There was a picture posted by Dwight Good on the 16th of this month of a Black Rat that could easily be mistaken for a Texan by its pattern. http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=687458,687459



As far as parselmouth's claim that their head shape is different, I have Blacks, Grays, Yellows, Gulf Hammocks, and Texans and their head shapes and scale counts are the same. Once again, they are subspecies of each other. As far as eye coloring goes, I have seen photos of Black Rats with Red colored eyes so I would not place all my stock in saying a leucistic obsoletus was from one subspecies by its eye coloring.



I would like to thank both Duffy and Billy Boy for their feedback. I read the old posts, but I am still not convinced that anyone has found a wild leucistic Black Rat yet. If such an animal was found 10 years ago in OH, it could have been an escaped pet. I spent a summer working in FL ten years ago and the apartment complex I was living in was crawling with Med. geckos. Where do you think they came from?



I will also point out that leucistic Blacks sell for more then Texas ones. Sounds like a good reason why someone might cheat. Some people are not always honest or keep good records. It my be that there are some "TRUE" leucistic Black Rats out there, but I still have not seen any published reports of one being found. There is a very good reason why they are not found very often in the wild. Because of their coloring, they quickly become lunch. Nature takes care of her mistakes,

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