RARE PINK DOLPHIN

This extremely rare and beautiful "pink dolphin" was spotted and photographed by Capt. Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service on June 24th, 2007, during a charter fishing trip on Calcasieu Lake south of Lake Charles, LA .

It is small in comparison to the others it is traveling with and appears to be a youngster traveling with mama. After spotting the beautiful mammal cruising with a pod of four other dolphins, Rue and his guests idled nearby while watching and photographing the unusual sight for more than an hour

"It was absolutely, stunningly pink," Rue said. The albino calf's pinkish appearance is likely produced by blood vessels underneath its relatively thin layer of blubber that would ordinarily be masked by a typical dolphin's gray coloration.

According to marine biologists, this was only the third reported sighting of an albino bottlenose dolphin in the Gulf of Mexico (going back to 1994) and the fourteenth spotting anywhere in the world (the first coming in 1962).