As an endangered protected species, tigers have always been big stars in zoos and circuses. A golden fur has always been its standard image in our hearts. And in this world, there is another rarer tiger, whose fur is as white as snow, and the eyes are not black, but blue as jewels. In the eyes of tourists, they are rare and cute creatures; but in the eyes of animal conservation scholars, they are the saddest kings, and they are white tigers.

They are huge in size, with long limbs and a large and round head; the white tiger has a well-developed sense of sight, hearing and smell, and its claws are sharp and retractable. White tigers usually like to live alone, and often hunt other warm-blooded animals in ambush. They can swim but are not good at climbing trees.

White tigers mainly live in Bangladesh and India, and also have a small distribution in Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. White tigers are extremely difficult to survive in the wild. In reality, although white tigers are as strong as regular tigers, they cannot survive independently in the wild because of their lack of protective coloration. Their white fur makes them easy to spot by prey and difficult to hunt. There are currently no wild white tigers in the world.

Since a male white tiger was discovered in the 1970s, it has been introduced to the zoo for breeding. Because the white tiger's conspicuous fur makes it unprotected, they are very difficult to survive in nature and were extinct in the wild at that time. Even now, the number of white tigers in zoos in various countries is extremely limited. According to statistics, there are only about 200 white tigers in the world, and each one is worth millions of dollars.

Now, all white tigers around the world live in captivity. Incredibly, they are all descendants of the same white tiger. In 1951, a male white tiger less than 1 year old was caught in India and named "Mohan". Mohan grew up in a zoo, mated sexually with a female Bengal tiger, and eventually gave birth to a white tiger. Now the white tigers all over the world are the blood of Mohan. It can be said that the white tiger is the result of human forcible intervention in nature.

Logically speaking, white tigers live in captivity, and it is difficult to encounter life-threatening things, so the lifespan should be very long, but the lifespan of white tigers is not as long as that of ordinary captive Bengal tigers. Anyone with a little knowledge of biology knows that inbreeding will greatly increase the probability of genetic diseases, physical deformities, weakened resistance, and shortened lifespans in offspring. For each individual organism, there is a certain probability of gene mutation, and these mutated genes may be harmful or even fatal, so various diseases are more likely to appear in the offspring of inbreeding. The current white tiger is facing such a problem. Because today's white tigers all over the world come from the same family, many white tigers are born disabled.

Whether or not to protect white tigers has long been a point of contention in the scientific community. As foreign scientists have solved the mystery of white tiger coat color, scientists believe that from the perspective of genetic diversity, white tigers have certain protection value.