The tiger cub has a higher level of pigment known as melanin on skin or fur, making it appear ‘black’.
Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Susanta Nanda shared pictures of a rare tiger cub on social media. Though the father and mother are normal, one of their cubs is pseudo-melanistic – which means it has higher levels of pigment known as melanin on skin or hair.
“I was extremely fortunate to sight T18 with its pseudo melanistic cub. T18 has 2 cubs, one normal one melanistic. Father is normal too. Below are camera trapped pictures from the same grid. Each grid covers around 2sq km of area and is coming up with rich data to analyse,” wrote Nanda while sharing a few pictures on X. The pictures show the tiger and his cubs roaming in their natural habitat.Earlier, IFS officer Parveen Kaswan shared pictures of pseudo-melanistic tigers found in Odisha’s Simlipal on social media. In the caption, he informed that these tigers display unusually dark stripes owing to a genetic mutation and are highly rare. He further shared that the first confirmed record of these pseudo-melanistic tigers in Similipal dates back to 1993. In that year, Salku, a young boy from Podagad village, shot an arrow in self-defence, targeting what was described as a ‘black’ tigress. However, it wasn’t until 2007 that these unique tigers were officially discovered in Simlipal Tiger Reserve (STR).
