Golden Tigers
The golden tiger (golden tabby tiger, strawberry tiger) is even rarer than the white colour morph. There are records of golden Bengal tigers in India dating back to the early 1900s (as "stripeless" tigers). In 1929, Pocock described a brown tiger with stripes only a little darker than the coat's background colour and a similar tiger ("Jasmine") has been bred by Josip Marcan. The last recorded wild golden specimens were a pair shot in 1932 at Mysore Padesh. The first captive-born confirmed golden tigers occurred in 1987. However, almost a decade earlier, in 1979, brown cubs were born to a white tigress and this was reported in the Times of India (New Delhi) of October 10th 1979. These were probably the very first captive golden tabby tigers, but were overlooked. It has been stated that a carrier of the golden gene, that was not actually golden itself, was taken from Pakistan to an American east coat zoo by Josip Marcan after its parents and littermate had died and that this is the root of the colour in western zoos.



















