Four white tiger cubs born in Vandalur Zoo, in Chennai

Chennai: A six-year-old white tigress has given birth to four young ones at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Chennai, officials said today.

After having mated with a 12-year-old Royal Bengal tiger named Vijay, the six -year-old tigress, Akanksha gave birth to the cubs- all Bengal tigers, officials said. With the latest addition, there are 14 white tigers and 12 Royal Bengal tigers in the zoo presently.

Since white tigers are leucistic deficient and hence exhibit inhibitor allele characteristics, efforts were on to rectify the gene inadequacies in them, they said. In the attempt to rectify these gene inadequacies in white tigers, they were made to mate with royal Bengal tigers, which would result in heterozygous cubs, which would have high immunization and other characters, the Zoo officials said in a statement.

Akanksha and another tigress Namrutha have earlier given birth to three female and two male cubs respectively in 2012. So far a total of nine tiger cubs have been born under the latest mating system. Arignar Anna Zoological Park near here, also called the Vandalur Zoo, is the largest zoo in the country.

PTI