A famous albino gorilla that lived for 40 years at the Barcelona Zoo got its white coloring by way of inbreeding, new research shows. Snowflake was a male Western lowland gorilla . He was born in the wild and captured in 1966 by villagers in Equatorial Guinea. As the only known white gorilla in the world, Snowflake was a zoo celebrity until his death of skin cancer in 2003. A few studies had attempted to get to the bottom of what caused Snowflake's color-free complexion, but the exact genetic mutation had never been found. Now, Spanish researchers have sequenced the gorilla's entire genome, revealing that Snowflake was probably the offspring of a pairing between an uncle and a niece. [ Photos: Snowflake the Albino Gorilla ] Explaining albinism In humans, four genetic mutations are known to cause albinism, a syndrome marked by a lack of skin, eye and hair pigment. People with albinism are at high risk for vision problems and skin cancers because of this missing pigment. … [Read more...] about Snowflake the Albino Gorilla Was Inbred, Study Finds