New to Boas: Interested in genetics and morphs

[the_flaxseed]

So I've now had my first 2 snakes for a 4-5 months and they are doing great (male banana ball and female junglow bci). I'm in love with my slithering friends, but I am really really interested in boas right now.

That being said, I have no clue on a lot of the meanings behind the different types. Where would be the best place to go to get this information? As of now, I don't know what many of the descriptors mean (e.g., hypo, anery, etc...) and don't really know what each morph-type does to the coloring (like what makes a jungle different from a normal? A sunglow different from an albino, etc...). I can obviously see the difference, but want to be more knowledgeable on describing it and seeing it for myself.

Any info would help! I'm just looking to learn more about these animals!

[Aaron_S]

Just keep reading forums/posts. Also check breeding sub forums as people have asked "What do I get when I cross XX with YY?"

For the short forms, you can probably google them and find the definitions.

[DJC Reptiles]

Hi,

I don't think there is an actual breeding guide to boas. There is something for ball pythons if you are interested though, Kevin McCurley's book, the Ultimate Ball Python demonstrates everything you need for breeding ball pythons. Breeding boa constrictor morphs is something that is experimental and hasn't been done nearly as long, or amount as ball pythons have had. What I can tell you is crossing species, or creating hybrids of different localities normally doesn't end well and leads to disfiguration in offspring. That being said, there have been some succeful breedings between different localities of BCI, for example, hog island boas, and columbian red tail boas. But I still recommend sticking with the same species and locality. In order to breed new, exotic morphs, I would recommend ordering Wild caught individuals who look different then others. This was done with ball pythons to produce many of the common ball python morphs such as spider. A similar approach can be used with boas. I want to make clear this is only for the very devoted keeper, each snake you have could easily live 10+ years in captivity and they would all need comftorble homes to be kept in. If you want to breed boas, but don't want a thousand in your basement, you could invest in particularly striking snakes online and breed those with others of the same species. For information on breeding of BCI, I have linked a useful article.

Hope this helps,
-DJC Reptiles

[richardhind]

Vin Russo does a good book on boas and this explains a lot on pure locality boas aswell as the countless different morphs, obviously there’s new one being created all the time and some have gone out of fashion as newer more improved versions will always happen when outbreeding different boas .
But as mentioned in the other posts boas have a lot more babies than pythons some people have had over 65 babies in a litter on big females , but normal around 25 is an average litter of live babies,that’s a lot of babies to shift once you have them all feeding

[dannybgoode]

dering Wild caught individuals who look different then others. This was done with ball pythons to produce many of the common ball python morphs such as spider

This absolutely is not how the spider morph came about.

The spider morph is a result of many cross/in breedings and pricing out various combinations. The sheer amount of messing around with the genetics to arrive at the spider gene is what's caused it to be defective and to have the head wobble.

The spider gene absolutely was not a first generation cross between a captive bred ball (of any genetic make up) to a wild caught snake.

[Andy_G]

This absolutely is not how the spider morph came about.

The spider morph is a result of many cross/in breedings and pricing out various combinations. The sheer amount of messing around with the genetics to arrive at the spider gene is what's caused it to be defective and to have the head wobble.

The spider gene absolutely was not a first generation cross between a captive bred ball (of any genetic make up) to a wild caught snake.

Richard is correct. The origin of spiders came in a mix and match bag through import and they were wild caught spiders, and the neuro issue linked to the gene has zero to do with messing around or inbreeding. It was there from the start and present in the first wild caught animals exhibiting the trait. Nothing was "messed around" with in order to create the co-dom gene. It wasn't created through combinations or crosses. If you take a spider with a very minor wobble and breed it to a wc normal, you will get spiders and normals, all spiders would have some variance of the wobble and the normals that didn't inherit the gene would not have it. This breeding result alone, regardless of whether you believe what I say to be true or not, proves what you claim to be as very inaccurate. Someone has misinfirmed you Danny, they did you no favour in doing so.

Also, this thread is an inquiry on boa morphs, perhaps we should remain focused on that.

[dannybgoode]

Apologies - thanks for the clarification Andy.