The question is badly phrased but comes from a Google search. The better question would be ‘has there ever been any white pumas?’. I say that because it is possible that a genetic mutation may occur in the future which produces a white puma and if that happened we could then say that pumas can be white. In fact it happened. There are photo of two pumas who are pure white due to albinism – i.e. this os an albino puma. My thanks to Sarah Hartwell of messybeast.com. Here is the photo:
‘Puma’ is the more scientifically accurate word for mountain lion. There is nothing in the excellent literature that I have which supports the view that pumas can be white but Sarah found a couple of examples! This is despite the fact that the Wikipedia authors allude to the possibility by saying that there are ‘white panthers’ and panthers refers to leopard, jaguars and pumas.
Whiteness in big cats is caused by a genetic mutation which removes the usual pigmentation, melanin, from the hair strands because the gene prevents the pigment producing cells in the skin (melanocytes) from functioning normally. Genetic mutations occur all the time. It is how humans came into existence.
P.S. Pumans can be black incidentally – click to read about it.
Genetic mutations creating “mutant pumas” is to be expected although there going to be rare. In fact the going to be incredibly rare because I have to rely on Sarah Hartwell to find these pictures. But the answer to the question in the title has to be yes although you are unlikely to see one in the future because they’re so rare.
SOME MORE ON PUMAS:
