Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Who knows what happened to this kid? These pics were taken in the late 90s (hence the bad quality) at the wholesaler which sold this boa. He/she was coined "mocha boa" at that time. I was curious if anyone had information on this sweet snake. Where are the mocha boas?

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Phil Goss
www.GossReptiles.com

Scoria?? Killer animals!!

Nope...the mocha was imported by Cal Zoo I believe...looks like a Scoria though...

Amie

The boa is not a scoria. The boa pictured came through Cal Zoo in the late 90s. The scoria boa came a few years later.
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Phil Goss
www.GossReptiles.com

I know the pics aren't the greatest, but it sure looks similar to a Scoria. Jeff, give us the scoop on this thing!!!!!

Guy

The Mocha as Phil said came about a long time ago. As far as I know, Russ L. purchased the Mocha....beyond that, is his story to tell. Take care

Paul

Phil,
I know that what your are claiming is all true. Thru Cal Zoo in the 90's, labeled as MOCHA, etc, etc. But I don’t think that just claiming that the MOCHA is not a SCORIA is the correct way to go about this. MOCHA may not be a SCORIA and SCORIA may not be a MOCHA, but, if you take a real close subjective look at lateral patterns, tail pattern characteristics, the head pattern, and overall outward appearance, the MOCHA and the SCORIA DO resemble each other quite a bit other than color. Keep in mind to that some of the SCORIA's that have been produced are not all bright orange like the one pictured on SALMONBOA.com which is currently being displayed as the "IDEAL SPECIMEN". In fact, some of the SCORIA’s to date are much similar to the MOCHA in coloration. We are probably also going to find out in the coming years that the SCORIA has a very random pattern and coloration much like Jaguar Carpet pythons do. This could very likely lead to SCORIA's producing MOCHA's at some point down the line once more of them become available. I for one would love to see what the SCORIA gene does when combined with the ORANGE HYPO, SALMON HYPO, T pos, JUNGLE, ARABESQUE, etc, etc. You get the point. And you can probably bet darn well the Rich has already started down that path.

OK. Here’s some real controversy. It may also be that the MOCHA happened long enough ago that it was labeled differently than it is labeled today which would really mean that the SCORIA is actually a MOCHA. Since it sounds like the Phenotype MOCHA can't be found at thsi point we may never know. Make any sense?

All that said, I know this is really far fetched, but couldn't the MOCHA have been the "Founder SCORIA" and the gene just kind of got lost in the shuffle over the years. I mean, the MOCHA was an import right? That means that something produced it. Which means that there were probably other animals produced that carried a partial gene set but may not have had the same outward appearance. Some of these animals may never have been collected, some of them may have made their way elsewhere and some of them just might have been collected and imported later, possibly years later in farm raised stock possibly. And just maybe by some coincidence, two animals that carried the correct genes finally hooked up to produce the SCORIA. Maybe the mutant gene that produced both MOCHA and SCORIA has been passed around by normal animals for a few years and had to undergo exactly the same set of external conditions to mutate to the MOCHA and SCORIA results. Or just maybe, the MOCHA could have been bred with another animal which didn't end up producing the results that were expected. The resulting offspring may have had a perfectly normal appearance in which case, in the late 90's all of the offspring probably would have been sold off as normal. One of these offspring could have then ended producing animals with the mutant SCORIA/MOCHA gene which finally ended up breeding together to produce what we now know as the SCORIA. But then again, maybe both MOCHA and SCORIA are ultra low probability animals. You know, the 1/128 variety. Further breeding trials will definitely be done in the years to come which will either prove or disprove anything we have to say at this point.

The real test, which is probably not going to happen but would provide the easy answer would be to find the MOCHA, do DNA testing on both it and the SCORIA and see what the results say. They should be able to do DNA testing from a shed skin of each of the animals, right? That would surely shine some light on the two morphs.

Not bustin your chops, just pointing out other possibilities

Chris

It's okay to bust my chops with a valid point. I was reaffirming that this boa was around before the scoria boas came along. The mocha may indeed have the same genetic make-up and may be compatible, but he/she was pre-scoria.

I do not know if the mocha was ever bred. Maybe some normal babies from these breedings did slip through the cracks. That's one of the questions I wanted answered.

As was also stated, the scoria is here to stay. With a few of these boas running around, I'm sure we'll see great things from the morph. The scoria is a beautiful addition to the boa world. I was just fishing around for some info on another interesting boa. This forum is a place to gather and share information.

P.S. Good post Chris.
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Phil Goss
www.GossReptiles.com

By testing the DNA, exactly what are they going to be able to tell? Unless the genetic trait has been identified to a locus, or group of loci in combination, then nothing can be determined from the comparision. To my knowledge, no traits have been mapped to specific loci in Boa constrictors.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

I wasn't thinking on the lines of genetic traits rather I was think more on the lines of the possibility of being able to determine if these two animals shared some commmon parent at some point. Kind of like they did with the testing on Anna Nicloe Smith's baby to see who the dad was. I would think they could look at the DNA strands to see if they were somehow related back to one common parent. I know they are all realted at some point on an evolutionary stance, but then again so are we and I believe they can make determinations about grandparents 4 to 5 generations back for us so why couldn't the same thing be done for reptiles?
Maybe I was just fishing...

Chris

Testing for first or second order relatives is realtively simple nowadays using do-dominant molecular markers such as microsatellite DNA repeats, however, going back 4 to 5 generations is currently unlikely to yield an conclusive results. Mitochondrial DNA (DNA inherited directly from the mother [in most cases]) is also an option, however, given that animals over a large geographic range commonly share mitochondrial haplotypes this is also unlikely to yield any conclusive result.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

Mr. Ronne can answer that one...he has a few pics too. I believe that one succumbed to IBD.

Amie

I think the people at visioncages.com claim to have this boa.

Greg

This boas has a long history. It did not come in thru cal zoo. It came in thru FL. Then it came to AZ (me and another guy), was sold locally in AZ, then an employee ran off with it, He may have also been part owner, but it was then sold to cal zoo. Then from cal zoo it went to NY and russ lockenwitz had it for awhile. I dont know if he still has it or where it is today.

It was called the mocha

Beau

We may never know. Visually they look to be the same thing in every way. I had seen all the Scoria in the flesh two years ago after the first litter of more than one babies were born. They are a little bit variable for sure and not exactly the same as each other. I am sure that Jeff is able to tell them each appart easily.

Are they the same genetic anomaly? Until the Mocha is bred and proves to produce offspring in the same manner, that question will remain up in the air. Further, since the Scoria was bred and proven first, I would be of the opinion that the "Scoria" name would be the name that would take precedent in this case. So regardless, I think "Scoria" it is.
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the scorcias are pink....the mocha is patternless brown grey....its on vision cages site...

Today I did search on the internet and found a website. Apparently the Mocha Boa resides with Russ Lockenwitz at RLReptiles.com. I found several references to this boa in several magazine references including an issue of Vivarium 10(1):34.

I also found this webpage:
www.texasreptiles.com/htm/boa.html

and this website www.rlreptiles.com/

Both of which reference the Mocha Boa belonging to Russ. He even has this page of potential offspring that list Moach Babies at $20K each. I have not contacted him yet to confirm that he may have in deed produced any true Mochas or just what they think my provide the genetics to produce Mocha's.

Chris