How many toes does a Dumbo rat have? - briefly
A Dumbo rat has five toes on each front foot and four on each rear foot, totaling eighteen digits.
How many toes does a Dumbo rat have? - in detail
The Dumbo rat, a strain of the domestic laboratory mouse Mus musculus, shares the standard rodent foot structure. Each forelimb bears five distinct digits, each terminating in a claw. The hind limbs possess four digits per foot. Consequently, an individual displays a total of eighteen toes: ten on the front and eight on the rear.
The enlarged ear phenotype that defines the Dumbo variety does not affect skeletal morphology. Genetic studies confirm that the gene mutations responsible for ear size leave the limb‑development pathways unchanged, preserving the typical digit count observed in all Mus specimens.
Occasional polydactylism—extra toes—has been recorded in laboratory colonies, but such cases are anomalies caused by spontaneous mutations rather than a characteristic of the Dumbo line. In standard breeding populations, the five‑and‑four digit arrangement remains consistent across sexes and ages.
Therefore, the definitive toe count for a typical Dumbo rat is five on each forepaw and four on each hind paw, totaling eighteen.