We’ve been working with Type II Anery’s for quite a while now, and it seems that our breedings have possibly raised more questions than answers. We know that we aren’t alone in trying to figure out the secret to these guys, so we wanted to share what we do know so far about the Type II’s we have bred…be prepared – this is going to be long! lol

In working with Type II Anery’s, we have noticed that there are a couple different looks. Specifically, there are what we call Black Tail Type II Anery’s that are very dark in coloration, have a solid black tail and don’t really develop the yellow or brown pigmentation that a typical anery develops. These are the Type II’s that most people think of when they think about Type II’s and I believe that these are the Type II’s that have been incorporated into most breeding projects so far. These are the Type II’s that make up most of our collection of Nicaraguan Anery’s. Below is an example of one of these…







The other look of the Type II Anery’s look more like the Colombian Anery’s in that they have more of a grayish coloration, as opposed to the black tail and saddles, and they do develop some yellowish coloration, similar to the Colombian Anery’s, even though they are pure Nicaraguan. Below is an example of one of these….




Several years ago, there was a guy named Bryant King who used to post frequently on these forums. He worked primarily, if not exclusively, with Nicaraguan boas and he had a bunch of cool morphs. Namely, he had what he believed to be a naturally occurring Nicaraguan Ghost. This animal was a male and it was imported from Nicaragua. At the time, there was a lot of controversy over this animal because while Bryant believed him to be a Ghost, many people disagreed and felt that the odds of this happening naturally were too slim, the animal didn’t really look like a Ghost, etc. I don’t really remember everything that was said, but needless to say, he caught a lot of flack. In 2001, he bred this “Ghost” male to 2 completely normal pure Nicaraguan females. When the litter(s) were born, 50% of the babies were hypomelanistic, proving that the alleged ghost male was, at the very least, a Hypo.

Bryant was in dental school at the time and due to the demands of school, he decided to get out of boa breeding. He sold his entire collection and since we love the Nicaraguan boas, and were working with a lot of them, we bought a lot of animals from his collection. I think the Ghost male passed away prior to his sale of the collection, so we didn’t get him, but we did pick out the nicest (in our opinion) of his Hypo daughters, which we intended to breed to an unrelated black tail anery down the line in order to prove whether the “Ghost” was in fact a Ghost. Since the Anery’s weren’t the main thrust of our projects, we regrettably only bought one of his daughters. Here is a picture of her (it’s old but the only one I have…she was pregnant in this photo)….


In the meantime, we also bought what we believed to be a naturally occurring Ghost male. It was in 2002. He had been imported from Nicaragua and was farm born. Same thing basically with Bryant King’s Ghost…it clearly looked like a Ghost to us, but there were many skeptics out there. People seemed to think the odds of it happening in nature were just too slim. However, for a while there were so many hypos and Type II’s being imported that to us, it didn’t seem that unrealistic…obviously they aren’t that uncommon in Nicaragua. Here is a picture of our naturally occurring Ghost male as a baby. He has darkened considerably with age and has developed some yellowish coloration, but still has no sign of red whatsoever on him.




We took our time growing up these animals…the Nicaraguans are pretty small as adults, and we feel that it is very important to make sure that they have the age and maturity that they need before we breed them. So we didn’t breed the Hypo daughter of Bryant’s Ghost until last year. She was 4 years old. Anyway, we bred her to a BLACK TAIL Type II Anery and were really hoping to prove that Bryant’s original Ghost male was actually a Ghost. Unbeknownst to us, Gus Rentfro had a male Hypo son of Bryant’s Ghost and he bred him last year as well, but to a normal Nicaraguan female (I’m not sure if that female was a littermate to the Hypo or not). As far as I know, Gus didn’t know anything about Bryant’s Ghost and just believed his male Hypo to be a “regular” hypo Nicaraguan.


So, here is where the confusion begins….when Gus’ litter was born, he had a Ghost, an Anery that had the more Colombian kind of look, a Hypo and a few normals in the litter. Some of you may remember that he posted pictures of this litter here on the forum. After contacting Gus, we realized that his Hypo male that father the litter was a sibling to our Hypo female. Gus’ litter, which was a het to het breeding, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bryant King’s Ghost was actually a Ghost!!! We were thrilled because #1 it finally answered the question about whether Bryant’s male was a naturally occurring Ghost, and the suspense was killing me, and #2 we ASSUMED that it meant that when our female Hypo that was a sibling to Gus’ male gave birth a few weeks from then that we would also have Ghosts and Type II Anery’s. After talking to Gus, he said that he really wasn’t interested in going down the morph path, and we arranged to buy the entire litter and the parents (so, the Hypo het Ghost male sibling to our female and the Normal het Type II Anery female). Here is a picture of the Ghost from that litter and a picture of the Anery from the litter….notice the difference from the Black tail anery’s that make up the majority of the Type II’s in our collections.


And the Anery:

Ok, so now we know that the Hypo’s from Bryant are het Type II Anery and we are dying to see the babies that our female produces because we can’t wait for some Ghosts. Well, our girl gives birth a few weeks later and THERE ARE NO GHOSTS AND NO ANERY’S!!!!!!!! There were beautiful hypos but what the heck does it mean that there were no ghosts or anery's???? At that point (remember this was last year) we figured that there were 3 possibilities: Either our female Hypo was confused with another hypo that he had and wasn’t actually related to Bryant’s Ghost OR Black Tail Anery’s are not compatible with the lighter variety of Nicaraguan Anery’s like Gus produced OR Black Tail Type II Anery’s ARE NOT anery’s at all! More breeding needed to be done to rule out some possibilities.

This year we bred the Hypo Het Ghost male that used to be Gus’ to our female Hypo that we bred to a Black Tail Type II Anery last year only to produce no Ghosts or Anery’s. Sure enough, we had a healthy litter that included Ghosts! The odds were not on our side in that we didn’t produce any regular Type II Anery’s, but we were very lucky to produce Ghosts!!! This breeding ruled out possibility number one….our female was definitely the daughter of Bryant King’s Ghost, but that still leaves us with the other two possibilities. Are the Black Tail Anery’s simply not compatible with the lighter Type II Anery Nics?? Or does this mean that we didn’t get any anery’s last year because the black tail anery’s are SOMETHING, but that something isn’t Anerytheristic???? Is it possible that the Black Tail Anery’s are just Hypermelanistic or can they possibly be Axanthic but not Anerytheristic (not sure how the genetics would work on lacking yellow pigment but still having red)?? If they aren’t actually Anerytheristic but are something else, would that explain why there haven’t been any Blizzards born yet?
Here is a picture of a Ghost from this year:

And here is one compared with a sibling (possible super hypo poss het ghost):


In a foolish attempt to create room for more babies last year, we sold ALL of the offspring from our HYPO het Type II to Black TAIL Anery litter. These babies would really help answer some serious questions about the nature of the Type II Anery gene. While they are only 50% possible het for the lighter variety of Type II Anery, they are 100% het for whatever the Black Tail Anery is. So, if our customers breed them to black tail anery’s (or better yet HET’s for black tail Anery, as I feel that het to het breedings are the surest way to prove a recessive gene) and produce Ghosts, it will answer our questions for sure…we would know that if Ghosts are produced, Black Tails are in fact Anery’s but just aren’t compatible with the lighter variety of Type II Nics. If NO GHOSTS are produced from breeding them, we can assume that black tail anery’s aren’t anery’s but are something else. Then further work would need to be done to prove what that “something else” is. (To our customers who have these animals….We are counting on you!!! lol)


On another note, we also bred our male naturally occurring Ghost this year. In previous years we didn’t feel that he had the weight to sustain him through breeding season (he had been a picky eater for a period) but this year he started eating regularly and we felt confident that we could breed him. Anyway, here is the really funny thing….We got an ENTIRE litter of Hypos! I don't have any pictures of those babies yet because we haven't had time but they are very nice hypos too! We bred him to a female Nic that we got as a baby because we thought she was really nice… it’s possible that she is a Hypo and we never realized it, but I don’t think so. I think he turned out to be a Super!! Imagine THOSE odds!!! lol A Naturally Occurring SUPER GHOST!!! We will breed him to the normal het Type II Anery that we got from Gus next year to be sure if he is a super, but for now that’s how it looks. Also, we are 99% sure that he is the lighter variety of Nicaraguan Anery because as a baby he looked exactly like the Ghost we got from Gus and the Ghosts we produced this year.


If you are still reading, I apologize for the lengthy post, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it any shorter without leaving out important information. I will try to answer any questions anybody might have but basically, the more I think about it, the more questions I come up with myself. Unfortunately, these breedings have made things about as clear as mud, and have left me with more questions than answers! Lol I would also love to hear feedback from anyone else working with Type II's, especially anyone who has done het to het breedings.


Thanks for reading my longwinded post!!
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Amanda Burke
Email
Burke Reptiles Website

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