I believe it is a myth that all boas from the Hog is. started out super-dwarf and speckled and dark.. There's an image of a boa on a vine on Cayo Cochino (grande, I believe) at a tourism website.. it shows a 5' pink boa with not many specks. Mind you a 5' Boa is still not a monster! .. but it is larger than many say a real Hog Is. boas 'should' be.



Helping this myth is the fact that most we have seen ARE real small, and breed small.. my theory is that importers just like to buy (and pay for shipping on) small Boa.. and if you've worked with WC HoG Is. snakes the dark grey or brown look gets much lighter after just one or two shed-cycles.



And.. people just like to feed their Boa too much.. they all get bigger than the average snake seen in nature when kept that way.



Here our Hog Is. boas are 1 meter to just about 2 meters in length, with the males averaging somewhat shorter and much less massive than the girls.. I stll have females drop at age 3 at 1 meter in length.. but by the time they've had three litters many do push the envelope of what we consider proper Hog size.



If you like tiny grey Hog Island Boa.. go with it (they are among my favourites too, but I like all of them). While there are some crosses out there and sometimes they are hard to pick out from a quick pic.. there's too many questions left unanswered about the cumulative effects of captive conditions, selective breeding and more to automatically question the heritage of any Hog Island boa we see that is really pretty and over about 5' in length.

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Peace out!





-----
Gus

A. Rentfro

RioBravoReptiles.com

www.riobravoreptiles.com



"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

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