Toothless Boa?
Has anyone ever heard of a toothless Boa? I have a female that I thought was just retarded. She has been offered rats every time I have fed for the past year. Most of the time she does not eat. Sometimes she does. I leave a couple rats for her all the time. Sometimes she eats them but most of the time she does not. She is one of those Boas that seems to insist upon "killing" her already dead food. She strikes, wraps and then eats. Simple enough right? Well, the past year she has been striking at her food and most of the time she didn't hang onto it. I thought she was just loosing one of those intrinsic Boa skills. However, the last time I offered a rat I did so a little bit differently. I "pointed" the rat straight at her face. I was hoping that she would strike and that the rat would actually make it part way down her throat so she would go ahead and eat it instead of dropping it again. No such luck... sort of. She did get a good grip on it and then wrapped. After wrapping a rat, a Boa will normally sort of stretch what she is killing. This sets the teeth in deeper. Well I watched her do this only to just as plain as day, pull the rat right out of her mouth! Then it hit me; I wonder is she is missing her teeth. Today I was doing some watering and figured I would check her for this. I pulled her out and using a hemostat sideways, gently opened her mouth. This poor thing does not have her teeth any more. I did see one lonely tooth in there but only one. All those gums and no teeth. She is about 13 years old. Not old by any means. Has anyone else ever heard of this? Bazaar!
