Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guy's here are a few photos of my Bci's. as you can see some of the babies that I produce at the last season has a unique pattern on them. I would love to hear your thoughts about the genetic that might be standing behind that strange pattern.

The litter was of 17 babies and 4 of them had a strange pattern, one of them as a complete stripe on his back.
Any thoughts will be highly appriecated

the adult boa in the photos are the two that produce the babies

Most of the time this type of striping is caused by to cool of temps. not genetics.

I don't know whether that odd pattern is from a genetic or an environmental cause. If it is from environment, then it would not be reproduceable with any predictability. If it is genetic, then the most likely cause is a recessive mutant gene. Albino is a recessive mutant gene, if that is any help, and breeding patterns would be expected to be similar to breeding patterns with albino.

I would raise those oddly patterned babies and mate brother x sister. If every baby in a litter of 12 or more babies had the same or similar pattern, then I would suspect that the abnormality has a genetic cause. If some of the babies did not have the abnormality, then it still might have a genetic cause, but the genetics would be more complicated than a simple Mendelian recessive mutant gene.

Paul Hollander

Genetic or abbarant, it still looks mighty sweet.

Another way you could find out a little quicker than to grow the youngsters, is to mate the same pair next year, and perhaps put the settings a little bit warmer, and see if you hit it again.

During gestation a few degrees either way can do wierd things.

Good luck at any rate!
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Richard Carew
Sunset BCI
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