In nature, it is every animal's goal to survive and continue the species. Physical appearance can play a big role in a species' survival if they are a prey species. That's where camouflage comes in. Many animals use this tactic to hide from their predators, just like the copperhead in the image below.
What happens then if suddenly the camouflage is no longer necessary, such as in a dark cave?
This is something fascinating that happens over thousands of generations, but what if I told you we may be seeing such a transition right now?
You may already be familiar with Anubis, my sunbeam snake, who is a fossorial (spending most of their time underground) species. Not only that, but sunbeam snakes are also nocturnal. They are rarely ever seen, and this has brought about an interesting phenomenon.
Fully grown individuals are being found with a naturally occurring albinism gene. Usually, albino animals are highly uncommon as they can't blend into their environment(and often have poor eyesight), so they rarely make it to adulthood. But thanks to the nature of these snakes, they remain perfectly safe from their predators and survive as purely white animals in the wild. This is not an isolated case though, I have found several examples that have been posted publicly of people finding them and even keeping them in private collections.
There is no official research being done about this so I can't make assumptions or conclusions about all this, but I find it fascinating and would love to see one of these animals in person.
Fun fact: In nature, there are two occurring genes that can cause animals to be white. There is albinism and leucism, the most obvious difference is eye color. Animals that exhibit albinism have red eyes while leucistic animals do not.
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