Snowflake the albino gorilla died of skin cancer in 2003. Lack of skin pigmentation makes people and animals more susceptible to sunburn and skin cancers. Melanin is what causes skin colour and an increase in melanin is what causes skin to tan.Ī human or animal with complete absence of melanin is called an albino, while someone with only a small amount of melanin is called an albinoid. It is caused by a lack of tyrosinase in their genes - an enzyme involved in the production of melanin.
Snowflake inherited this mutation directly from his parents and when the researchers delved further into the DNA of his mother and father they discovered stretches of Snowflake's DNA from both parents were identical.Īlbinism comes from the Latin word albus which means for 'white'.Īlbinism is a is a birth defect that causes humans and animals to be born without colour pigments in their skin, hair and eyes.
The scientists isolated Snowflake's albinism to a single gene called SLC45A2. His iconic colouring also put him on the cover of Basement Jaxx's 2001 album, Rooty.īefore he died, a vial of blood was taken and frozen to preserve it and the genome was sequenced in 2012.Īs reported in the journal BMC Genomics, the r esearchers, led by Tomas Marques-Bonet at the University of Pompeu Fabra, in Spain, were then able to take this sequencing and compare it to non-albino gorilla genomes to find the cause of his genetic mutation. He was born in the wild with albinism - a genetic mutation that caused him to lack colour pigments in his skin and hair - but was captured by villagers in Equatorial Guinea in 1966. Snowflake was famous for being the only known albino gorilla in the world.Ī w estern lowland gorilla, he lived at the zoo until his death from skin cancer in 2003. Snowflake's celebrity status was enhanced when he featured on the Basement Jaxx album Rooty in 2001
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