The Pastel trait was developed, named and defined by Jeff Ronne as, "A Boa that has an odd overall wash lacking the normal amount of black and a reduction in black pigmentation in particular throughout the pattern. This is particularly apparent in babies, which have the same kind of washed out pattern as Hypos. The saddles as well as the side blotches have less black than 'normal'. In fact, often the side blotches have no black whatsoever. That's it, nor more no less."
Also, "Color is something that is enhanced by the Pastel trait not something that defines it at all.....color is not a deciding factor as to whether or not a Boa is Pastel."
These excerpts are from Jeff's Pastel Boa History which can be found on his forum page at:
www.boaconstrictor.net/forums/showthread.php?t=386
With regard to coral albinos, the remainder of this post is actually a copy of a post we made to the KS boa forum in August, 2005. Though we have gained some insights from our work with the coral trait since that time, the information contained in that post still holds true as far as we know. Look for an updated summary on our website soon! Meanwhile, our post from August, 2005......
The nature of the coral trait has not yet been proven. I've seen everything from just selective breeding to simple recessive to dom/co-dom postulated, but the bottom line is that nobody knows yet. There are a number of reasons for this.
First, the expression of the coral trait in albinos is highly variable and it is difficult to define exactly what "coral" is. The coral albino boas originated from one of Peter Kahl's original heterozygous-for-albinism bloodlines that he produced in 1990 or 1991 (you can read the story on Pete's website). I know from personal communication with Pete that he has bred coral albino to coral albino and got a litter that he considered to be all coral albinos, but which varied in their expression of the coral trait from coral albinos that looked more like this one:
to coral albinos that looked more like this one:
So what is "coral"? There are many albinos that develop "coraling" to varying degrees, but which of those are true coral albinos? Is the deep pink/red head a definitive characteristic for this trait? What about those that just have a dusting of red on their heads? Just as you can have a boa that is "genetic striped" but visually the stripe pattern is broken (i.e. the stripe is not continuous) and so the animal does not APPEAR striped, and just as you can have a jungle boa that does NOT have an aberrant pattern, it appears that you can have a coral albino boa that does not look very "coral". Because of the variability in expression of the trait, it is difficult based only on visual appearance to know if it is a true coral albino or not.
Second, the argument about the existence/expression of the coral trait in het. albinos or normals adds to the uncertainty about the trait. If a coral albino is bred to a normal, all of the offspring are 100% het. albino. But, are they het. coral albino? Are they het. albino het. coral? Are they het. albino possible het. coral? Is heterozygous even a proper term as it relates to the coral trait? Can normals (boas not heterozygous for albininism) possess/express the coral trait? Nobody knows! The following two boas are littermates whose parents were what I would consider to be a "weakly expressed" coral albino male and a het. albino (coral?) female. What do you think?
Is it coral expression in this het. albino boa, or just good coloration?
These are the parents of all the boas above:
As you can see, this coral albino male does not have the deep pink/red head or the intense coloration of the two coral albinos pictured above, and the female is just het. albino and does not possess the impressive coloration of her het. albino offspring, yet they produced all three of the coral albinos and the het. albino pictured above. Thus far, the issue of transmission to and expression of the coral trait in het. albinos and normals has provided more questions than answers. There is much to be learned here!
Finally, one of the most confounding factors in evaluating the nature of the coral trait is that it can remain completely unexpressed for at least 12 to 18 months! The coral albino in the very first picture above looked like this at age 9 months:
Sure glad we didn't sell her! Most breeders do not have the time, space, money or patience to keep and raise an entire litter of boas for as long as two years to see if/how the coral trait will be expressed in each and every animal in the litter. Unless entire litters are evaluated through maturity, it is impossible to get accurate statistical data on the nature of transmission of the trait - and this would be true even if the coral trait were an easily identifiable visual trait!
So, what do I think? I believe that the coral trait is a genetic mutation and not just the result of selective breeding. The coral trait first appeared in one of Pete Kahl's litters, and it's appearance was sudden - not the result of two, three, four generations of breeding towards a desired color trait. And assuming that the trait is a genetic mutation, what is the nature of the genetics behind the coral trait? We'll have to wait and see....
We have over 60 het. albino boas produced from coral or possible coral breedings here at BoaMorph that we have raised for over a year, with varying degrees of possible coral expression. We are anticipating a big litter next year from the adult pair pictured above (we gave Big Mama this year off) and intend to hold back the entire litter to see if any familiar statistical ratios become evident.
Meanwhile, we're just thankful that coral albinos keep popping up in our litters - they're INCREDIBLE!
P.S. If anyone believes that they HAVE proven the nature of the coral trait, we'd love to see a writeup and statistical analysis, and we'd be happy to contribute what data and photos we have to the evaluation!
Steve Reiners
www.BoaMorph.com
