Hahahaha yeah!!! I know it's almost impossible that people will catch a wild one to sell but ... I know it seems stupid but ...I just can't stop worrying what if it is....and thinking why there's a pure black one while everyone else is white lol? Then I told myself I have to ask it here to eliminate my concern before I fed this black one! And I today I find that I almost run out of rats of this size except for the black one and probably two others lol!
In my experience, wild rats are brown, not black. Black is one of the "fancy" colors. I lost a favorite black rat recently. Midnight was fine one day, and dead the next.
I have an oddly marked hooded rat, a grey one, and several hairless rats.