Have you ever heard of or seen a white leopard?

Question

ive seen a couple pics theyre either white leopards white jaguars or albino leopards, theyve been spotted in paraguay, the white leopard's spots can only be seen in a certain light, they call white jaguars "ghost jaguars" then i read such a horrible thing, one of the only ghost jaguars seen was shot by a hunter (probably hundreds of years ago) it make my stomach turn, but anyways they so beautiful look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Albinism-leopard.jpg

so cool huh have you heard of anything else like that?

Answer 1

Albinism can occur in any species, but is rare since it is passed on by recessive genes and is generally detrimental to the animal - a white coat makes it stand out as an obvious target for predators, so most albino animals don't survive to adulthood. Among predators like big cats, a white coat makes hunting difficult if the animal does make it to adulthood, since it lacks natural camouflage and will be more easily spotted by its prey.

The link you provided shows an albino leopard (Panthera pardus). Leopards are found in Africa and Asia, not South America, so any large white cat seen in Paraguay would not be a leopard. It would either be a jaguar, Panthera onca (found in Central and South America) or a puma, Puma concolor (found throughout North, Central and South America - note this animal is also called cougar or mountain lion, and various other names).

Snow leopards (Uncia uncia) are a different species to leopards - they are found in mountainous regions of Asia, and are not white. They are frosty grey with darker markings. Tigers are also an Asian species, and the white tigers commonly seen in zoos are not albinos - they have stripes and blue eyes, whereas albinos are completely white and have pink eyes. These tigers are Bengal tigers with a genetic condition called leucism - I used to be a zookeeper and looked after one.

Answer 2

it was probably asnow leopard they are leopards with white fur instead of brown fur. it could also be a white tiger.

hope this helps