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White tigers are not a separate species or even sub-species of tiger, although they are often called a sub-species in popular press. They are what is commonly known as a "phase" or "morph" of a normal tiger. A phase or morph (used as in "white phase" or "white morph") doesn't refer to a color variation that is limited in time, as the word "phase" would imply - a phase or morph of an animal is when the animal has a color or pattern variation that occurs within species but is not significant enough, genetically speaking, to count as a sub-species. White tigers are a color phase that is not common in the wild (because they get eaten right away) but has been bred for in captivity (because they are way cute). They are not technically albino, as they have blue eyes and often black noses (a true albino lacks pigmentation and would have red or pink eyes and a pink nose). Notice the big blue eyes in the baby above, and the black nose on his older sister. There are also white tigers that are totally white, with no visible stripes at all, but they too have black noses and blue eyes and so are not albino.

White lions are the same, although they are considerably more rare (perhaps non-existent) in the wild. Interesting note: lions and tigers, although they are different species, are capable of interbreeding. This does not happen in the wild, as lions and tigers do not occur in the same geographic areas, but it does happen in captivity. The result is a "liger", although some people refer to the result of a lioness and a tiger as a liger, and the result of a male lion and a tigress as a "tylon." (This is similar to the result of a horse/donkey mating - most people think of the result of that breeding as a mule, but to get really specific, a mule is the result of a male donkey and a female horse, while breeding a female donkey and a male horse results in a "henny.") Ligers are themselves sterile, like mules.

 A common and naturally-occurring example of a color phase would be the black version of the jaguar - the black phase jaguars occur, generally, in the deeper jungle than the spotted phase, but other than color they are not genetically distinct.

"Morph" is used more in the reptile family. There are two common kinds of morphs - genetic morphs and environmental morphs. An environmental morph is an animal that has been artificially pushed into a variation during a stage of development - for instance, you can push ball pythons into what is called the "striped morph" by chilling their eggs at a certain stage of development.  An environmental morph is not inheritable - a snake that has been pushed into striped morph, for example, will not produce striped young.

A normal, nicely marked ball python 

                   A striped morph ball python       

A genetic morph is one in which the animal has been bred specifically to obtain the desired morph. This involves often complex breeding of different types of animals to bring out a certain characteristic. A genetic morph, as the name implies, is a change at the molecular level, which makes the characteristics inheritable. Genetic morphs usually start out as a random mutation, and are then bred to enhance whatever the mutation is. There are some truly amazing genetic morphs in the snake world:

    An albino morph ball python   

                                   Another ball python morph, called "Congo"

An astonishingly beautiful morph, called a "Lavender"