Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am a regular lurker over at the Ball Python Forum and just became interested in Boas about a year ago. My question is what or where is a good site or book that I can use to learn about Boa genetics and breeding. Dom, Codom, recessive, and all the new morphs. I would like information that is fairly up to date. Thank you.

here is something i have been working on ...

Boa Constrictor Imperator Genetic Mutation List

Color Mutations:
Albinistic – recessive – two strains: Khal and Sharp
Tyrosinase Positive Albinistic - recessive
Hypomelanistic – dominant
Anerythristic – recessive – two strains: type I and type II
Pastel – polygenic
Blood - recessive

Color Mutation Combinations:
Ghost – homozygous anerythristic heterozygous hypomelanistic
Super Ghost - homozygous anerythristic homozygous hypomelanistic
Snow – homozygous anerythristic homozygous albinistic
Sunglow – homozygous albinistic heterozygous hypomelanistic
Super Sunglow - homozygous albinistic heterozygous hypomelanistic
Bloody Salmon – homozygous blood heterozygous hypomelanistic

Locale Related Color Mutations:
Sunset – homozygous hypomelanistic having 50% Hog Island Boa blood
Slamontine – heterozygous hypomelanistic having 50% Argentine Boa blood

Pattern Mutations:
Arabesque – dominant
Jungle – co-dominant
Motley – co-dominant
Stripe – recessive
Reverse Stripe – recessive?
Leopard - recessive

it is not complete ... and you can find more information if you click on the care sheet link on the kingsnake website and click on the boa morphs page.
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- Jason F.

Thanks Jason, Whats the difference between the two lines of Motelys, different lines of jungles, and the different lines of salmons. In salmons whats the key differences in salmons, supers, F1s and F2s? Good list you have though it helps out alot. Thanks again.

i believe the difference between the two lines of motley are the local. one is a colombian origin and the other is central american. not sure if they are the same gene mutation though (can be bred together to produce a homozygous form).
i am not aware that there is more then one line of jungle asside from the swedish originated line.

as far as hypomelanistic goes ...
salmon is a name given to the line bred by rich ihle and orange-tail is a name given to the line bred by jeff gee. as far as genetics goes, they are identical. both lines involve the same mutation on the same gene, this means that all known hypomelanistic boas can be bred together to produce the homozygous form.

the word super is a slang term which is used to describe and animal that is homozygous for a particular trait. this means that the animal in question has a pair of genes pertaining to the morph in question. super hypo means the animal has two hypo genes, super motley means the animal has two motley genes. this term is usually used to talk about non recessive mutations, as an albino boa would technically be a super albino as it has two albino genes.

lastly f1, f2 etc ...
this has nothing to do specifically with the hypo mutation, but rather referenceing breeding groups.
the f stands for filial group. any two unrelated animals can make up a filial group. the offspring of this pair are considered f1 or the first filial group. if you take a pair of offspring from this f1 group and bred them, their offspring will make up the f2 group. offspring from the f2 group bred together make up the f3 group. this is the basics, but it is much more complicated.
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- Jason F.

Thanks for the help Jason, I have a word doc. that I am keeping notes on. Trying to keep track of all the morphs and locals related to the morphs and different lines. Very overwhelming at first but really interesting. I knew what F1 and F2s are pertaining to wild caught or founding stock animals but I didn't know if they had anything special to do with Hypos or supers. Such as are F1s labeled as regular hypos (because they come from a hypoXnormal) and F2s as superhypos (again because they come from a hypoXhypo breeding)? This is the direction I was aiming the question. Again thanks for helping me understand.

the information i posted was copy and pasted from a word document that i made also.

there is a great deal of confusion concerning mutations in boas because many genetics terms are frequently miss used. often people do refer to heterozygous hypos as f1s because they are usualy the result of a hypo x normal paring. but technically a heterozygous hypo bred to an unrealted heterozygous hypo would result in homozygous (super) hypos that would be considered the f1 group.
other genetics terms are miss used like dominant and co-dominant when refering to hypos and ghosts being heterozygous and homozygous. i have seen it many times (classifides ect) when someone refers to a heterozygous animal as co-dominant and a homozygous animal as dominant.
a better understanding of the terms makes it easier to understand what someone is trying to say even when they use words incorrectly.

glad i could help.
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- Jason F.

Good job at clearing up the terms. Well explained. On a side note you are correct about the classified ads. Terms and labels are misused regularly which adds to the confusion of newbies. Good thread. Take care.