The first Roswells showed up in my 2007 pairing of two 50% Suriname boas het for albino...the parents were siblings...



The litter had 13 live babies, which included this live male Roswell, and two stillborn siblings, that were striped the exact same way...



















A few more pics of the 2007 male...























In late 2007, I paired the father of this litter, with his other, larger sister...she gave birth May of this year, there were 26 babies, and 6 Roswells...













































Only two of the Roswells survived, one male and one female.



















All the Roswells from this litter, especially the albinos, had large amounts of yolk in their bellies, and I think this may have directly contributed to their deaths. I am now outcrossing my adult trio to other, unrelated boas...I am hopeful the addition of new blood will make for stronger Roswells in the future...











The genetics are still unknown at this point, but I believe that the Roswells are a super form of the laddertails. All three adult siblings, have connected patterns, some degree of streched out side medallions/side striping, and laddertails. In both litters, a little more than half the babies strongly resembled their parents, with the remainder having 'classic' looking tails...



The larger adult female, is currently gravid by an unrelated 25% Suriname male...and due in early April. I am going to take a guess that the babies will be half laddertail...and I believe a laddertail male from this litter, bred back to the smaller adult female in the future, should produce more Roswell boas, if I am correct about the genetics...









Babies from both litters with connected patterns/laddertails:











































And a few of their classic/normal tailed siblings:



































My adult trio was produced in 2003 by Todd Smith and Dr. Bryan Wayne, from a Colombian albino X pure Suriname import female...according to Todd, the male albino had an ordinary appearance, but the female Suriname had the connected pattern and laddertail, and around half that 2003 litter were laddertail and resembled their mother...





Here are a few pics of the adult trio:



Male:













Smaller female: (mother of 2007 litter)













Larger female: (mother of May, 2008 litter)








-----
Heather Martin

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