Golden Tiger Genetics
Litters of different colored cubs are not unusual because the white and golden tabby colors are caused by combinations of hidden recessive genes carried by the parents. White tigers, such as Dreamworld's Mohan (named after the white tiger captured in India in the 1950s), are highly inbred. Inbreeding reduces genetic variability and may cause hidden genes to manifest as there is a greater probability that two recessive genes will meet up.
Analysis of golden tiger family trees shows that golden tigers are genetically normal orange colored tigers with the addition of a recessive modifiying gene, probably the wide band gene. This same wide band gene also gives rise to stripeless white tigers. A white tiger that inherits two copies of the recessive wide band gene will be a stripeless white. A normal orange tiger that inherits two copies of the recessive wide band gene will be a golden tabby. The wide band gene is carried independently of the white gene.
All golden tabby tigers seem traceable to a white tiger called Bhim, a white son of Tony. Bhim was a carrier of the wide band gene and transmitted this to some of his offspring. Bhim was bred to his sister Sumita (also a carrier of the wide band gene), giving rise to stripeless white tigers (i.e. having two copies of the wide band gene). Bhim was also bred to a normal orange tigress called Kimanthi, and then to his own orange daughter Indira from that mating. The mating of Bhim and Indira resulted in striped white, stripeless white, normal orange, and golden tabby offspring indicating that both Bhim and his daughter carried the wide band gene. When the golden tabby male offspring was mated to the normal orange female offspring, both golden tabby tigers and white tigers resulted.
At Dreamworld, Australia, it was demonstrated that the mating of a nearly stripeless white tiger to an orange tigress that carried both white and wide band genes would result in golden tiger offspring alongside nearly stripeless white and normal orange cubs. Although there are about only 30 in existence, all in captivity, many are carriers of the gene.
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—Guy Trosper, U.S. screenwriter, and John Frankenheimer. Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster)