KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - This white alligator has it made in the shade. Without an alligator's normal dark camouflaging color, the new inhabitant at the Knoxville Zoo would not live long while exposed to predators or the sun.

In an exhibit made to look like the Louisiana bayou with tree stumps and hanging moss, the 12-year-old American alligator spent one recent afternoon basking under a heat lamp beside a warm pool with one claw lazily dipped in the water. If outside, her skin would burn in the sun.

An albino gene makes the alligator's skin white and her eyes pinkish, and the rare find creates a popular exhibit at zoos around the country.

The exhibit at the Knoxville Zoo — marketed with the slogan "Look in Dem Eyes" in reference to a legend that good luck will follow those who see the animal — will last through Labor Day.

Zoo visitors paused in a dark lobby and peered through the glass window at her. Occasionally, one eyelid would open and reveal an inner membrane that makes the eye look milky, but otherwise the alabaster-tinted body was still.

"Is she real?" is the most common question from visitors, says Phil Colclough, assistant curator of herpetology at the zoo.

"Nobody believes she's real. They stare until she takes a breath or moves her eyes or jumps in the pool."

Other zoos and tourist attractions have white alligators in the United States, totaling around 50.

A whiter shade of pale
Some white alligators are albino, meaning they lack a dark pigment called melanin, and their eyes appear reddish because of the blood vessels underneath.

Another kind of white alligators are leucistic, meaning they have white pigment and blue eyes. The Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans has leucistic alligators found in a Louisiana swamp in 1987.