Guwahati: An adult 'golden' tigress, recently spotted in Assam's Kaziranga National Park, is primarily a singular case of "colour aberration caused by a unique gene", experts said on Wednesday.
The only such big cat in the park, first spotted in 2014 during an all India tiger monitoring exercise, has "lighter yellowish skin tone, narrower black stripes, whiter abdominal and facial regions when compared to a normal Royal Bengal Tiger", Dr Firoz Ahmed, the head of Tiger Research and Conservation Division at NGO Aaryanak, told ETV Bharat.
A photograph of the tigress posted by a forest officer on social media has gone viral, generating considerable curiosity among people.
"This individual tigress, in particular, has black stripes which are narrow and less intense in colour, making it appear unique. The expression of colour in animals is controlled by genes and it is natural that hidden genes find expression at times, giving them unique appearance," he said.
"The 'Golden tiger' is a unique expression of its gene for which its yellow coating is less and there is more white than a normal Bengal Tiger. Further, in this individual, in particular, the black stripes are narrow and the depth of black is less. So, it looks like a unique tiger," said, Dr Firoz Ahmed
"Expression of the colour of the animal is controlled by gene and it is natural to express hidden gene sometime, which give such a unique appearance. Implications of such rare colour on behaviour is unknown. But seems has no impact as it has grown adult and living naturally in Kaziranga," Dr Ahmed said.
However, the rare golden colour's impact on the behaviour of the tigress is unknown, but it has grown into an adult and is living naturally in Kaziranga, Ahmed added.
Wildlife experts Rabindra Sharma and Kamal Azad have pointed out that colour aberrations are not very common, and only a few are recorded in the wild.
"The biological reason of colour aberration may be due to excessive inbreeding caused by habitat destruction and loss of connectivity," one of the experts pointed out.
The recessive genes are showing up due to inbreeding within the fragmented population, Sharma, also a research officer in Kaziranga National Park, said.
The finding is not a cause for celebration, but an indication for us to start pondering about better connectivity among the fragmented population of tigers to prevent inbreeding -- one of the serious problems caused due to population decline, the experts said. The tigress was captured multiple times since 2014.
In 2016, she was photographed with another tiger. But it could not be concluded whether the other tiger was her cub or mate due to the low quality of the image.
It will be very interesting to find out whether her offsprings will carry her faulty gene, the two experts added.
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