Elizabeth Veronica captured them once they were tiny. The Wrecking Crew are unplayable at the beginning of the game, as they are all imprisoned in heavy duty cages for the whole world to see. Elizabeth Veronica, tries to eliminate George with a ray gun, only to have shrunk him and his friends, ending up inside her ship. George, Lizzie, and Ralph, mutated by the blast, travel the world to destroy all of Scumlabs' bases and all of the Scumlabs employees.Īt the end of the game, the last Scumlabs employee, Dr. This time, he is a scientist working at a Scumlabs facility until an explosion occurred, mutating him into a giant-sized ape. George's origin is similar to his origin in Rampage (1986). George is the only monster able to hold the evil woman in red dresses to get rapidly increasing points, just as Lizzie can hold men in yellow shirts, while Ralph can hold businessmen. Throughout the game, the trio begins to desolate every high-rise city, destroying buildings, gorge civilians, smash vehicles and eradicate offensive military forces which stood in their wake of destruction until they reach Plano, Illinois, the final level of the game. Coincidentally, Lizzie and Ralph also became mutated into giant monsters. George was a scientist until he became mutated by experimental vitamins, becoming a giant-sized gorilla as a result. However, it differs slightly in each game: This is the generic origin for most monsters that appear in the Rampage franchise. These experiments go horribly wrong and transform them into giant monsters. "Snowflake was the conjunction of two very rare events.In every Rampage game, George, along with Lizzie and Ralph, are typically mutated into monsters through experiments conducted at Scumlabs (or any other science-related quandary). "This explains why only one albino western lowland gorilla has ever been found," Marques-Bonet told National Geographic. ( Get a genetics overview.)īoth the mutant gene and the inbreeding are rare occurrences for western lowland gorillas, and the combination that produced Snowflake isn't likely to happen again anytime soon. One of Snowflake's ancestors was likely the original carrier.īecause his parents were related-an uncle and a niece by the researchers' guess-their DNA contained some of the same genes, one of which happened to be the rare albinism mutation. The albino mutation is recessive, Marques-Bonet explained, meaning it becomes visible only if both parents pass the mutation on to a child.
Second, and possibly more important, the scientists found that Snowflake was the result of inbreeding-an unusual practice for his species-which was likely the reason for the gorilla's unique coloration, according to the study, published May 31 in BMC Genomics. ( See more pictures of albino animals.)įirst, the scientists pinpointed the exact genetic cause of Snowflake's albinism-a gene known as SCL45A2, which had previously been reported in albino mice, horses, and chickens, said study leader Tomas Marques-Bonet. An animal that does not produce melanin, resulting in little or no color in the skin, hair, and eyes, is considered an albino. In a new study, they announced a twofold discovery about Snowflake's genes that may help scientists understand how he became the only known albino of his species. Since then, scientists at Barcelona's Institut de Biologia Evolutiva at the University of Pompeu Fabra have been studying Snowflake's frozen blood and using it to sequence his genome.
#ALBINO GORILLA SKIN#
In 1966 he was taken to the Barcelona Zoo in Barcelona, Spain, where he lived until his death from skin cancer in 2003. Snowflake, a western lowland gorilla, was born in the wild in Equatorial Guinea (map). Now the late ape is making headlines again over the recent postmortem discovery that he was inbred. Snowflake the gorilla gained notoriety for being the only known albino of his species.