These dark creatures are not just animals from fairy tales, but real living animals. Just like albinism results of stunningly white animals melanism can create all-black animals that are so beautiful. Sometimes it’s even hard to believe that they are real. Here you can check out these top 10 amazing black creatures.
1. Melanistic Owls
Snowy owls are the largest North American owls, and they’re among the largest owls in the world. Males are typically smaller than females. During breeding season, which begins in May, these owls can be found on open tundra habitats all the way around the Arctic Circle. Despite their name, most snowy owls are not all snowy white. They range from all white to black and white, with some dark patterns, prominent bars, except on their face which is always white. Females usually have more dark markings than males.
But neither snow owl is completely black, unless it has that melanic gene. Black or white, owls are a little bit scary looking animals, but this melanistic owl has a subtle charismatic charm its white buddies can’t match.
2. Melanistic Guinea Pigs
These guinea pigs are very rare in the wild. Even though breeders have tried to solve the problem in response to demand from pet owners, they are harder to breed than regular ones. Their fur is short, glossy, straight, devoid of partings and can be bred with a wide variety of color combinations. Black animals, including guinea pigs, are counted as “melanistic”. Opposite of albinism, melanism is a genetic mutation causing an animal to have an increased amount of melanin or dark pigments in their hair, skin, eyes, nails, etc.
They are carefully bred by breeders to get the desired results. Black guinea pigs do not need any special care, except maybe when in outside hutches they may become overheated more quickly.
3. Eastern Blue Tongue Lizards
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Image: roussisreptiles.com[/caption]In many parts of Australia, blue-tongued lizards or “Blueys”, as they are mostly known, have been a part of the suburban landscape. These lizards live in many parts of the country where in most cases they have been a welcome guest as an exterminator of spiders, slugs, snails, and a whole host of unwanted creatures. Once in a while melanic lizard is born. It is such a rarity similar to a chance of the white tiger birth. Theoretically, unlike snakes, the breeding of black blue tongue skin is almost impossible. Blue-Tongued lizards are very popular pets.
They are very docile and easy to handle, they're hardy and easy to feed, they are not large, and they have beautiful black color with a brilliant blue tongue which they are always sliding in and out of their mouths.
4. Black falcon
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Image:surfbirds.com[/caption]Melanism is not common in Falconidae, but even in that family there are a few notable examples like the rare black morph of Eleonora’s Falcon. This phenomenon is by no means restricted to only birds. In this condition with an abnormally high expression of pigment, these falcons get a much darker appearance. Melanin increases resistance of feathers against environment-caused and bacterial degradation, that is why most birds of prey have dark areas on their wing tips, and why the much-stressed flight feathers are black in most bird species.
However, high amount of melanin can also be disadvantageous because increased resistance to UV radiation may cause problems synthesizing Vitamin D, which can lead to various auto-immune disorders. Melanism can also lower reproductive success if color is an important mate selection criterion.
5. Black Deer
Black (or melanistic) deer have excess pigment resulting in black hair. Even though U.S. have more melanistic deer than in the whole world, they are still very rare. It is the rarest of the white-tailed deer and even rarer than the big-antlered deer. Black white-tailed deer have been seen in South Carolina, Michigan, New York, and Idaho. A substantial population of melanistic white-tailed deer inhabits in central Texas. The researchers study them to determine the distribution, color shades, appearing spots and number of white-tailed deer in central Texas.
Some landowners actively protected the black deer, while others harvested all deer population. Researchers who study melanistic deer believe that their black coloration may actually help them to blend in with the thick cover.
6. Melanistic Zebras
Zebras are horse-like creatures with black and white stripes. On extremely rare occasions melanistic zebras are born. Sadly, such animals do not last very long in the wild. Melanistic zebras have an unusually black back because of pronounced black stripes. This means that melanistic zebras are much darker than their relatives. Then, again, every zebra is unique (there are no zebras with the same stripes). Melanism is rare among zebras, mostly because just a few afflicted animals live long enough to produce baby zebras that might carry the trait forward to future generations. Melanistic zebras aren’t all-black, but on occasion they come close.
Instead, the mutation acts on the width of the black stripes, crowding out the white color to varying degrees. Sometimes the effect is startling and unusual, depending on the strength of the black gene and how it acts on certain individuals.
7. Melanistic Turtle
Male slider turtles undergo dramatic melanic changes as they become larger and older. This trans-formation occurs well past the size at which most attain sexual maturity. However, the process is not strictly size-dependent. The mean body size of melanistic males varies among populations in the same region as a function of growth rate. Additionally, data do not necessarily support an age-related explanation for the phenomenon, except as predicted under population specific growth rates. Melanistic individuals generally form a small portion of a given population but typically predominate within larger size classes. Behavioral differences also exist and may be due to intersexual selection.
The phenomenon of melanism is well known in adult male slider turtles. In most populations that have been studied, sexually mature males undergo dramatic melanic changes involving the shell and the soft parts of the body.
8. Black Groundhog
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Image: riverdaze.blogspot.hr[/caption]https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismartinuk/25235543105/Groundhog is the largest member of the squirrel family. It is usually grizzled brownish gray, but black (melanistic) individuals can occasionally be found. Its compact, chunky body is supported by short and strong legs. Groundhog has long, curved claws that are created for digging burrows. Its tail is short, well furred, and dark brown. Both female and male are similar in appearance, but the male is slightly larger, weighing an average of 5-10 pounds. Like other rodent species, they have white or yellowish-white, chisel-like incisor teeth.
Their eyes, ears, and nose are placed toward the top of the head, which allows them to remain hidden in their burrows while they check for danger over the edge. Although they are slow runners, groundhogs are alert and scurry quickly to their dens when they sense danger.
9. Black Leopard
Black leopard get its mono-coloration from a recessive gene mutation. The rosette-shaped spots that characterize leopards actually have melanistic animals, those with abundant dark pigmentation, but are hidden by the surplus of leopard's pigment. Melanism can be an evolutionary favorable mutation for leopards that live in the low light areas of dense forests and hunt at night, which could explain why they are common in Asiatic forests in spite of recessive nature of their mutation.Black leopards are solitary, territorial animals. Their coats camouflage leopards’ presence as they stalk, then ambush their unsuspecting prey. They are nocturnal by nature, spending their days resting.
The melanistic mutation can be a particular asset for their seeking or hiding under cover of night. Leopards are good swimmers and have excellent hearing, both of which are assets for hunting in dark tropical forests.
10. Melanistic Penguin
This penguin has melanism (the over-production of melanin), the pigment that color its skin. Far more birds suffer from a lack of melanin than a surplus of it, and melanism in penguins is close to unheard of. Al least 17 species of penguin waddle over this planet, so these birds can vary a lot in appearance. Standard penguin has a black back and a white belly, but individual animals may have colored feather crests, white flippers, orange bills, or yellow eyes. And then there’s the dark penguin, which is fully black, front and back.
When a National Geographic scientist caught sight of one in 2010, an ornithologist called it a “one-in-a-zillion” kind of mutation. It took many years for National Geographic to find and shoot one of these penguins.
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