From 1966 until his death, he was kept at the Barcelona Zoo in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Western lowland gorillas don’t normally struggle with inbreeding, but as their population decreases and their habitat is destroyed, it’s increasingly becoming a problem. Snowflake (1964 2003) was an albino western lowland gorilla. The gorilla inherited the mutation from his parents–but why only Snowflake? The genome sequencing also revealed that Snowflake had large stretches of inherited genes from his mother and father that were identical–in fact, his mother and father shared 12 percent of their DNA, which indicates that they were uncle and niece. The researchers pinned Snowflake’s albinism down to a single gene: SLC45A2. Then they could search for any of the other mutations known to cause albinism in animals.
Using a vial of frozen blood taken from Snowflake before he died, the researchers were able to sequence his genome and compare it with a non-albino gorilla genome. Things don’t work quite the same way in gorillas, but albinism in other animals, like mice, is fairly well-understood. That’s what finally enabled researchers at the University of Pompeu Fabra to figure out what made Snowflake so unusual.Īlbinism is caused a genetic mutation there are four specific ones in humans. But it’s the most common to be found in zoos, and in 2012, its genome was sequenced. It’s not the rarest subspecies, but no gorilla subspecies are particularly healthy the western lowland gorilla is listed as critically endangered. Snowflake was a western lowland gorilla–the smallest subspecies of gorilla. But until now, nobody knew why Snowflake looked the way he did. He became a wildly popular attraction at the Barcelona Zoo in Spain, where he lived almost his entire life, becoming almost a mascot for the city. Snowflake, the long-lived gorilla who died in 2003, was famous for being the only known albino gorilla.
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