Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thank you everyone for your feedback and comments. Participation in forums like this one is important and fundamental to the success of information dissemination. I also just want to let everyone know that there were only two babies in this litter. One Hypo and one non-hypo. I just used trick photography to make it look like there were actually more than that. How does that sound Chris? Now for some serious information!

Back in 1989, 1990 or 1991, I saw my first Boas that had been produced by a Hypomelanistic Boa. I was not able to see the Hypos from that breeding till much later but I did see some of the F1 non-hypos. Actually I bought four of them. That was a long time ago for some of you, who were still taking a bottle and pooping in your diapers at that time... LOL These babies were born to the female that Dr. David Hardy had brought back from Gamboa Panama. Nobody knew that she was making "Hypos" back then. They just knew about half the babies had bright red tails and half didn't. They called the nicer ones "Orange Tails". Marcia Lincoln and Bill Girden were active Boa nut cases, like me, back then and we spoke often. Marcia and Bill were the first ones to breed North Western Peruvian Boas that originated in Tumbes Peru too by the way.

Anyhow, I heard about these orange tail Boas and asked Bill if he could get some for me. He told me he was on the list to get some from Dr. Hardy and would get some for me if possible. We knew that Dr. Hardy had caught this female at the train station in Gamboa Panama and that he was breeding it with a Colombian male. I was hoping that I could get my hands on one or two of the special ones with the orange tails. As it turned out, Bill and Marcia were able to get 2.1 but nothing extra for little old me. Oh well. Still I bought 2.2 of the non-hypo siblings. This is what is interesting to note. These were F1 offspring from a Colombian male and a Panamanian female that happened to be Hypo. These four non-hypo F1 offspring looked exactly like the captive born F1 Panamanian Boas that Shawn Gilbert produced recently. Very distinctly different from Colombian type Boas in every way. They had the narrower saddles than is typical for Colombians. The dirty looking color in the tail compared to Colombians. Overall they seemed thinner to a slight degree too just like Shawn's babies. The head stripe was very bold too just like Shawn's babies. The tail color seemed to be slightly infused into the saddles as well. And the saddles had that little edging of darker color around them like the Panamanians that Shawn produced in the past few weeks.

Now those are the only F1 offspring I have personally seen from any Hypos until now. I'm sure other people have bred a number of the other Costa Rican Hypos and produced F1 offspring as well. But they have all likely, knowing exactly what they had, bred them only to other Boas of identical or close origin. I don't know of anyone having done that F1 Hypo breeding with any Central American imported Hypos and a Colombian. However, I suspect they likely would show many of the non-Colombian characteristics just like Dr. Hardy's original female offspring did. Different probably from the Panamanian stock but certainly different from non-hypo Colombians. Which brings me to some interesting observations regarding the fresh litter we just had born a few days ago from the Hypo that was imported from Colombia and a Colombian female I have.

First, I am pleased, albeit not at all shocked after thinking it through, how beautiful the Hypos that were produced from this F1 breeding are. I think that the fact that there isn't that other Central American genetic material in there to dilute, that the babies are just going to be much more pleasing to the eye right off the bat. After all these are the first all Colombian Hypos produced in captivity. The following photos are pre-shed photos. Here is a photo of a group of the Hypos:

The color didn't turn out right in these shots but trust me, these puppies are unbelievably brightly colored. After getting them out and setting them up, I was quite please with them. They are going to be so much better in about a week! Next and I think most importantly, the non-hypo offspring do not look at all like the other F1 Panamanian X Colombian non-hypos I had seen years ago. There is absolutely nothing about these babies that says anything but Colombian to me. In fact, unlike all the F2 Hypos I have made over the years, and almost all of the F3 Hypos I have made, the majority of these puppies are Pastels! That pleases me greatly. I can't wait for these guys to shed so I can see how nice they really are. Here is a group of the non-hypos from the litter:

By the way Tracy; as you can see from the photos, the Hypos do tend to have narrower pattern than the non-hypos. We will have to wait till they shed to see more. You can count on the fact that you will be seeing more of these babies! They are huge babies and those two weighed a ton in my baby bucket!
-----
Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network

What now is the difference between

1. orangetails
2. salmons
3. jeffs new boa

For me they all look very similar?

Not that much probably. Except that the locality of origin of the "Jeff's New Boa" is Colombia. No "other" locality blood mixed in. The orange tails were produced by a known Panamanian female bred to a known Colombian male. So all "Orange Tail Hypos" have some, albeit less and less with each generation, Panamanian influence. The Salmons I think are also believed to be on Panamanian decent. In fact many believe the original Matriarch of them was actually one of the F1 Hypos produced by Dr. Hardy. That is not known for certain though.

As far as not having any Panamanian influence, this will be important to some folks, and irrelevant to others. It will be irrelevant to everything I do with my already established lines of Hypos which are mostly descendants of the Dr. Hardy produced Hypos. However, there will certainly be a few other little projects that these new bloodline of Hypos will play a role in with my animals.
-----
Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network

I understand your point. I also agree with you about the orangetail and salmon lines being mixed with colombians, so much as one would be hard pressed to pick between the three unless they had a trained eyed. Non the less a great find!

Chris

Very nice Jeff congrats ... it will be interesting to see how they differ in color from Orange Tail and Salmon hypos in a few months time. I'm sure you will be posting regular updated photos !!

cheers, John
www.johnberryreptiles.com
www.designermorphs.com

Sorry even more documentation to add to the voracity of this animal.

I have one important thing to note. That is the credibility of the tale. This story started in May of 2002 when Erich Gaertner first purchased the father of these babies from Strictly Reptiles through John Carlson. John Carlson was hand picking some stuff at Strictly Reptiles in Florida. John told his friend Erich that he would look through the Boas to see if there was anything of interest. Erich retells this story at the following link in April of 2003:

Erichs Original Post

This Boa was purchased as a baby six years ago. The pictures no longer work on this forum, that is no longer used, but the story is there. The picture of the Hypo, when a fresh imported baby was actually taken by John Carlson while still at Strictly.

Beyond that, Erich can verify the story and so can John Carlson. Erich sold all his Boas to me nearly five years ago, and one of those animals was this male Colombian Hypo. I tried for first four years to breed him to a different female unsuccessfully. This year I tried a new female and was fortunate to have a nice litter of babies.

Since we have not seen a Hypo import from Colombia before, that we know of, we do not know what one should look like exactly. We do not know how that Hypo trait will be expressed exactly. Plus there could very well be other "Hypos" lines still in Colombia completely unrelated to this one. How will they be expressed? We just don't know. Tracy Barkers Pink Panthers are expressed differently. Shoot, there may be more produced in captivity sometime that may look a little different from both of ours. There is no rule.

I only have this one Colombian Hypo, that has a clear verifiable story from honorable guys, who have no reason to make this up. If it was made up, it was a long time in planning, and I waited a lot longer than I should have to produce babies. If this was a ruse, I would have produced (wink wink) those babies years ago. Hypos are not nearly as valuable as they were four years ago when this fellow potentially could have made babies that would have been worth more money. However, the fact remains he was in the hands of honorable guys who were not going to say they produced using him until they did. I for one had him these past four season without breeding him successfully until this year.

So that's the whole story pretty much. I think Erich will post sometime to verify all this as well.

Here are a few other posts where I spoke about this Boa long ago adding to the voracity of this story. The pictures from these older posts do not work because of a glitch in the software for the forum transfers that lost all the images prior to the transfer. Please note that lots of known other people have heard about this animal over these years. In fact many including Jonathan Brady, Randy Tanner, Larry M., Ed Lilly, Darrin Brasher, Dan Klopson and Chris Gilbert will find their follow-up posts after posts where I or Erich talk about this animal. I just had not bred him successfully till now. That's the truth.

One Jeff Ronne mention from September 2, 2003

Another Jeff Ronne mention from December 26, 2004

Another mention from this past November 2, 2007

Sorry about all the blabber. That should do it.
-----
Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network

Well I find it hard to believe that there are those out there who question Jeff's integrity! I've known Jeff for 11 years now and while I'm not into breeding Boas anymore I still consider him a true friend who's integrity and honesty are SECOND TO NONE! That's why I'm posting here today!

The story of the Colombian Hypo is all TRUE! Not really much to it. Jeff explains it accurately. I also stated on this very Board back in 2003 the details of this Boa.

I don't have, nor have I ever had, any documentation for this Boa. If you own any Kahl Albinos, did you contact Pete Kahl and demand "documentation" before you acquired any of them? If you own any Motley Boas, did you contact Ron St. Pierre and request the "documentation" he no doubt received from Strictly when he bought that first "Colombian" imported Motley? If you have any of the Central American T-Positive bloodline animals, did you get "documentation" from Mike Powell who imported them before he sold them to Ben Siegel? I'm guessing probably not!

I find it odd that there are those out there who demand this of Jeff?! Is it jealousy? Are you feeling threatened that your Hypo project might not be worth as much? I'm guessing that's not going to happen, but Jeff's "True/Pure Colombian" line might be worth more! Maybe, maybe not!

Whatever the motivation, the "story" behind this Boa is pretty self explanatory I think!

I would also like to add that I purchased this Boa for far less than the going wholesale price for Hypos at the time. I'm guessing if it was an animal produced from captive stock Mike would have charged the going wholesale rate for Hypos at that time.

I aplogize to anyone who might take offense to my post. But where I come from, friends look out for friends! When I got wind of some out there questioning Jeff's integrity and the integrity of his Boas I had to post! I do miss this time of year when the anticipation of babies hitting the ground is almost to much to take, but I don't miss the petty BS that some in this hobby perpetuate due to jealousy, insecurity or pure ignorance!

Keep up the GREAT work Jeff!

Erich Gaertner

There was a bigger group than the just one male. There must have been six or seven total?
If you go to Mark Lucas's site, he has pics of those animals. Straight from colombia......as he works there at Strictly.