# More mystery mice pictures



## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

So I still haven't figured out for sure what these ugly little critters are, lol.

But here, have some pictures to amuse yourselves. :B

My two does, my buck, and their new litters of chubby little walruses, lol.
You can see where their hair has started falling out. The first doe has it the worst! 
She's nearly half bald. Eventually, from my experience with these guys, they go completely bald at about 1 year of age. What weird critters!


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## Megzilla (Oct 12, 2009)

Heh! I want!! Fly over here please


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## JustMouse (Jul 23, 2010)

It looks to me like you either have some sort of virus in your mice (eek!) or hairless mice that just... loose their hair later than most. I don't know. That's odd.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Well, I doubt it's a virus. They breed 100% true. 
Their parents were exactly like this, they're exactly like this, and I expect that their offspring will be the same.

When you cross them to other mice, you can get all sorts of odd coats. Including one mouse who was a FH until about 3 months old, at which point she grew in a full coat of REX fur. :shock: 
These guys are something strange. . . :lol: :think


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## JustMouse (Jul 23, 2010)

Hmmm.... all I can guess is that they're some strange mutation on the hairless gene. I'm pretty sure that rex and hairless are closely related. Maybe they're simply hairless mice with a mutation causing late hair loss... like they grow their adult coat and then never regrow a hair that falls out. 
It's a mystery!


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

It really is! That's why they are MYSTERY MICE! 

But also, they seem to randomly lose, and re-grow hair through out their lives. I'll have to keep track of these as they get older, and see if I can track their hair loss patterns. 
There does seem to be a similar pattern in that a lot of them will lose a perfect circle of hair, right on top of their head (between the ears, like a monk! lol!), but other than that, it's pretty random as far as I can tell.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

They're really weird looking. Odd shaped ears and all sort of bent and out of proportion.


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## WillowDragon (Jan 7, 2009)

Maybe they have the same sort of thing as double rex rats... they constantly lose and regrow hair too, its not because they are bald in patches, its just that the double rex gene makes the hair so brittle, it breaks off in some places.

W xx


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

That sounds possible. Maybe after breaking the hair enough times, it just damages it enough that it doesn't grow back in?

The older does, almost always go 90% bald once they're older. The bucks seem to keep more fur, but it still disappears pretty well.


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

They're fuzzy (fz/fz), just particularly poor examples. They might also be angora. Angora will often lengthen the fuzzy hair a tiny bit and make it so that it sort of sticks out, like you're seeing, and when they molt the hair pattern can change pretty drastically in the course of a few days, from tightly curled to nearly absent and stages in between.



JustMouse said:


> I'm pretty sure that rex and hairless are closely related.


Rex is on chromosome 11 and hairless is on chromosome 14. They're inherited independently of each other, and in different manners (one is dominant; the other is recessive).



> But also, they seem to randomly lose, and re-grow hair through out their lives.


All mice do this, actually. It is called molting, and some do it a lot more than others. Each new coat can sometimes be very different in color or texture. You just don't notice it much on standard coated mice or well-bred non-standard coats. This is why most mice at professional shows are standard (or satin) and why most show breeders stay away from fuzzy, rex, and angora coats. There's just too much variability.


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## windyhill (Jan 19, 2010)

Aww, they are cute in a weirdish way


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

So you think they're just really ugly fuzzies Jack? :lol:

If they are, would they continue to produce the same hair patterns like this?
Even my uglier fuzzies, usually produce babies with slightly different hair.

And if they are fuzzies, could you explain why it might make sense that they will eventually lose their hair as they age?  
I understand that molting can change the hair patterns, but would it really change them so drastically?

I love these ugly buggers, they're such a learning experience. :lol:


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

Yeah, they lose their hair as they age because as they age their hormones level fluctuate more and then drop off, and this is especially true with females (like you've observed). Female mice don't go through a "menopause" like people do, but their fertility does slow down after a certain point around a year old and they become less fertile (and less hair-covered in this case).

I had a couple fuzzies who looked exactly like this, although they were pink-eyed and it was harder to see the "wispy-ness" of their hair because there wasn't much of a contrast against their skin. At least a one was also angora, which is why I brought that possibility up.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Interesting.

Now, here's another thing.
The breeder who I got the originals from (over a year ago, before I knew anything about genetics) said that these were the result of breeding a hairless mouse, to a rex mouse. 
Does that seem feasible? Would that make fuzzies genetically or. . . ?


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

If they were hairless you'd have seen the typical kind of hair loss by now, I think...


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Well yeah, that's what I thought. :/
The whole original point of getting these mice, was to breed hairless from them. But we see how well that worked out. :roll:

Ughhh, someone put a hairless mouse in a box, and mail him to me! I'm going nuts!


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

Why do you want hairless? It's so hard to breed correctly. Standard is whur it at.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

I love different coats! 
(I guess hairless isn't exactly a 'coat type' :lol: )

Hairless and angora (nice angora, which I'll be getting in November, FINALLY) are the only thing I don't have / haven't had, and they are my two favorites, along with FH.


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## The Village Mousery (Aug 1, 2010)

hairless freak me out they are like those witchs rats off the film the witchs yuck


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

I wonder if it's possible to breed these guys for more and more hair loss?
That would be interesting.
Although it's probably just too random to control really, right?
Hmmm . . . I'm not sure where I'm going with these guys. I like to keep them around, because breeding them with other mice makes for very interesting coats. But as for their line specifically, I'm not sure what to do other than put them in a freak show maybe. :lol:


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