white rats in the wild?

[connerlake]

Does anyone know if there are any different than standard brown rats in the wild? theres obviously black rats but i have a white rat pet with red/pink eyes i was wondering if anyone has ever seen maybe a feral rat or a escaped rat living wild that looks different from the standard brown rat.

hope what im saying makes sense lol

[Lance Morgan]

There would be albino rats in the wild.

[connerlake]

Originally Posted by Lance Morgan

There would be albino rats in the wild.

Hey lance, i didnt really know how to put it and randomly wrote out the above as i went along i didnt think it made much sense lol so im glad someone understood, i more or less ment a breeding population up by me in coventry we have a single black rabbit population that doesnt seem to inbreed much with the standard rabbits surrouding the area so more or less i was wondering if there would be a self sustaining population random thought i know i thought of it last night when the girlfriend forced me to clean out the rat lol

[Dogghound]

Its unlikely that you would get a wild population that would not breed with other members of its species in surrounding areas unless it was on an island etc. The likelihood is wild rabbit genes are dominant over the black pet ones which means most look like wild rabbits and the odd black throwback occurs. White rats (feral or albino) could be found in the wild no reason why not, however they stand less chance of survival due to them being more obvious to predators.

[connerlake]

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Its unlikely that you would get a wild population that would not breed with other members of its species in surrounding areas unless it was on an island etc. The likelihood is wild rabbit genes are dominant over the black pet ones which means most look like wild rabbits and the odd black throwback occurs. White rats (feral or albino) could be found in the wild no reason why not, however they stand less chance of survival due to them being more obvious to predators.

I see, thanks for your input, its is probably likely that this throwback is simply survivng by chance then it would seem as there are no examples of multi-coloured rabbits that could suggest (to me) of continous inbreeding between the black and the brown rabbits, it just appeared (to me) that they were self sustaining some how rather than inbreeding and rabbits looking more and more like a standard wild rabbit does.


N yeah i can see what your saying about the albino/feral white rat aswell, would be harder to survive for sure aswell as any inbreeding between feral/albino rats and brown rats would simply mean they'd end up getting dissolved into the brown rat gene pool, sucks as seeing a wild one would be extremely cool.

[Ann2]

In a country park near me there are a number of white and brown rats. I imagine that somebody once released a pet rat which has now bred with the wild ones.

Ann

[Beekeeper]

Just out of interest, a friend on mine used to work in Bristol Docks, as with all large ships, there is always a contigent of rats, what interested me was that he mentioned that on the refrigerated ships, the rats always grow very long coats and become pure white in the process.

BK

[bobbarber]

Originally Posted by Beekeeper

Just out of interest, a friend on mine used to work in Bristol Docks, as with all large ships, there is always a contigent of rats, what interested me was that he mentioned that on the refrigerated ships, the rats always grow very long coats and become pure white in the process.

BK

I worked in a cold store in England for a short while, and though the occasional rat had longer than usual coats I never saw a white one...Bob

[bobbarber]

It`s just occurred to me ,could the white rats have been frosted...Bob