Is this a rat morph?

[Adam Chandler]

One of my big female breeders has a color scheme I thought was a little strange when I first got her:


She's all white with black eyes and small black spot at the base of her left ear (another black spot has just recently started coming in at the base of her right ear as well).




Then yesterday in a batch of weaned feeders I received from the same rattery this little guy was in the mix:

Just like my big female he is all white with black eyes and a small black spot at the base of his left ear.

My question: Is this a known rat color morph? I've been looking through catalogs of different rat patterns and so far have not found anything that matches.

[Cupid]

Those are just a high white rats. They could also be a minimally marked 'dalmatians' as well because of the spotting. Cute ratties.

[snakesRkewl]

Those are black eyed whites and yes thats a "morph" per say.
Do some research on BEW's or black eyed white and you'll better understand the genetics.
Most BEW's are not all white but rather spotted on or around the face or back of head.

[Adam Chandler]

Those are black eyed whites and yes thats a "morph" per say.
Do some research on BEW's or black eyed white and you'll better understand the genetics.
Most BEW's are not all white but rather spotted on or around the face or back of head.

Jerry,
You are the MAN. I could not figure out what genes were at work here, although I did suspect the color and marking were genetic.

This is what I've found out about BEW's so far:

The BEW gene appears to breed as co-dominant. The heterozygotes often have a face marking, ranging from a headspot to a lightning blaze and a chin strap which would suggest that the BEW gene is co-dominant. This isn't always the case, however, as heterozygotes may have no additional white on them.

Although Black Eyed Whites appear to always be Self (HH) in marking, the fact that two hoodeds can produce them (hooded (hh) x hooded (hh)= 100% hoodeds in all other scenarios and would not be able to produce a self), the BEW gene therefore may cause an overmarking of white. Therefore although the rat may be genetically a hooded (hh) or a berkshire (Hh), the overmarking of white covers up the coloured parts, making the rat appear self. BEW's often have smudges of colour on them, and very occasionally have patches of colour on them.

If I am understanding this correctly then what I have here seems to be black hooded rats with a single co-dom BEW gene in them causing the their black "hood" marking to be overwritten with white.
Since there is a little bit of the black hood peaking out around the ears (Dalmatian spotting) it likely these guys only have one copy of the BEW gene, and if I bred them together I'd have the chance to produce "perfect" BEWs, which I guess would be completely white with black eyes and no spots?

[mues155]

[QUOTE=Adam Chandler;1628593]
QUOTE]

That little guy is adorable!

[snakesRkewl]

We've done BEW X BEW and the outcome of course is all BEW.
In these litters just over half are marked and just under half are pure whites.
We also are working with BEW's that carry blue so we get some BEW's that have blue spotting which is really cute too.

I love the BEW's they make some super cute ratties.

[Adam Chandler]

We've done BEW X BEW and the outcome of course is all BEW.
In these litters just over half are marked and just under half are pure whites.
We also are working with BEW's that carry blue so we get some BEW's that have blue spotting which is really cute too.

I love the BEW's they make some super cute ratties.

Very interesting. I'd love to get blue involved in my projects but I can't find anyone in my area that has them. A BEW with blue spots just sounds awesome.

I am pretty excited about breeding my 2 suspected hooded het BEW's (hh nN) together to try to get some super BEW pure whites (hh nn).