These tables accompany the main article on coat color, temperament, and domestication.

Rats were obtained by crossing a wild agouti male with domestic albino females homozygous for hooded and nonagouti. The resulting offspring were then crossed to each other to produce agouti and black rats that had solid, berkshire, or hooded color patterns. These rats therefore had a common genetic background and were reared under similar conditions.

In the behavioral test, each rat was picked up for the first time and held quietly for one minute in a gloved hand. The rat's reactions were then recorded, and these reactions included: biting, attacking, squealing, opening mouth, laying ears back, puffing, whining, chittering, urinating, defecating, and no reaction.

Color	Agouti	Agouti hood	Ag+Ag hd	Black	Black hood	Bl+Bl hood
#rats	45	22	67	23	7	30
%biting	34	45	40	13	0	10*
%attacking	4	18	9	4	0	3
%squealing	67	73	68	39	28	37*
%op. mouth	0	4	1	0	0	0
%lay. ears bk	49	36	45	9	1	10*
%puffing	7	18	10	0	0	0
%whining	17	18	18	4	2	10
%chittering	2	18	18	4	0	3
%urinating	53	45	51	9	0	7*
%defecating	73	64	70	43	57	47
%no reaction	2	0	1	30	28	30*

* indicates a statistically significant comparison between agouti + agouti hooded and black + black hooded results.

Rats were obtained by crossing a wild agouti male with domestic albino females homozygous for hooded and nonagouti. The resulting offspring were then crossed to each other to produce agouti and black rats that had solid, berkshire, or hooded color patterns. These rats therefore had a common genetic background and were reared under similar conditions.

In the annoyance test, the noses of the rats were tickled with a fine bristle brush on a long handle, and the responses of the different colored rats were recorded.

Color Number of rats:	Agouti + Agouti hooded 67	Black + Black hooded 30
%biting	86	20*
%attacking	28	13
%squealing	21	10
%opening mouth	0	0
%puffing hair	7	0
%laying ears back	0	0
%snorting	3	0
%chittering	10	7
%nibbling	0	3
%hiding	1	0
%whining	0	0
%no reaction	15	73*

* indicates statistically significant comparison between agouti + agouti hooded and black + black hooded.

These rats were the descendants of six wild rats trapped in New York. The original wild rats had been found to be heterozygous for agouti (Aa). Five generations later, the authors took 12 female and 10 male rats who were heterozygous for agouti (Aa), and bred them to produce agouti (A-) and black rats (aa). These sixth-generation agouti and black rats therefore had a common genetic background, and were put through behavioral tests.

In the "pursuing" handling test, the experimenter slowly approached a gloved hand and tried to touch, stroke, then catch the rat.

Behavior	Color	Test 1	Test 2	Test 3	Test 4	Test 5
Attack-bite	%Agouti	59	44	40	26	28
	%Black	25**	7**	8**	4*	0**
Touchable	%Agouti	64	73	77	83	85
	%Black	96**	100**	100*	100	100
Strokeable	%Agouti	32	51	58	66	68
	%Black	89***	89***	100***	100***	100**
Catchable	%Agouti	25	39	57	68	78
	%Black	76***	86***	93**	93*	100**
Jumping	%Agouti	91	60	62	50	33
	%Black	57***	29*	31*	25	11
Running	%Agouti	91	90	78	81	68
	%Black	79	63**	41**	43**	67

Asterices refer to the significance values of comparisons between the agouti and black rats as follows: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.