All youngsters love to play in the mud, and it’s no different for these mischievous lion cubs.
But they’re going to cause their mother more headaches, because three of the four new siblings are ultra-rare white lions… and getting the dirt out of their creamy fur is going to take a lot of licking.
These extraordinary images are the first photographs of newborn white lions in the wild.
They are found in only one place on Earth, the Greater Timbavati region in South Africa, where only 13 remain, and that number includes these cubs.
It’s serious work being so young, so weird and so cute. But these animated characters have their little legs full exploring and practicing their fighting games. While the older members of the pack keep an eye out for danger, the cubs have fun.
But it is not known who the father is because the cubs are not albino, but rather owe their extraordinary coloration to a genetic trait that many Timbavati lions carry. The leucism pigment gene gives them blue or gray-green eyes instead of brown, and a coat that remains white throughout their lives.
Like a human familial trait, the recessive gene can remain dormant for generations and then reappear, so any of the fawn males could have been the father of these cubs. 
It is even possible for two brown adults to have a litter of white cubs, but only if they are Timbavati lions.
The indigenous Shangaan tribe has known white lions for centuries, and their medicine men traditionally believe them to be animal angels.
A legend says that they were the first creatures created by the gods, and when life goes extinct, the roar of the white lions will be the last sound on Earth.
