An albino baby wallaby who has to have regular sun cream massages needs a name

A rare albino wallaby born during the recent heatwave has to have regular massages with sun cream to stop his delicate skin from burning.

The little joey, who has not yet been named, has pure white fur due to the genetic condition. He wouldn’t survive in the wild due to his poor eyesight and lack of camoflauge.

He’s being looked after by keepers at Woburn Safari Park, who are regularly applying sun cream to protect the animal from the sun.

Animals with albinism have a reduced amount of melanin, or no melanin at all, which causes them to have white hair. This also means they burn very easily in the sun.

For wallabies, their eyes and nose are most at risk.

The baby wallaby is one of lots of newborn animals born in the park during the summer, alongside an alpaca and three barbary macaque monkeys.

As mentioned, the baby wallaby currently has no name – and so the keepers are asking the public for ideas as part of a new Facebook competition.

On their Facebook page, the park wrote: ‘Help name the albino wallaby joey and you could win a £100 gift voucher to spend at the park!

‘Keepers would like Australian-themed name suggestions, in keeping with the wallabies wild origins.’