A wildlife enthusiast in southern Spain has captured remarkable photos of a white Iberian lynx – a first-of-its-kind sighting that has left conservationists intrigued and scientists investigating possible environmental causes behind the rare coloration.
Amateur photographer Ángel Hidalgo shared the striking images on social media, dubbing the lynx the “white ghost of the Mediterranean forest.” Hidalgo said he first spotted the animal on footage from a camera trap he had set up near the city of Jaén. The short clip revealed a lynx with a snowy white coat flecked with dark spots – a stark contrast to the species’ usual tawny and black-spotted fur.
“From that moment, I devoted all my free time to finding it again,” Hidalgo wrote. “Weeks and months went by without luck, and I nearly gave up more than once.” His persistence paid off one misty morning after heavy rain. “When I finally saw her – her white winter coat glowing in the dawn light – I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said.
The photos quickly spread across Spain and beyond, hailed by local media as the first documented appearance of a white Iberian lynx.
But researchers say the animal isn’t entirely unknown. Javier Salcedo, coordinator of the EU-funded LIFE Lynx-Connect conservation project, confirmed the lynx is a female named Satureja, born in 2021. She was born with normal coloring, he said, but her fur gradually lightened over time. Despite the unusual pigmentation, she appears healthy, hunts normally, and has successfully raised several litters.
“It’s neither albinism nor leucism,” Salcedo told El País, referring to genetic conditions that cause pigment loss. “We suspect something in the environment might be influencing the change.”
According to Salcedo, this isn’t the first time scientists have seen such a transformation. Years earlier, researchers tracked another female lynx in the same region whose fur turned white and later returned to brown – possibly a relative of Satureja. “That suggests some kind of hypersensitivity,” he said. “Because we monitor the species so closely, we’re able to detect these rare cases, but similar changes could easily go unnoticed in other animals.”
Officials from Andalusia’s regional government told broadcaster TVE that plans are underway to briefly capture Satureja in order to collect samples and better understand what triggered her color change.
The sighting comes as the Iberian lynx’s recovery is being celebrated as one of Europe’s great conservation success stories. Once on the brink of extinction just two decades ago, the species has made a remarkable comeback across Spain and Portugal. In 2024, the International Union for Conservation of Nature reclassified the Iberian lynx from endangered to vulnerable on its global Red List.
