the obvious and true answer... but, there isn't one, at least, not one I found, sooooo, yeah, everyone must come to their own conclusion, maybe you even disagree with some of my reasoning and come to a conclusuon I've disregarded!

I'd love to hear your take away, and what comes next is merely my own personal take.

I don't know (good ending)

i don't know, and that's the point, I like that conclusion, the Kimba franchise contains mystisms, but never delves into them, leaving them as strange mysteries, it is a story about the exotic, it is ever out of reach.

I choose to believe white lions are semi-magical, thus why Kimba's lineage is the ONLY white lions we see in a franchise that stretches from 1950 to 2009, with over a hundred episodes, thus why white lions seem to always produce a white lion cub, but usually only ONE white lion cub, and the rest resemble the mother, because it works by magic rules.

In the 1989 version(and possibly others) Kimba is directly or indirectly likened to the supernatural, the Great Mother, a huge mammoth who can summon powerful snow storms in tropical Africa treats Kimba as such.

Simply, it can't be explained IRL, that's pretty cool, not everything needs to be explained, and MAGIC!

Thanks for sticking around through my insanity, hope you learned something and had fun, I did!

(Normally I'd put a pic riiight here to close things off but I hit the Tumblr image limit, didn't even know they had one)

#kimba the white lion #Kimba #white lion #animal facts #animal photography #cute animals #osamu tezuka #theories #theory #rant #long reads #im sorry #If I'm going insane you're going insane with me #I'm infamous IRL for my long unhinged rants #Nice to formulate one and give it to you fine people #leucism #leucistic #Please point out any typos or erroneous information #The curse has been lifted #I can now sleep soundly #FanboyMode

[inaris-pokemon-world]

What could you happily give a two hour lecture on? :3 (info dumb awaaayyyy)

Okay, so SO! I am absolutely obsessed with genetics and color morphs. I read about them all the time when I have downtime. And I love the idea of figuring out Pokémon genetics, or at least how I’d do them.

Seeing pictures of color morphs like melanism, albinism, piebaldism, etc. get me so excited. Especially if you get into less talked about stuff like xanthochromism or isabellinism.

I will literally chat your ear off over things like the differences between albinism, amelanism, leucism, and isabellinism, or how pseudomelanism works. And do NOT get me started on white patching, dilution genes, or stuff like fur length and texture genes.

I’m not sure how understandable this is to people who don’t know about color morphs and such, but I’m always excited to talk about it!

#munday ask #mod kit #color morphs

[dullanyan]

the different breeds of candy corn.

as you can see, on the left we have the Common Candy Corn, or the Lesser Candy Corn.

they start off life with a yellow bottom and no white tip, but as they age it slowly fades in. their families are usually much bigger in numbers.

On the top, we have the Greater Candy Corn, a far less commonly seen type with smaller clutches. Though the two types are nearly indistinguishable when mature, except for the size, you can see the Greater starts off life with a white tip and lack the yellow bottom. this is something they grow later on.

and a rare find, on the right we have either a case of amelanism or xanthochromism on a Greater Candy Corn. This makes a creature usually stand out to predators, and i have to wonder about the scar its parent has... did it obtain that chip from protecting its young?

They all appear to cohabitate peacefully.

#mawcie.txt #food #unreality

[starsmuserainbow]

An incredibly rare golden Torvosaurus - savage lizard - is getting a drink from the Patomic River after a successful hunt. The amber eyes, dark golden stripes, and a golden background are a clear indication of xanthochromism.

[[Thanks for the ask!]]

Weren't documentaries a fascinating thing?

It had been going for a while, but Starfire was still eagerly taking everything in that was shown on the screen. Of course, she knew that this documentary about dinosaurs was something created with animations and technology - no one would have been there to record when they were still roaming free on Earth, after all - but that did not make it any less fascinating, and wonderful to watch.

#✫ Tamaran to Earth ✫ | Answered #anon #sorry if this isn't what you expected #but like; what else was I supposed to do with it?

[hoshi-neko-hikari]

Fact for Hikari and friends: Xanthochromism is a color morph in which an animal will have their furl, skin, feathers, or scales be in any shade of yellow, the most common being golden, metallic gold, and solid yellow.

“Whoa! That sounds pretty!”

[theworldismyoysterandiamthepearl]

“We love a rose gold cween!🤩  This beauty’s glam shot was taken in Barry County, #Michigan. We believe the coloration is due to a genetic mutation called xanthochromism. In these cases, yellow pigment fills up areas where there’s a red deficiency. Honestly image search it, you won’t be sorry.”

quote and pic from https://www.instagram.com/usfws/

#cardinal #bird #animal #xanthochromism

[todaysbird]

this bright yellow cardinal, affectionately known as “tweets”, currently resides on the university of florida campus. typically male cardinals are a distinctive red; this bird’s coloration is due to a genetic mutation called xanthochromism. xanthochromic birds lack an enzyme that properly converts yellow to red, leaving pigments in their body the original yellow.

#bird #birblr #cardinal #mutation #xanthochromism

[great-and-small]

i love you piebaldim i love you leucism i love you xanthochromism i love you polydactylism i love you melanism i love you chimeras i love you bilateral gynandromorohy i love you wild animals that survived being born different

#i love you meme #this is about wildlife NOT spider ball pythons or munchkin cats #animals #biology #genetic mutations #wildlife

[mcatmemoranda]

10/10 pain, "WORST HEADACHE OF MY LIFE!" = Subarachnoid hemorrhage; bloody/yellow (xanthochromic) CSF.

Epidural hematoma = skull fracture at the pterion ruptures middle meningeal artery; bleeding doesn't cross the suture lines; "talk and die syndrome."

Subdural hematoma = bleeding crosses suture lines.

SAH should be high on the differential diagnoses list for a patient with new onset, sudden, severe headache, who has nuchal rigidity and photophobia. The "worst headache of my life" is the classic description for SAH. Sudden onset is the most important sign of SAH. This sudden onset, severe headache is referred to as a "thunderclap" headache. It may occur with exertion. Patients may have transient or persistent loss of consciousness. Focal neurologic deficits may occur, but a sudden headache without focal neurologic symptoms is the hallmark of aneurysm rupture. Patients with SAH may have signs of meningeal irritation, photophobia, vomiting, and seizures.

#subdural hematoma #epidural hematoma #subarachnoid hemorrhage #intracranial hemorrhage #Headache #thunderclap #thunderclap headache

[c4n1ne]

Tags: X

xanthochromism

[back]

#tag list

[commanders-sole-braincell]

I wonder if Axanthism (lacking yellow pigmentation) and Xanthochromism (excessive yellow pigmentation) occur in Sylvari

They affect green coloured animals mostly, from what I can google, we mainly see it in frogs and birds (so imagine a yellow or grey Hylek or Tengu popping up)

#to draw later #I come across a new mutation and my brain gets the brian dolphins #it turns green thinsg blue or grey or even black - but distinguishable from melanism #also apparenly one way it can form in frogs is them being normally coloured but having black eyes!!! #stares at Loddy