The white tiger is a genetic mutation of the tiger.

From what we can see, among the six subspecies of tigers, only the Bengal tiger and the Northeast tiger have white tigers. The white tigers of the Northeast tiger are extremely rare and they are all in captivity.

The most definitive record of a white tiger was found in the wild in India in the 1820s. There have been several other wild sightings of white tigers since then, all in India. And all of these tigers were Bengal tigers. As you can see, India does have an advantage as the largest distribution country of the Bengal tiger.

There are two kinds of Bengal tigers: white tigers and snow white tigers. The difference between the two is that the white tiger still has dark stripes on its body, although most of its fur is white. The snow-white tiger is almost entirely white, with only a few light-coloured, narrow stripes.

In addition to white and snow-white tigers, the Bengal tiger has a golden variant. They have an overall light golden coat with reddish-brown stripes instead of black.

Under normal conditions, tigers have genes that control their fur that allow them to display normal colouration. They become normal white tigers when the A477V mutation causes a pair of autosomal recessive genetic traits to become dominant.

The tiger itself has white fur, mainly concentrated on its abdomen and the inside of its limbs. This is because these areas are relatively hidden and do not disrupt their camouflage in the environment.

And from an evolutionary point of view, tigers have gone through ice ages. During the ice age, the white fur is more conducive to hiding itself. Therefore, some scientists believe that the tiger's fur may be predominantly white during the ice age.

Only after the ice age entered the interglacial period and the temperature rebounded, a part of the hair colour genes mutated into the present-day tigers and successfully survived.

Therefore, the formation of the white tiger is the result of a mutation in the tiger's gene that controls its fur. But the chance of this genetic mutation is very low. In today's environment, white fur is more likely to be exposed. So tigers with this kind of hair would have very low survivability in the wild, which is the reason for their rarity.

In today's environment, white tigers are very difficult to survive in the wild. Because tigers mainly rely on sneak attacks to hunt, and the white body hair is more likely to reveal itself.

But when white tigers appear in the wild, they are either shot or captured whenever they are found. And to get more white tigers, people let them inbreed.

Apparently, in today's world, the white tiger has become a commodity that can make money, rather than a wild animal that we want to learn about.