Megan Shersby takes a look at how leucism differs to albinism <\/p>
Leucism is the lack of melanin pigment in some feathers due to the absence of melanin-producing cells; albinism is the complete lack of these pigments due to the absence of a particular enzyme (tyrosinase).<\/p>\n
However, according to Hein van Grouw, senior curator of birds at London\u2019s Natural History Museum, many \u2018white\u2019 birds are actually exhibiting something different \u2013 a condition known as progressive greying.<\/p>\n
An individual starts life with normal pigmentation, then gradually loses the pigment-producing cells, so that with every moult, the amount of white feathers increases.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a heritable condition, and the precise causes are not usually known. \u201cIn progressive greying, the white feathers are more randomly spread,\u201d says Hein. \u201cWhereas most forms of leucism cause a bilateral and symmetrical pattern of patches of white feathers, with the extremities most affected.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Main image Leucistic western grey kangaroo \u00a9 Getty Images<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Megan Shersby takes a look at how leucism differs to albinism <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":30034,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference.jpg",2121,1414,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/07\/leucism-vs-albinism-whats-the-difference-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Megan Shersby takes a look at how leucism differs to albinism","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/30033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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