Rare Albino Squirrel Spotted in Arlington

Arlington County employee, Media Relations Manager Mary Curtius, snapped a photo of an unusual animal rarely seen in the county: An albino squirrel. The county posted the photo on Twitter Monday afternoon.

The Washington Post notes that Curtius spotted the milky-colored mammal in the Yorktown neighborhood of the county.

Untamedscience.com notes on its White Squirrel page, that there are white squirrels and albino squirrels. The albino squirrel will have pink eyes and an absence of pigmentation anywhere on the body, they noted.

A 2009 New York Times article notes that albino squirrels can also have blue eyes. The gene for an absence of the pigment, melanin, is recessive, so each parent must carry it to produce an albino squirrel, the article notes. Albino squirrels have vision problems and are at a disadvantage in the wild.

How rare are is an albino squirrel? Every one in 100,000 squirrels is an albino squirrel, according to University of Texas biologist David Hillis.