# Black eyes that flash red



## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Our new high white girl has jet black eyes that flash stop light red in the right light. It looks like she has both the traits for normal dark rat eyes and ruby eyes expressed in each eye.

Aside from it being just a little freaky... she seems to see ok, but I'm not sure how eyes like this would deal with bright sunlight or what kind of vision problems I have to look forward to.

Does anyone have any experience with this eye color in sunlight?


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

Ulrik and Henrik's eyes are like this. Ulrik doesn't seem to have any vision problems whatsoever indoors or out.


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## JessyGene (Feb 27, 2012)

That is just ruby eyes, I think. I thought that ruby eyes normally look black but in bright light look reddish.


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## Awaiting_Abyss (Jul 24, 2012)

Maybe it means they're a certain color? 

I know with gerbils all colorpoint colors have black eyes with a wine red center. You can only see the red in certain light. So maybe rats are like that too with a certain coloration?


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

They are different than ruby eyes.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I've seen lots of ruby eyes... and this is definately darker than what I've known to be ruby. I honestly couldn't tell you how many of these I've seen because without the exactly right refraction her eyes look pure black. Her former owner had her for 6 months and never noticed the ruby tint.

I've read that ruby eyes can cause shadowing and refractive vision distortion and that rats with other than "normal" colored eyes are at real risk of macular degeneration in strong sunlight. She doesn't seem to be a wall hugger and follows my hand with her eyes so I'm hoping her vision is reasonably ok. I hope with how dark her eyes are she should be ok in sunlight. 

Cagedbirdsinging, I'm glad to hear your redflash black eyed rats seem to have good eyesight. I'd hate to think our new girl is going to have vision problems.

Our resident rat phobic was severely traumatized as a child by having to live in a rat infested shack after a Central American earthquake. She actually still has nightmares of the black roof rats jumping down from the broken cieling while she was trying to sleep... She's come to know our well behaved and friendly capped shoulder rat and can actually pass within two feet of her as long as it is "under control". That only took a year. Thankfully it only took about an hour for her to stop screaming "HORRIBLE BLACK RAT!!! when she met Amelia. Today I had to preemptively explain that the "horrible black rat" also has eyes that can flash bright red. That seemed to go over as well as might be expected, and she seemed to be appreciative of being forewarned, so tomorrow I'm going to tell her that the strange growling noises Amelia sometimes makes are actually a sign of affection and see how that goes. 

Someone left a door open and I just recovered Amelia from next to our rat phobics bed while she was sleeping, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't mention that. Amelia seems to like to jump on people who are laying down and I'm pretty sure waking up to a growling white faced black rat with glowing red eyes would be the deal breaker.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

I was actually planning to ask my breeder about their eyes. I've never seen anything like it. They definitely aren't ruby, though. Asa has black eyes with no red flash, Ivan has dark ruby eyes, and Henrik and Ulrik have those jet black eyes with a quick flash of bright red in the right light. So weird.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm thinking it's the result of both a colored iris and a ruby cornea. That's sort of what it looks like. With high whites eyes of different colors are actually not too unusual. So why should two traits expressed in both eyes by a big exception?

In a pet shop or at a breeders it's not something you are likely to notice and yes, it's a real bright flash of red. I mean my new girl went from cuddly - cute to freaky - spooky in an instant. Thankfully she hasn't growled or grunted all day, so maybe at least I'm not going to have to deal with that. 

You can't believe the image I had tuesday night... She seems to have some silvering mixed in with her black coat giving her a kind of a luster... So I've got a shiney black rat with a snow white face and flashing red eyes sitting on my sleeping daughter's head and growling at me. I could have directed a horror movie around that scene. I got chills and I love rats.

Actually she's a super sweetheart. She's so sweet and loving, it took me two days to realize she's completely unsocialized. Poor thing doesn't even know her name, or to look in someone's hand for a treat. She doesn't respond to the human voice at all. I think I'm going to be starting from scratch. Here we go again...


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

the red flash is dark ruby.

Here's an example. My high white (black and white) boy has what looks like 2 black eyes (genetically this is what he should have)

But no, one eye flashes ruby, so he is odd-eyed.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

lilspaz68 said:


> the red flash is dark ruby.


My boys are cinnamon and mink. Black eyes.

The flash is completely different than my ruby-eyed rat.


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## kkmarie (May 27, 2012)

My hooded blue dumbo boy Harry has odd-eyes. One of his brown eyes flashes normal and one flashes red too.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

cagedbirdsinging said:


> My boys are cinnamon and mink. Black eyes.
> 
> The flash is completely different than my ruby-eyed rat.


Cinnamon and mink have ruby eyes. Mink can have black but almost all of my minks have had dark ruby eyes.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

lilspaz68 said:


> Cinnamon and mink have ruby eyes.


I'm not sure where you're getting that information.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

cagedbirdsinging said:


> I'm not sure where you're getting that information.


Lots of talking to breeders, lots of checking colour standards, and seeing it myself.


Cinnamon
*AFRMA Breed Standard *_"Color is similar to agouti, except the color is a warm russet brown, with medium slate at the base of the hair. Coat is evenly ticked with chocolate. Belly color to be as agouti, but of a lighter shade. Eye color is ruby or black."

_http://fancyrats.pbworks.com/w/page/8715185/Cinnamon









Fable was a poor cinnamon











Mink confused me. I had seen black eyes amongst my rats and ruby...so I started asking. The standard says black eyes but they told me it can actually come in both.

Now this is funny.,..check out the mink rat pics on Spoiled ratten's page...see that all the standards are for black eyes, but look at the bottom mink rat pic...LOLOLOL

http://www.spoiledratten.com/breedingratscontent4.html

With URSA note that eyes _should be black_. From what I understand adding mink to a line can really muddy things up and as cinnamon is really mink-agouti

http://fancyrats.pbworks.com/w/page/8715205/Mink


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I sort of have to agree with Cagedbirdsinging. In daylight my girl's iris's actually look greenish, but the net effect is black. The red flash has to be due to some kind of refraction of the light based on how bright it is. One has to wonder if the rat sees the flash too. It really isn't just a matter of ruby eyes being illuminated... it's an actual flash like a stop light.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

Just spoke with Henrik and Ulrik's breeder:



> Cinnamon and Mink esp. Cinnamon can have Ruby eyes as well as Mink, but these have Black eyes. When they were just born you can tell eye color whether it's going to be Black, Ruby, or a lighter Red/Pink. I have a litter now that has Black, Ruby, and a lighter eye color which should be light Red/Pink. I can tell by the membrane covering the eyes even at this page. It is not uncommon esp. for Mink to come back with a red tinge to them under certain lighting and camera flash. I have Chinchilla rats that have black eyes come back with a deep red hue to them. It's pretty common esp. with other dilutes in the like such as the Red Eye Dilute and the Pink Eye Dilute which are both lingering in the Harley line itself. Their momma was a Champagne and that PED (Pink Eye Dilute). Dilutes can play tricks with eye and coat color sometimes depending on how many dilutes are in an individual line.


They both have black eyes, as Rat Daddy's girl does, but with that bright red flash in just the right light. My boys don't have ruby eyes.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that NO minks/cinnamons can have ruby eyes, but rather to contest the statement that "mink and cinnamon have ruby eyes", which made it sound like they do not have black eyes. They do.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

There is 2 different types of mink, English mink (black eyed) and American or us mink (ruby eyed). I'm not sure if both are recognised in the us, in the UK you can only show English or standard mink right now but us mink is still bred as its a lovely and quite different colour (much warmer).

In terms of the red flash eyes, I have seen this before, I believe in some cases the blood vessels behind the eyes are more obvious in some rats. Interestingly a us mink (or cinn) baby tends to appear like this, dark rings with a circle of ruby in the middle, but then there eyes turn more normally ruby as they age.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

I have had both types of mink...mostly ruby. I am in Canada as well so we don't have real breeders here. Minks, pearl merles, etc are all the Rat Du Jours in the rat mills these days  We have very red minks, to normal mink to super dark where you think they are bad blacks.

ruby eyed Crazy Chloe...doesn't look it here










but you see it here 










Baby Nuna had black eyes...


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I suppose I'll just have to see how this peculiar eye color works out and watch my girl for signs of vision problems or distress.


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## TheRatPack8 (Dec 10, 2012)

Edward has that and all I noticed is that he sniffs and sways a lot like my Siamese red eyed girl, Nilla. 


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

After a bit of time Amelia doesn't appear to be handicapped, he vision seems rat reasonable, but if I move fast at a distance she jumps and she's not nearly as comfortable outdoors as Fuzzy Rat. Fuzzy rat has normal eye color and freakishly good eyesight for a rat. 







Amelia's eyes look black and normal, but flash stop light red in the right lighting.

In the second attached photo... Fuzzy Rat (small white speck next to black trash can) is navagating her way back to the car over a distance of several hundred yards by eyesight alone, using only visual cues with landmarks at great distances (for a rat). I haven't seen Amelia come anywhere close to this kind of navagation so far. BTW, I'm pretty convinced that Fuzzy Rats great eyesight is what makes her such a competent and relaxed true shoulder rat, she can see and she's not afraid... At nightfall, she heads straight for the car! She absolutely freaks out being outdoors on the ground in dark places.


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## ratclaws (Nov 11, 2012)

I thought you had 3 eye variants, black, ruby and pink. And that ruby eyes just look usually black but when flashed in the light you can see the redness? I think a lot of people confuse the terms "pink" and "ruby".


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

You can check out the photo of Amelia... Her eyes are black and look greenish in sunlight, they flash bright stop light red in the perfect light at the right angle like the red eyes, blue eyed people got in old time film flash photography.

I've only seen her eyes flash red less than half a dozen times in the 3 months she's been with us, and the previous owner had her six months and never saw it at all.

I've seen pink, and at least two shades of ruby that look reddish in normal light. Does anyone think that voluntarily or involuntarily, there is a chance a rat with this trait has some control over when the eyes flash? Seriously, two of the times I've seen it she was clearly stressed or upset.

As a comparison, the avatar photo of Fuzzy Rat with normal eyes was taken under the same light at the same time with the same digital camera.


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## ratclaws (Nov 11, 2012)

I looked at the picture and I know what you mean now, because my girl Storm is exactly the same. I thought she was black eyed until I shone a light into her eyes and they had a black ring and then a dark red glow in the middle. Are you sure this isn't just a case of really dark ruby eyes? Although I suppose true ruby eyes would have their eye completely one colour... strange. I found this picture and it states on the website that the middle one still counts as ruby? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JqtyvZPw6...nM/e5TzMz70PWs/s1600/eye+color+comparison.jpg


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

She isn't a ruby eyed rat variety though, it would be impossible for her to have ruby eyes.

There are 2 things I'm thinking of.

1. An eye disease/condition. My rat Storm's eyes have slowly been turning brown as he's getting older. If I am right it's called Colomba but normally the color change is way more apparent (Where it will be black eyes and on that black eye a very random bright red spot). but could be something similar.

2. This is what I think is far more likely. She is het for ruby eye genetically. Some genes will have what is called a Het sign. its like how Black rats who carry the blue gene will turn blue as they get older, but are born black and are genetically black het blue. (For Reptile people on here, think of a het Piebald, they will have a ringer on their tail as a het marking) I don't see why not it would be possible for a rat who is het ruby eye (Red eye for those in the UK) for their eyes in flash to look ruby/red.

I've actually never seen light ruby eyes. All of my ruby eye rats have black eyes in natural light, and when the sun light hits their eye just right or with flash they are a dark brown/brownish red.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

The lighter ruby eyed rats I've seen are mostly the lighter "fawn type" hooded.. When you look in their faces their eyes just have a reddish hue. I don't know if they can flash the bright red or not. 

Amelia is a high white and high whites are from the whirlpool end of the genepool. Odd eyes (eyes of two colors are common) as is rex like fur with nearly strait whiskers, opossum blazes or lightning blazes... Amelia also has the opossum blaze, the thick fur, and the wierd eyes asice from the high white on her flanks and thighs. Her brother was a dalmation with a the classical lightning blaze. And at three weeks old only two rats from her litter made the feeder bin... Best guess the others went tragically wrong. I know that any single feature doesn't indicate that a rat is a high white, but she's got the boatload, except the odd eyes where two eye colors can express themselves in the same rat... Perhaps two eye colors can express themselves in both eyes and one can mask/modify the other. Like I said in sunlight her irises actually look green and lighter than a normal rat while the cornea is darker.

High whites are multiple level recessives, with linked genes... with so many recessive genes in play and with at least some being linked the eyes could be a het sign or a co-recessive interaction. 

Anelia had lived in a house where there were too many different kinds of animals for her owners to care for her.... They had dogs and other animals and Amelia made several strange animal noises.... When we brought her home and did the 8 hour strait through immersion training with her, my daughter and our other rat... my daughter fell asleep on the floor... Amelia climbed up on her head, stood up to her full hight flashed her eyes stop light red and growled just like a dog! I could compose an entire horror movie around that scene. She's only flashed a few times since and stopped growling by the third day we got her.. She still squeaks or chirps very occaisionally, but she's getting ever quieter. I'm of the belief that happy rats and oiled door hinges don't squeak, growl, chirp etc.

In any case, it's spooky to see when it happens, I know the rat, and she's very friendly, and I've grown very fond of her and trust her completely, but that bright flash of red still runs shivers down my spine. It's a trick of the light, but she goes from looking like a cuddle bug to the spawn of evil in a flash. 

Come to think of it, i've seen similar eyes in a salt water wolf fish... black eyes that flashed red. And that didn't end well, one night the shy and docile wolf fish slithered up from under it's rock and ate everything else in the aquarium, it's mouth was huge and it's belly expandable so it could eat fish it's own size and likely larger. Maybe that's why the eyes still creap me out a little.


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