[emilie16]

My sister gave me one of her baby males today [dubbed Atticus. He's an adorable little black rat with white feet and a tiny pink tip on his tail], he's about 5 weeks old and he's super downy and has curlyish looking hair. I thought rex but he has two non rex parents? Is that possible? She said he was one of two like that in the litter and all the rest had smooth, normal fur.

 

[nanashi7]

Yes; genetically, the rats have more genes than just what they show. So, in your case, the parents were recessively carrying the rex genes.

 

[emilie16]

That's actually awesome because I have always wanted a rex rat but I didn't think I was getting one when my sister said she'd give me one of her rats. He does have longish sort of irregular whiskers as well.

 

[Isamurat]

If its standard rex then one of his parents must have been rex too. Does don't show it particularly well so may just look scruffy. There is such thing as recessive rex though but not nearly as common. There's other coat types that can look different to. Id have a good look at his parents and failing that see what he looks like at a few months old when his moults should have settled down