White Alligators Star in Swamp Exhibit : Animals: The 18 blue-eyed creatures are in demand worldwide. No others are known to exist.

Priceless, pretty and so rare that they are precious, white alligators in the Louisiana Swamp exhibit at the Audubon Zoo here laze, almost motionless, in their pools.

With their blue eyes and white noses poking above the surface of the exhibit’s murky waters, they seem oblivious to the crowds they attract and the oohs and aahs they elicit from visitors.

The white alligators have become hometown celebrities.

“There is no way to put a price on them,” said Curt Barnett, general curator at Audubon Zoo. “They are the only ones in the world. When something is the only one, it’s priceless.”

The gators are not true albinos because their eyes are blue, not pink, Barnett said.

There are 18 of them, found in a south Louisiana swamp four years ago. Zoos around the world are clamoring for them to visit.

As far as can be determined, no other white alligators have been found, Barnett said.

“There isn’t even any folklore about them,” he said. “I have to assume if any had ever been found before, there would be stories about them, at least, but I couldn’t find any.”

That they are so few is not surprising, Barnett said, because without the normal protective coloration, young alligators would be easy prey in the wild.

All 18 of the white gators are all males, but that doesn’t mean that they are the end of the line, said Barnett. Louisiana Land & Exploration Co., which owns all but four of the gators, hopes to breed them with normal female alligators.

“They’ll breed them to regular alligators and then breed the offspring to see if they produce white ones,” he said.

In the meantime, an estimated 1 million people a year are visiting the alligators at the zoo. Sales of white alligator memorabilia there are exceeding $10,000 a year, zoo officials said.

Five other zoos, from Zurich, Switzerland, to Ft. Wayne, Ind., have requested visits from the alligators this year, Barnett said.

In Philadelphia, a three-month exhibit of two of the white gators was advertised widely on billboards and taxicabs. Zoo attendance rose about 25% during their stay, public relations director Milly Hudgins said.

“They are definitely a draw,” Hudgins said. “We also got tons of publicity from them.”

Souvenirs such as T-shirts, mugs, toy alligators and candy alligators sold briskly, Hudgins said. Although no figures were available, per capita sales at the zoo gift shop reached at an all-time high, Hudgins said.