Yeah, I definitely see the issue here, and that was a well thought out, and worded post you made too.

This is one of those things that's just hard to "nail down" for absolutely certain. For all practical purposes, a Black Rat is what I see, and probably like you also,....I'm a stickler for EXACTNESS when it comes to genetic lineage in my collection of animals. But as Toby also mentioned, many Black Rats often tend to have some degree of keeling in the scales, ranging from totally smooth, partial keeling, semi keeled, moderately keeled, and even fairly heavy keeling. This actually leads me to believe it might pure, or at least purer than I first suspected.

It's a safe assumption that it has NO guttata influence at all, that I can see, due to the total lack of any "chevroning" of the head, ventral checkering, etc...in addition to the moderate keeling, ....cornsnake influence would have smoothed out the scales even more, and left telltale "marker" evidence of the other traits too.

Some things just remain sort of puzzling..LOL!

In any case, yes, the obsoleta complex often can have keeled scales to some degree, as this pic of my central Florida Yellow Rat also displays.

Cornsnakes can even sometimes display a very slight "semi-keeling" to their scales, but I'm sure this doesn't pertain to your situation with this particular animal, so I wouldn't be too alarmed..LOL!

It seems to me if it had any other influence to make the strong orange coloration(unless VERY distant) it would express more trait "markers" in the way of subdued, or random blotching(Bubblegum Rat), or at least faint head "chevron", ventral checkering, smoother scales, as in(cornsnake), or even "Creamsicle" influence.......does this seem to make sense to you as well?


best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

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