The extremely dark coloration could be coming from some black rat genes creeping in. Where was it captured (general info)? The lighter coloration in the pic seems restricted to the skin showing between the scales, maybe some bleed into the scale tips, but mainly between the scales. Its not unusual for texas or blacks to show lighter skin coloration between the scales that can be orange/yellow/white. Still, it could be an axanthic animal, or just a really dark texas rat showing light skin color between the scales.

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