KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - This white alligator has it made in the shade. A rare albino alligator on loan to the Knoxville Zoo spent one recent afternoon basking under a heat lamp beside a warm pool with one claw lazily dipped in the water. If outside, her skin would burn in the sun.
"Is she real?" is the most common question from visitors, says Phil Colclough, assistant curator of herpetology at the zoo.
"Nobody believes she's real. They stare until she takes a breath or moves her eyes or jumps in the pool."
The alligator's name was decided through a contest and will be announced Monday. The creature is on loan from the Alligator Farm Zoological Park in St. Augustine, Fla., which has about 30 animals that have been acquired over the last 15 years from a commercial farmer in Cut Off, La.
The albinos are found in the same nest every year and are believed to be produced from the same male and female pair, said David Kledzik, curator of reptiles in St. Augustine.
The Florida park made a deal with the farmer to get the albinos. He hatches and raises them until he is ready to give them up, Kledzik said.
"Every few years we get a call, 'Come get your albinos.' We go out there and get the albinos. We may get six or eight a trip," Kledzik said.
