Stunning. Beautiful. The stuff of fantasies and fairy tales. These are all valid descriptions of the magical white tiger. There is no doubt that these impressive snowy creatures with ice-blue eyes arrest the attention of countless admirers. Their charm is such that few people ever question just what a white tiger really is.
Biologically speaking, the white color is caused by the expression of a rare recessive gene which occurs almost exclusively among bengal tigers, as opposed to other sub-species. White tigers are therefore not a distinct race, but a color variation from the standard orange bengal. Nor are they albinos: they have pigmentation in their eyes as well as in their stripes.
