Re: Are albinos possible in every organism?

Any time an organism has pigment, whether it's in the leaf of a plant or in 
the stripes on a zebra, the mechanisms that create that pigment can be 
disrupted to give rise to a lack of that pigment.  In animals with 
backbones (vertebrates), we usually refer to these pigment-less animals as 
albinos.  

What that typically means is that these animals carry one or more 
mutations in their genomes that disrupt the normal pigment mechanisms so 
that that animal and its children are albino.  In vertebrates, such 
mutations can usually occur without giving any effect other thatn albinism.  
However, in plants and maybe in other types of organisms, the pigmentation 
process might be required for life.  For instance, the same molecules that 
give a plant its colors are often the same molecules that allow that plant 
to absorb light and sustain itself through photosynthesis.  So any mutation 
eliminating that pigment would cause the plant to be unable to properly 
absorb light resulting in an unhappy plant.  You can imagine that similar 
connections between pigment molecules and survival might also exist in 
other animals.  

So the short answer is:  albinism is possible in almost all 
vertebrates but might not be possible in some other types of organisms.