The Barcelona Zoo had a protocol in place to have Snowflake's testicles harvested, upon his death, and placed in the frozen zoo so as to reserve the option of having more offspring from him in the future. They sent a message to Sabater Pi saying, "Please send more white gorillas." The zoo later hoped to produce a genetic strain and an entire family group of white gorillas through selective breeding. He was also known as "Little Buttercup", and as the "Vanilla Gorilla".Īt first, the Barcelona Zoo was not aware that Snowflake was a unique specimen. Sabater himself called the gorilla Copi or Floquet, and in the later years Nfumu. This name spread among the press ( Stern, Life, Paris-Match). He became famous, though, with the name given to him by Sabater when National Geographic featured him on the cover in March 1967, with the English name Snowflake.
Upon his arrival to Barcelona in November 1966, he was given an official reception by the then- mayor of Barcelona, Josep Maria de Porcioles, and called Blancanieves (" Snow White") in the newspaper Tele/Exprés. Snowflake received the recessive gene from both parents, causing his albinism. The same study revealed that his albinism was caused by a mutation of the SLC45A2 gene. Study of Snowflake's genome determined that his parents had 12% of their DNA in common, leading researchers to believe that his parents were uncle and niece. In diffuse light similar to that in its biotope, we calculated that it blinked on an average of 20 times a minute." The animal displayed marked photophobia, which caused it to close its eyes repeatedly when exposed to bright light. The choroidal vessels were perfectly visible and the pupil was normal. The media were transparent and the fundus of the eye normal and totally depigmented. Accommodation and refraction were normal. "The eye had a blueish sclera, a normal cornea, and a light blue iris which was very transparent to transillumination. Barcelona Zoo director Antonio Jonch wrote: He had poor vision, though tests to determine whether he had a central blind spot did not find one. Snowflake was a western lowland gorilla with non-syndromic oculocutaneous albinism. Originally named Nfumu Ngui in Fang language ("white gorilla") by his captor, he was then nicknamed Floquet de Neu ( Catalan for "little snowflake" ) by his keeper, Jordi Sabater Pi. Mañé then kept Snowflake at his home for four days before transporting him to Bata, where he was purchased by primatologist Jordi Sabater Pi. Mañé had killed the rest of Snowflake's gorilla group (traditional in colour). Snowflake was captured in the Río Muni region in Spanish Guinea on 1 October 1966 by ethnic Fang farmer Benito Mañé.
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