Species

White tigers are Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) or tigers of mixed Bengal/Amur ancestry with pink noses, white-to-creme coloured fur and black, grey or chocolate-coloured stripes. Their eyes are usually blue, but may be green or amber. There are several hundred captive white tigers worldwide (this number increases annually), all of whom can trace their ancestry back to a white Bengal tigers caught in Rewa, India.

The tigers' colour is caused by a recessive gene. The gene for white colouration is usually associated with Bengal tigers. It is an extremely rare animal in the cat family. It is hunted for its fur by many poachers and hunters even though it’s illegal.
White tigers may have occurred in the Amur or Siberian tiger subspecies. Two registered pure-bred Amur brothers conceived at the Como Zoo may have carried the white gene (their most famous descendant being Tony, a founder of many American white tiger lineages). Their wild-caught parents were pure Amur tigers although one of these has also been described as a Bengal/Amur hybrid. These white Amur tigers have since been interbred with white Bengal tigers as well as leaving pure-bred Amur offspring. In addition to white generic tigers and white Bengal tigers, there are also purebred white Amur tigers in existence. Most white tigers bred in captivity are generic tigers, that is, a hybrid of two subspecies — most commonly, a mix of Bengal and Siberian ancestry.
White tigers have been recorded outside of the Indian state of Rewa and as far afield as China and Korea and from Nepal, Myanmar, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Java. Historically, white tigers have been reported in northern China, in the geographic range of the Amur tiger (previously called the Manchurian/North China tiger and the Siberian tiger) and in the Indo-Chinese, Sumatran and Javan subspecies. White tigers have not been reported amongst the South China, Caspian or Bali tigers.