Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Helmeted Guineafowl

Numida meleagris

Description:

I have seen this peculiar guineafowl roaming around with other members of the Helmeted Guinea Fowl flock. Its lack of colour makes it look like an albino guinea fowl. I have never seen an albino bird before. Can someone confirm that they do exist. I have seen an albino Zebra and some other species of mammals.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

7 Comments

LeahBlair
LeahBlair 11 years ago

Albino birds do exists however this guinea isn't albino it is the pearl variety of a guinea. You can look it up on hatcheries online, I have ordered them in the past.

ChristyHolland
ChristyHolland 11 years ago

They are all over the world!! They definitely get more attention that the "normal" animals!

cosgey
cosgey 11 years ago

@ChristyHolland. Thanks again for the info. I have googled and am surprised on the amount of data available on this. I have seen zebras of this nature in our Kenya parks and they were a good number. I have also seen some domestic animals exhibiting quite different colourations that I didn't know where to place them as they were not completely devoid of the pigmentation. I now know of the pseudo albinism. My friend just returned from South Africa with nice photos of the white tiger, which looks more of an albino.

ChristyHolland
ChristyHolland 11 years ago

White feathers can also be weaker in structure than regular feathers, and so they often do not survive in the wild due to "survival of the fittest".

ChristyHolland
ChristyHolland 11 years ago

I'm not good with the biology of it, but I think it's a genetic mutation. I think it can be passed on to the offspring because another friend has taken a picture of a Red-Tail with SOME of the features of the white papa...some whiter feathers and light talons, and we're pretty sure it's the offspring of our white hawk. I know there are populations of leucistic Red-Tails across the country, but I've only seen the one. (google leucistic or albino red-tail hawks). I'd love more input from someone who knows! (no spotting of that one as no pic on Noah yet).

cosgey
cosgey 11 years ago

@ChristyHolland thanks a lot for the info, honestly have been wondering what is happening to this poor soul out there. Yeah I can see a lot of similarities with the Hawk. What causes this phenomenon? I have interest in nature especially bird-watching but am a Linguist; tend to float when more scientific info is needed.

ChristyHolland
ChristyHolland 11 years ago

Nice spotting, cosgey. This appears to be a leucistic specimen...it has coloring in the face and legs, and some pattern on the feathers. Leucism is similar to albinism but I believe albinism causes 100% white feathers or fur, and pink eyes and skin...Here is a link to a leucistic Red-Tailed Hawk from a friend's postings (http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/981... the dark eyes and some dark feathers (2 red tail feathers)? Both conditions are found in the wild and make beautiful, striking birds!! I don't know anything about guinea fowl, but I imagine the case is similar. Here's a link to a mission called "Rare Color Morphs" - lots of different critters there! http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/7970...

cosgey
Spotted by
cosgey

Taita Taveta, Kenya

Spotted on Jan 15, 2013
Submitted on Jan 16, 2013

Related Spottings

Helmeted Guineafowl Helmeted Guineafowl Helmeted Guineafowl Helmeted Guineafowl

Nearby Spottings

Mongoose redheaded agama Yellow baboon Baboon
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team