Just how white would a woodchuck look if a woodchuck could look white?

For Roanoke County resident Nathaniel Brandetsas, the answer is right outside his back door.

There, on the corner of Challenger Avenue and West Ruritan Road, dwells a stark-white snowball of a rodent that has neighbors and passers-by baffled.

"You see the green [grass] and then there's this big white thing. You have to look twice just to know what it is," said West Ruritan Road resident Rich Mercer, who was admittedly bewildered the first time he drove by it.

First impressions haven't exactly been flattering for the woodchuck, more commonly known as a groundhog. Kim Clement, who lives across the street, mistook it for a cat. Neighbor Janice Roop thought it was a trash bag. Brandetsas thought it was an albino skunk the first time he laid eyes on it.

"It's the oddest looking thing. ... It's just bizarre looking," Mercer said.

At first glance it would be easy to classify the groundhog as an albino, but Brandetsas and Clement said they've been able to get close enough to notice something strange: It has brown eyes.

True albinos are unable to produce melanin, the pigment that gives color to skin, hair and eye tissues. As a result, true albinos' eyes appear pink, receiving their only coloration from blood vessels, said Dr. Phillip Sponenberg, a professor of pathology and genetics at Virginia Tech's Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.

Sponenberg said that the Roanoke County groundhog isn't an albino, but instead an average groundhog with a rather uncommon color pattern.

"That's a spotted groundhog with one big spot," he said.

Still, albino groundhogs aren't unheard-of in the Roanoke Valley.

In fact, Clement said that she had been told of two pink-eyed albinos within a mile of Brandetsas' home, one farther back on West Ruritan Road and one on East Ruritan Road.

Another albino groundhog was known to frequent the Blue Hills Golf Club almost a decade ago. The groundhog's picture still hangs in the pro shop, and it was seen near the seventh hole as recently as two years ago, said concessions manager David Kidd.

Sponenberg estimated that only one in every 10,000 to 15,000 animals displays albinism and said that white groundhogs have no genetic advantage over others because their appearance makes them easy targets for predators.

Instead, Sponenberg speculated that several parents carrying the necessary genes were responsible for the apparent outburst of albinos and other white groundhogs in the area.

Brandetsas' faux-bino has attracted the curiosity of several people who have spotted it from the road. Brandetsas said that in the past two months at least three people have asked permission to photograph the groundhog, but Clement said the vast majority choose to gawk from the safety of their cars.

"You would be surprised at the number of people who slow down as they come up," Clement said.

Though he sees it almost daily, Brandetsas has been able to uncover little about the enigmatic rodent.

He said that he has not yet discerned which of the several nearby burrows the groundhog calls home and was unsure when or why the groundhog chose his yard.

Best estimates place the groundhog between 1 and 2 years old. Clement and Brandetsas moved in only recently, but John Pollard has lived on the street for 30 years and said he hadn't seen anything like it until the groundhog took up residency last spring.

Clement said that shortly after it emerged from hibernation this spring, the groundhog gave birth to a healthy, though disappointingly standard, brown brood.

"From what I understand, that's perfectly normal," said Holly Morrow, caretaker of Wiarton Willie, Canada's albino answer to meteorological maverick Punxsutawney Phil. Morrow said that white groundhogs regularly give birth to litters with normal coloration, though those progeny can be carriers of the genes that cause white fur.

Clement said that the groundhog, now affectionately referred to as "Momma," can be seen foraging in the morning and evening. Brandetsas said he sees the animal scouring the yard four or five times a week.

Even though he's become accustomed to seeing the animal, Brandetsas said the animal still strikes him as supremely odd. "It's like seeing a pink elephant."