Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm new to owning a snake(tortoise person)and my first purchase was a ball python.Out of curiosity I keep coming onto the Boa forum.I see a difference in them(boa/python)but I can't put my finger on it.Besides personality,what are the characteristics that determine boa/python?Thanks

The biggest difference is pythons lay eggs while boas have live birth
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Adrian De Leon
Hissenia Reptiles

I think the real biggest difference is that Pythons are yucky and Boas are SAHWEEET!!!

On a more serious note, Ball Pythons are WAY WAY WAY more prolific than Boas are. Evidence; the MASSIVE numbers of whatever morph you want to point at Ball Python wise compared to the equivalent in Boa Constrictors over the same period of time.

But you can't forget that Pythons are icky poop. Boas are Hot Fudge Sundaes!
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Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network

HAHA your comments are great!!
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Adrian De Leon
Hissenia Reptiles

bp's are more prolific? lol. Let's see, I had 2 female bps drop this week and got 7 good eggs and a huge clutch is anything over 10 eggs. I had my only boa drop last week and got 24 good babies from her and it was her first season. I do love boa's and plan on getting some over the next few years. Boas have in my opinion much more natural beauty but very few boa morphs can rival bp morphs. It's all in what you prefer.

the funny thing is that no matter what species of snake someone talks about, bp's are always much more prolific. I had a guy tell me retics were less prolific than bp's the other day and made a much more sound investment.

Ok bash away, lol.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

The combination that BPs can breed one male to 10 or more females (I personally know someone who did 13 females and got clutches from all of them) and that they are easier to breed are what make them classified as more prolific.

I don't know about retics, but at least with boas, they are not as predictable to breed. Usually success rate it 50%.
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www.GilbertBoas.com

i believe if you talk to any of the bp breeders they will tell you their success ratio only averages around 65% for good years and can be as low as 40% on bad years.

you guys are forgetting one thing, bp's don't eat. they go off-feed to breed, shed, because the temp dropped 1 degree, because you wore a red shirt while cleaning their cage instead of a blue one and because they are bp's lol.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Denotation:

Main Entry: pro·lif·ic
Function: adjective
Pronunciation: pr&-'li-fik
Etymology: French prolifique, from Latin proles
1 : producing young or fruit especially freely : FRUITFUL
2 archaic : causing abundant growth, generation, or reproduction
3 : marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity
synonym see FERTILE

Although as you have stated boa's obviously produce more offspring per litter than Ball pythons lay eggs. You have to note the success rate of captive propagation in ball pythons breeders supercedes the success rate of boa breeders. Boas are much harder to successful and consistently reproduce offspring than are ball pythons. Like what about failures? Six or seven bad eggs. When a boa slugs out, #'s in the 30's are not uncommon. Also egg layers recover faster due to them depositing their eggs and not having to carry their young to term. But Ball Pythons are not more prolific than Reticulated or Burmese Pythons in my opinion. Otherwise their prices would have dropped accordingly. Ball Pythons are a better investment than Reticulated Pythons because they are not more prolific than retic's. They hold their value longer for that very reason.

Not bashing you by the way.
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

Example:

Pin Stripe Balls: The first one appeared I believe in 2001 or 2002. Only 5 or 6 six years of production. Yet there are literally thousands of them today. I know many breeders with large colonies of them. Armies of them. If you walked around Daytona last year you would have seen scores or perhaps hundreds of Pin Stripe Balls for sale at tables all over the place.

Motley Boas: First one appeared in around I can't remember. Something like 1994 or 1995. If they were equally prolific, there would also be thousands, yea many thousands. However, likely their numbers are actually in the lower hundreds. If you walked around Daytona last year, I believe you would have found fewer than 5 people with Motleys for sale with less than 20 for sale total.

Virtually everyone who invests in high end Ball Pythons of any kind makes them. Lots of them. Many many folks with high end Boas are still working on it including me. I have many many Boas that have not produced for me yet. This is the norm and not the exception. The inverse is true of Ball Pythons.
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Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network

I do understand what you are saying, but I think one reason up until recently alot of people didn't understand the needs to reproduce boas on a consistant basis. Add to this that I've noticed some of the great boa people were reluctant to say the least about giving away advise to those trying to breed them. yes it takes longer for males and females to reach breeding size by sometimes several years. But think about it, if a female produced 3 litters in 10 years (assuming she was 4.5 and big for her first breeding) averaging 30 babies per litter, that's 90 babies or a 9 per year average. Take the same bp even if she breeds at 1.5 years old (which is the exception not the rule) she would have to give you 9 eggs per year, every year which will not happen to keep up with a boa's production.

now the problem arises in teh fact that you can keep 4 adult females in the space that 1 boa would need. So i guess in a breeding facility, per square footage, bp's are more prolific, lol.

on a side note, I think you are underestimating the number of motleys out there. and now that there are super males breeding there will be a huge production increase this year
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Not all boas have live birth....

Look up Saharan Sand Boa and Arabian Sand Boa.

Chris
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Christopher E. Smith
Contact
Captive Bred Herps

There are exceptions to every rule. However Most boas have live birth.
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Adrian De Leon
Hissenia Reptiles

Round Island keel-scaled boa (Casarea dussumieri)they also lay eggs.
Casarea dussumieri

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

give birth to live young.

If I am not mistaken Eryx, Trophidophis and Ungaliophis (not sure on the spelling of the last two) are not classified as true boas.

I think the only true boa genuses are Boa, Epicrates, Corallus, and Eunectus. The Madagascan boas should be too but I don't recall the genus name and I'm not certain on Candoia.

I haven't really kept up with the taxonomy of the other species because I'm not working with them so I could be wrong.
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www.GilbertBoas.com

I am glad you posted that, a closer look on my part made me conclude that Casarea has been re-classified and taken out of the family Boidae and given their own family Bolyeridae. I'm a bit behind in the zoological nomenclature department, back to the books lol. Funny that info (change of classification)was in the link, I posted and I didn't even notice until you mentioned the others.

Thanks!!!!
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

At least I know I'm not crazy!

I don't know about the Round Island species or Trophidophis or Ungaliophis, but generally snakes got dropped into the boa or python category because they had vestigial limbs (spurs).

Rough Scaled Sand boas were the first species I ever bred, I sexed them by looking for spurs. Males have them females don't. I also think they were reclassified, but I'm not sure. They were Eryx conicus when I bred them 3 years ago.
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www.GilbertBoas.com

I appreciate the answers,but I wanted to know how I can distinguish a boa from a python.Some snakes are obvious-ratsnake vs. garter...but at first glance I can't tell python from a boa..so I guess I was looking more for characteristics to tell one from the other...thanks

What kind of python are you talking about? Just curious because personally I do not think any boas look like pythons or the other way around.

Anyway, as with most differences looking at a ton of pictures and live examples will train your eye how to tell one species from another, then you can move to subspecies, morphs and locales.
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www.GilbertBoas.com

Pythons have some very large scales on their heads; boas have more uniform sized scales.