Friday, April 27, 2012

Ice Berg: The One and Only White Killer Whale

      If you've ever heard of a killer whale, you probably know what they look like. Killer whales have incredible pigment, i must say. They have a pure black coat with two white blobs surrounding their eyes, usually. Ice berg is a killer whale that is entirely white. It was first thought that it was by a disease called Chediak-Higashi syndrome, a rare disease of the immune and nervous system that effects coloration, but that theory was soon proved wrong because most animals with this disease don't make it to adulthood, and Ice berg is estimated to be a male killer whale at the age of about 16. It may be a true albino whale, but because he has a small  amount of coloring on the back of is dorsal fin, it is not fully proven. Ice berg may not be the only white killer whale. In 2000 and 2008, a white killer whale was spotted of the coast of the Alaskan Aleutian islands and in far east Russia, although it could be the same one. According to the witnesses, they all were quite similar.
      Ice berg is a handsome, and likely healthy killer whale. Things like Ice berg remind us that there are still great things that have yet to be discovered. Maybe Ice berg will influence people not only to save its species, but its habitat, The ocean.
                                      -Kennedy S.

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