Rare golden tigers are a result of inbreeding
As a consequence of the spontaneous genetic mutation of a recessive gene in a normal tiger in the wild, the offspring (or some of the offspring) were described as golden. In crude terms these were mutant tigers, and the recessive gene became visible in the appearance of the tiger i.e., the phenotype because the tigers were inbred which allows recessive genes to become visible in how they affect the appearance of the animal. Golden tiger. Photo: Pixabay. So, I think is fair to say that the first golden tigers were created because of inbreeding which indicates a confined population of tigers perhaps living in a fragmented distribution which meant that tigers had to mate with each other in a relatively small group resulting in inbreeding. There were two groups of golden tigers: those in the wild and those in captivity. My research, thanks to Sarah Hartwell, indicates that the last recorded wild golden tigers were shot as a pair in 1932 in Mysore Pradesh, India. Hartwell thinks that this m...