Animal Heavenly Body – World Encyclopedia of Animals Vol.3 Bengal Tiger | Figure

IUCN · ENDANGERED · sculpted in its rare white coat

One Statue. Two Habitats.

The head attaches to the plaque with a hidden magnet — lift it off whenever you like.

On the shelf: Trophy Hall

Mounted on its wood-grain shield plaque with a brass-style nameplate, it reads like a natural-history-museum exhibit — shrunk to the size of your palm.

Off the plaque: Fridge Guardian

Off the plaque, the pale, blue-eyed face of the white Bengal tiger is a striking, almost ghostly accent on any magnetic surface.

Not an Albino

A white tiger is not an albino. It still carries dark stripes and usually has blue eyes. In 2013, geneticists traced the color to a single change in one pigment gene that switches off the orange while leaving the stripes untouched.

Mohan’s Legacy

In 1951 a white cub named Mohan was captured in the forests of Rewa, in central India. Most of the white tigers in zoos today descend from him, and no white tiger has been confirmed in the wild for decades.

A Curiosity, Not a Conservation Goal

Because the color needs two copies of a recessive gene, white tigers have often been produced in captivity by close inbreeding. Conservationists stress that the real treasure is the wild orange tiger, which still carries the gene.

Back on the Rise

Tigers remain Endangered, but India’s protected reserves have helped its wild population grow, to an estimated 3,700 in the 2022 national census — one of the most encouraging trends in big-cat conservation.