While there is a lot going on right now with the USF&W proposal, I did want to take the opportunity to post some information that I think many will find useful.
I figured I would do a little write up about the Panamanian BCI coming in recently. Hopefully this answers questions for those who had them, and works as a reference for everyone else.
To begin, after a 10 year ban on export, Panama permitted a shipment to the United States in early 2005.
There seems to be a lot of confusion as to the contents of this shipment. And most of it seems to be rumors that get passed on through word of mouth and taken as fact. In an effort to address this I have decided to post a scanned image of the CITES permit that accompanied this first shipment. It is not full size because I did not want someone to be able to print it out and use it to sell boas that were not from this shipment, nor the progeny of said boas.
While not fully clear you can make out that the quantity of boas in the shipment was 60. The next detail you will notice is the absence of a subspecies listed. There is a line for the genus, Boa and another for the species, Boa constrictor. However nowhere does it mention Imperator or Sabogae.
Just as comparison this is the CITES for the '04 Costa Rican shipment, again no subspecies label:
So now the question is what made up those 60 boas. There were 3 Sabogae, and 57 Imperator. The information about these contents I got from Kevin Barnett and Matt Lerer (separate inquiries to check validity). In Daytona 2005 I was fortunate enough to see one of the Sabogae on John Berry's table. Identical in appearance to those that Rich Ihle had with him. When John moved back to the UK I believe he sold those boas to Vin Russo. (Please check this if you are interested, I am not 100% sure.)
So now to the 57 Imperator. Kevin notified me of the shipment shortly after he received many of the boas, my dad decided to buy 2.2 of them. We still have these 4 boas, and both females are gravid. Which will hopefully result in healthy litters of F1 boas.
Now there is a very important piece of information that people seem to have missed and/or get confused about. This is the lack of locality data with these boas.
What exactly does that mean?
That means, the exact place of origin, such as the City of collection, was never noted. They may very well come from many Panamanian locales.
Some people seem to think that they are not Panamanian, because the information of no locality information, has been misunderstood. They are without a doubt Panamanian boas, however the collection point is not known. It is the collection point, the city and region that makes the locale definition. Country of origin, and political boundary are just a reference point. So these boas are as much locality boas as a Suriname boa. A boa from Suriname, but with no locale information. Where as a Pokigron Suriname is a locality Suriname boa. Hopefully this example will clear up any added confusion to my explanation.
Back to the 57 boas. This group consisted of Hypos, Wild Type (normal), and reverse striped boas of varying degrees from both color phases.
Matt Lerer of GHI Reptiles bought the shipment directly from the importer. Matt reported to me that of those 57 Boas, 23 were Hypos. The number of 26 quoted in other sources seems to have included the Sabogae as Hypos, although the true Hypomelanistic Panamanians were BCI. So, 34 Wild Type, 23 Hypo BCI, and 3 Sabogae.
Now of those Hypos and wild type BCI there were some with full reverse stripes. I have seen 2 wild type stripes, and Matt has 7 Hypos with full reverse stripes.
Others, such as this male which we have, have lesser stripes.
The same male braving this shot:
Some of you may now be asking about those Sabogae. How did they end up there? Well, the Pearl Islands, the island of Toboga, and other islands in the Bay of Panama (exit of Panama canal) are all under Panamanian governmental control, and home to wild populations of Boa constrictor sabogae. So those 3 boas, which have been authenticated as Sabogae, could have come from one of those islands. There may be mainland Sabogae populations, but I do not know.
So that pretty much sums up the first Panamanian shipment. However, there were others.
In Vin Russo's book The Complete Boa Constrictor, he mentions only one shipment. However that was written before the other shipments. Keep in mind the extensive time from writing to publishing to release.
Again, quoting Matt Lerer, the second shipment in 2005 contained 12 boas. 6 of which were Hypos.
There was not another shipment to the United States until 2007. There were 2 shipments in 2007. The first of which contained 20 boas, and no Hypos. These boas were publicly offered for sale on Kingsnake classifieds.
Now the 4th and final shipment I have heard mixed reports on. Jared Horenstien saw some of the boas, and said they all looked similar. I saw pictures of two of them, and they appear visually speaking to be Sabogae. Matt did not mention how many boas were in the shipment, only that it was small and contained one hypo. Matt did mention that Sabogae were coming in more often now. So the shipment that Jared and Matt were each referring two may or may not be the same. The important point is that only 4 shipments of Panamanian BCI have come in. With the numbers just above 89, and less than 100. I have also received two private accounts from individuals that obtained boas from the first shipment, which later died, between the two people at least 7 of the boas are dead. There may be more as I do not know who all has them to check current quotas.
I would love to talk more about Panamanian Sabogae, but that is another topic, which I still do not have all the information for. And the focus here is on the Imperator.
So in concluding, Panamanian BCI are rare boas in culture. With numbers less than 100 in the country. As well, because of the methods of import, all valid examples should be accompanied by CITES permits. I am not aware of any yet being produced in the US. Matt has a few gravid Hypo Reverse Stripes, and my dad has two gravid Wild Types. These should be the first US CBB litters, as 2008 marks F1 Panamanian imperator.
One final side note. The CA Motleys introduced to those of us in the US by Alex Barriero of Boa Republic have been reported by John Berry to have originated in the UK from Panamanian stock. John is originally from and currently resides in the UK. I ran this information by a US breeder who shall remain nameless, and the truth to this claim was questioned. The cited reason was that because Panama had a complete ban on export for 10 years, not just to the US, that this was not likely.
The CA Motleys have been bred to Nicaraguan and other boas of Central American lineage, as well as a breeding to a Colombian EBV Red Group. I spoke with Alex this summer and he does have 1.1 original CA Motleys, whatever their original origin may be. However they are siblings. Perhaps this has become like the original Salmon matriarch that Rich Ihle started with, a boa of unknown origin reported to be Panamanian.
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