HATTERAS, N.C. — Author's note: The video above is on file from August 2021.
It's baby sea turtle season on the Outer Banks, and as if that wasn't already the cutest time of year, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore posted about a particularly special hatchling on Monday.
One of their posts said a white-colored baby loggerhead crawled out of a local nest and into the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday.
"A live, leucistic loggerhead sea turtle was found at the bottom of the nest chamber," a post from CHNS reads. "This genetic deviation is rare since we typically only see a few per year."
You might say, "A white turtle? Doesn't that make it an Albino?" Well, almost.
Albinism happens when an animal has no melanin, and that makes its eyes appear pink. When an animal has very little melanin, but still some, that's when they're called "leucistic."
You can tell this little turtle isn't an albino because its eyes are brown.
Loggerhead sea turtles are considered "vulnerable" on the scale of endangered animals. So while the baby isn't ultra-rare on its own, its unique coloring makes it a very cool hatchling.