W^bd/W^sh

"The colour not to extend past the ears and to follow the line of the lower jaw bone, it should not extend under the chin. There should be a white line or an open star in the face and the rest of the body white. Colour as in any standardized variety. Eyes as in the standardized variety."

Breeding information below the pictures.

	Beautifully pigmented black capped with nice, symmetrical cap. Note the small coloured spot on tail. SHS Black Capped doe VRP-99 SNL Ch Noddyn Ahma b. & o: Satu Karhumaa pic: Arttu Väisälä
	Here is an example of Capped with stripe. The markings are good and symmetric, placed right and not extending too much down (under the chin) or too far back (behind the ears). The colour of the markigs is a bit too dark for Champagne. SH Champagne Capped doe VRP-99 SNL Ch Noddyn Olivia No-John b. & o: Satu Karhumaa pic: Arttu Väisälä

Note: This article is old and waiting to be rewritten.

Quick Look

Capped is a variety that popped up in my own strain of Banded mice. However, all Cappeds are not related to my mice. A little later from when I "went public" with Cappeds, some were found in pet shops. Capped was welcomed as a beautiful and sufficiently different variety among the marked mouse varieties.

This variety looks a lot like the rat variety Capped, from which the standard and the name is derived. The genetic make-up was unknown for a while, although it was well known it was related to Banded and wasn't simply "double-Banded". However, aenemia of some Capped young - homotsygous ones with little markings - and descriptions on geneticists' sites have led me to believe that Capped is genetically W^bd/W^sh - with W^bd being a gene called "banded" and W^sh being the Banded-variety gene called "sash". In heterozygous form, W^bd makes Banded, but with very wide band.

Capped to Banded is a rather working combination, although best results are achieved with Capped to Capped breeding. With the exception of few "almost" Black (or Pink, depending on the colour variety) Eyed Whites popping up, Capped to Capped has produced a number of all-Capped litters. It should be noted, that these litters are usually very small with some four babies. Capped to Banded matings have produced normal sized litters, with few Cappeds but all of them viable. W^bd/* -'banded' x Capped produces, as is expected, aenemic young in the litter.

There have been some experiments made and these have included Rumpwhite to Capped matings. These have produced everything from Capped to Rumpwhite, meaning that every amount of white inbetween was produced - even "Bareback" mice. When one of these mice was mated with a Capped related Banded, there were Rumpwhites in the resulting litter, as Rumpwhite's own markings got "hidden" in the extensive white markings.

Common faults include the color spreading too far behind the ears and / or under the jaw line. There are also some colored spots in the rump. Actually, similar faults are present in the rat variety Capped.

Capped got full standard in late 1997.