The veterinary team of the Thomas Belt Zoo, in Juigalpa (Nicaragua), has presented in public this week the first albino puma calf of which there is news in this country, born in the facilities of this park on July 23, in a triple birth (the other two specimens do not present albinism).
“We are taking all the measures to be able to have him as healthy as possible together with his mother,” veterinarian Carlos Molina explained to AFP, at this animal park in the department of Chontales, some 139 kilometers from Managua.
The albino calf is a female and is “in good health and has good body condition,” the caretaker has indicated.
The fur of pumas (Puma concolor) at birth is light brown or reddish with black specks. The genetic mutation that causes white pigmentation is rare in these cats, of which there are barely thirty documented cases in the world. “We are happy to have it because you don’t see this very often,” Molina said.
The puma, also known as the mountain lion or American lion, is the second largest cat in the Americas, after the jaguar, and the fourth largest in the world after the tiger and the lion.
It is a carnivorous mammal of the Felidae family native to America. Its small and scattered populations extend from the Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes and Patagonia in South America. Unlike the large cats of the genus Panthera, which can roar (with the exception of the irbis), the puma purrs like smaller cats.
In the case of the small albino puma born this summer, to avoid complications in the care of the mother and natural feeding, the managers of the Nicaraguan zoo avoid direct contact. The pups now develop relatively normally, monitored with automatic cameras next to the cave that serves as the home of the feline family.
