PHOTOS! Zeb, Boudicca, Onyx, and Hank Aaron.

[Zouave]

Here is Zeb tinkling the ivories.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL19/924030/3232942/40831129.jpg

A promised closeup of Onyx.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL19/924030/3232942/40831078.jpg

Onyx and Hank Aaron.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL19/924030/3232942/40830842.jpg

A promised closeup of Boudicca.
http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL19/924030/3232942/40830914.jpg

[Tumbledown]

Aww my hamster Merlin looks like boudicca!he has chocolate brown head and rump white in the middle white underbelly and a few splotches of brown on his back over the white,think some folk call them banded syrians,but tome he's just Merlin!

[Zouave]

Aww my hamster Merlin looks like boudicca!he has chocolate brown head and rump white in the middle white underbelly and a few splotches of brown on his back over the white,think some folk call them banded syrians,but tome he's just Merlin!

Sounds like mine.

Check some of the other threads for the rest of my hamsters: I have 15, and 12 gerbils. Ten hamsters are siblings, and I have their mom here, and here two grand kids. It is quite a family. Most of my gerbils are related, too. :)

The so-called "black bear" Syrians are really a dark brown, as you said, although a young one is jet black.