Since our very first days on this planet our parents and teachers have taught us, well, things. They said that the sky is blue, the grass is green, the cat goes “meow”, the cow goes “moo”… You know, that kind of stuff. But sometimes nature goes bonkers and turns a freaking grasshopper pink! What are you going to say about that, mom? If that’s not a glitch in the matrix, I don’t know what is!
Okay, fake drama aside, these 7 strangely colored animals look dope, and I wanna pet them. Well, maybe not #6… or #7.
1. Pink Grasshopper
A pink grasshopper in the grass isn’t gonna go far without being quickly eaten alive, right? Thankfully, before that happened, Richard Taylor from Ipswich, managed to snap a pic of this beauty. Turns out, it’s a rare genetic mutation called erythrism (similar to albinism) which produces more of a reddish protein.
2. White Moose
You may have seen the video of this majestic, almost magical, moose going through a Swedish lake on Facebook, Twitter, probably Vimeo… basically everywhere you can post a video or a GIF. It went viral! The moose is entirely white, with soft white velvet coating its antlers. By the way, if you think this is an albino moose, you’d be wrong. Its white fur comes from a recessive gene, causing piebald, that causes the animal to grow white with specks of brown.
3. Blue Dog
Try to guess why this puppy is all blue:
1) he’s very sad about Firefly not getting renewed;
2) he just LOVES blueberries;
3) while looking for the food in the Kasadi River, dangerous chemicals dyed his fur blue.
I’ll give you a minute to figure this one out.
4. Pink Dolphin
Meet Pinky, the pink dolphin. Yeah, I know, very original. To be fair, she doesn’t look pink to me at all, but that’s probably because I’m colorblind. Anyway, the scientists have been tracking her since 2007, and recently she was seen swimming with a group of dolphins, including a second pink porpoise! Pinky’s coloring is thought to be a form of albinism or a rare genetic mutation.
5. White Snake
No-no, this is not David Coverdale’s “Whitesnake”, it’s just a super-rare ACTUAL white snake… but it’s still metal nonetheless! This Australian Slate Grey snake is usually dark brown or black, so just like with the pink grasshopper, these mutants usually don’t live very long. The reptile is not albino, but “leucistic”, an even less-frequently observed condition characterized by a loss of pigment in the skin but not the eyes. Like I said, metal AF!
6. Red-Eyed Wasp
This vicious monster was actually created in the lab using the CRISPR gene editing method. By us, humans! Can you believe this? We’re THIS close to a huge breakthrough in genetics. Soon there will be no hereditary diseases, curing cancer will be as easy as taking a pill, and we’re all gonna live till we’re sick of living. All thanks to this badass-looking red-eyed wasp.
7. Orange Crocodile
This one’s a doozy. These dwarf crocodiles are mostly living in the caves there they feed on crickets and occasional bats. The deeper into the caves they go, the more orange they seem to become. But why? Well, one of the theories goes something like: since the lack of light in the caves makes any skin coloration needless, the orange color is transitional, as the crocs gradually become paler. Who knows, maybe in a few hundred generations these crocodiles become translucent or something.
