I label my boas by country of origin when known. Suriname, Guyanan, Trinidad, Costa Rican, Honduran what ever. ......because that's where they came from. To me it's basic common sense that has no scientific reason. Taking it further saying the animals are from Pokigron, Apetina , Tepu , Esssequibo or whatever is for the most part inconsequential . If someone really wants this type of information that's a personal choice. Tons of animals are collected around these places. There are no physical characteristics that define any locale when talking about these types of boas. Any animal brought in from Guyana or Suriname might be a Pokigron or a Essequibo river or a wherever. There's nothing special about any of them. With these snakes what makes a particular animal special is it's individual characteristics not it's locality .

They ALL hunt the same places. They all get animals from each other or sell and ship for each other. There are no exclusive relationships between exporters and importers or even hunters for that matter.


Like I said nobody's going to any secret remote spots .
This is because ,

A. , Accessibility , you can`t get to many places . Its very limited where you can travel.

B COST, to plan out a trip to a new location is not cheap, to go by boat not only takes forever but boats require fuel / expensive fuel. The best way is by chartering a plane. Anyone want to talk about what's involved with that ? Expense , risk and the very likely possibility that you won't find anything that you couldn't have found at one of the usual spots. Maybe you won't find anything at all.

C. Familiarity the plan is to go where you know the animals are and when their there. Even going out to the known areas is an ordeal. No map can explain how vast these regions are. 95% will never be collected. What we see in the trade represents a faction of the animals from a fraction of the range.

It was brought up about the " Basin " and the " Northern Type" emerald tree boas. This is a good example to show just how off names can be. You can find animals that look exactly like " Northern Type" emeralds in the southern most portion of the range and everywhere in between. I think you could find perfect type examples of Guyana / Suriname shield boas in Brazil , Peru , Ecuador pretty much anywhere. I can't stress it enough that what we see is only a small faction of the animals from a small fraction of the range. If Suriname or Guyana ships out 500 boas this is only 500 out of a population that is probably in the hundreds of thousands maybe millions and is only collected from the edge of this population.


The question . I wouldn't breed Guyanans with Suriname's because it's just the way I think. There's no reason not to other then personal choice. Personal choice is always what captive breeding comes down to.


Back to the Q , Look at what else comes from these country's, All the same stuff but nobody is worried about crossing their Guyana Redfoots with their Suriname's. Does anybody sell Guyana monkey frogs ? So why are boas different ? My reason is just choice nothing to deeper. As far captive animals bred past the point that they no longer look like the WC types . I don't think it's even close to that.

Ernie Eison
Westwood Acres Reptile Farms Inc.

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