About a month ago, I heard the rustling noise of a small animal and then saw something white flash by. I freaked out a little because I wasn't sure what I had seen. It looked to be about the size of a chipmunk, but it was white. If it was a mouse, that would have been an awfully big mouse.
The second time I saw this creature, it stopped long enough to look me in the eye. It was definitely a chipmunk, but with a white face. If it was winter, I might have thought the white fur had something to do with that. But we're hardly having winter weather.
I headed to google for some help in figuring out what I'd seen. Well, it turns out animals can sometimes have something called Leucism. A leucistic animal is one that developed with a different amount of pigment on different parts of its body. They're not all white, or albino. Just some of the skin, fur, or feathers are white.
Also, unlike an albino animal, a leucistic one will have the usual eye color for its species. If you search for "leucistic animals" online, you'll see all kinds of examples! This is by no means limited to chipmunks.
So what I'd seen was a leucistic chipmunk. That has kind of a ring to it, doesn't it? I was lucky to get a photo of this chipmunk today. I saw it run into a bush and I walked around looking for it. I said out loud "Don't you want your 15 minutes of fame?" and then I saw it basically posing on a rock! And it kept in place for me to take a photo. There's even a perfect contrast between the chipmunk and the background. That could be hard to achieve with an animal that is part white and part brown.
I'm calling this one "The Phantom of the Garden" because of the white "mask" on its face. That, and this one creeps around the perimeter of the plants, occasionally peeking out.
"The Phantom of the Garden is here! To dig up your plants!" (You have to sing that to the Phantom of the Opera tune)
You can think you're pretty familiar with what's in your natural environment, and then you get a surprise. Have any of you come face to face with a leucistic creature?
To keep with the Phantom of the Opera theme, I'll leave you with Lindsey Stirling's Phantom medley:
She's amazingly talented and I love her videos!
A link to Lindsey's Phantom of the Opera:
https://youtu.be/TCL94-MsxYc
The second time I saw this creature, it stopped long enough to look me in the eye. It was definitely a chipmunk, but with a white face. If it was winter, I might have thought the white fur had something to do with that. But we're hardly having winter weather.
Also, unlike an albino animal, a leucistic one will have the usual eye color for its species. If you search for "leucistic animals" online, you'll see all kinds of examples! This is by no means limited to chipmunks.
So what I'd seen was a leucistic chipmunk. That has kind of a ring to it, doesn't it? I was lucky to get a photo of this chipmunk today. I saw it run into a bush and I walked around looking for it. I said out loud "Don't you want your 15 minutes of fame?" and then I saw it basically posing on a rock! And it kept in place for me to take a photo. There's even a perfect contrast between the chipmunk and the background. That could be hard to achieve with an animal that is part white and part brown.
You can think you're pretty familiar with what's in your natural environment, and then you get a surprise. Have any of you come face to face with a leucistic creature?
To keep with the Phantom of the Opera theme, I'll leave you with Lindsey Stirling's Phantom medley:
A link to Lindsey's Phantom of the Opera:
https://youtu.be/TCL94-MsxYc
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