'A blessing': New York zoo discovers extremely rare white kangaroo

It's only the first month of the year 2021 and we have already seen many first. One more addition to this list now is the birth of a rare white kangaroo.

The Animal Adventure Park in New York, this week, revealed that one of their kangaroos has given birth to a joey which has an all-white fur, making it a rare one in the family.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

"Our jaws are on the floor," the zoo wrote in a Facebook post. "This is not your standard red kangaroo!"

Red kangaroos spend the first few months of their initial stages of development in their mother's pouches, but the zoo workers do the first "pull" at the age of 4-5 months. This is done to conduct a full medical review and then the joey is returned to the pouch to let them develop fully.

"Today's inspection revealed an EXTREMELY RARE, what we are currently considering, Leucistic male joey," the zoo revealed.

Leucistic is the phenomena when there is lack of colour pigmentation which results in a white coat. This joey has "black color pigmentation in the eyes, therefore not your normally anticipated red-eyed albino mutation."

There is no known leucistic red kangaroo in the US, the zoo claimed, making this joey a rare one in the country.

"We are now working with professionals in the zoological community to see just how unique of a blessing this little one is!" the post read.