This is something you don't see all the time. Reier called me from a bike ride and told me about this leucistic robin. There are several differences between being leucistic and being albino; thank you to Wikipedia for the following, "Leucism is a general term for the
phenotype resulting from defects in
pigment cell differentiation and/or migration from the
neural crest to skin, hair or feathers during
development. This results in either the entire surface (if all pigment cells fail to develop) or patches of body surface (if only a subset are defective) having a lack of cells capable of making
pigment. More common than a complete absence of pigment cells is localized or incomplete
hypopigmentation, resulting in irregular patches of white on an animal that otherwise has normal colouring and patterning. This partial leucism is known as a "pied" or "
piebald" effect. A further difference between albinism and leucism is in
eye colour. Due to the lack of melanin production in both the
retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and
iris, albinos typically have red eyes due to the underlying blood vessels showing through. In contrast, leucistic animals have normally coloured eyes." Now you can say you learned something today.
This is something you don't see all the time. Reier called me from a bike ride and told me about this leucistic robin. There are several differences between being leucistic and being albino; thank you to Wikipedia for the following, "Leucism is a general term for the phenotype resulting from defects in pigment cell differentiation and/or migration from the neural crest to skin, hair or feathers during development. This results in either the entire surface (if all pigment cells fail to develop) or patches of body surface (if only a subset are defective) having a lack of cells capable of making pigment. More common than a complete absence of pigment cells is localized or incomplete hypopigmentation, resulting in irregular patches of white on an animal that otherwise has normal colouring and patterning. This partial leucism is known as a "pied" or "piebald" effect. A further difference between albinism and leucism is in eye colour. Due to the lack of melanin production in both the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and iris, albinos typically have red eyes due to the underlying blood vessels showing through. In contrast, leucistic animals have normally coloured eyes." Now you can say you learned something today.
OMG!! She is beautiful!! I adore robins and think she's exquisite!!
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. In addition, for fun, I think you would like biology educational cartoons on VADLO search engine.
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