>The challenge is this. I will put 10 boas on the table, some will come from a "proven line" and some won't. You must pick out what comes from the proven line

I don't know anyone who has said they could pick out one from a 'proven line' over someone else's that shows the pastel traits.
"Pastel" is not a 'morph' that is expressed as dominant or resessive and I don't think anyone claims that to be the case.
I of course am NO expert!!! Just based on my own readings here and prior converstaions... Pastel is a variation of normal with the specific characteristic of washed out/reduced black and typically very washed out side medallions (which as already stated tends to make colors show up more vividly). There are lots of boas out there that express this characteristic. Jeff line bred his boas trying to get that low black trait to show up more and more. I don't believe he's stated "breed a pastel to a normal and have pastel babies". If you breed a pastel to a 'dark normal' the babies will probably be anywhere in the spectrum from some showing more of the light pastel-influance with just as many coming out as dark as the 'dark normal'.

Personally I would only call boas 'pastels' if they are specifically from one of the 'pastel' lines since those people chose that name to describe their line-bred boas and the specific traits they were breeding for. I call my boa a high-pink boa. Do I think she is pastel? I wouldn't call her that since I don't know her history. Do I think she could be considered a pastel? Possibly, she is very clean, very low black (besides the tail) and very washed-out side medallions, but I will always just call her a high-pink normal. If I breed her year after year specially keeping and breeding the lowest black and highest-pink babies to other babies with the same traits I could call them 'cherry' boas instead of pastel if I wanted to and then I would have coined that name for my line-bred boas... which in all reality were just nice colored normals bred togehter over and over to keep the high level of influance of high-pink/low-black.

The amount of 'pastels' on the classifieds is astounding, esp when quite a few appear to just be nice normals with a little pink wash on the sides like lots of other normals. It's up to the buyer to understand what they are getting and research just what the specific morph is that they want.

Just had to throw my $.02 into this debate, I don't know why I am probably asking for it! haha

My high-pink boa was being sold as a Salmon (luckliy I knew she wasn't as soon as I saw her), so in any and all cases it is always buyer beware.


-April

pic is from a few years ago..

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