Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm going to separate dwarf morphs from this poll (Nics, etc..).

For those working with "Colombian" boa morphs, how important is it that the animals be 100% Colombian?

For those that recognize Colombians as BCI, how important is it that there is only BCI blood (even if it's not Colombian) in the lineage?

For those that recognize Colombians as BCC, how important is it that there is only BCC blood in the lineage?

Feel free to share any other thoughts you have.
Thanks!
jb
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Jonathan Brady
*You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.*

I didn't want to include my response in the main topic so here's what I think.

I like both pure locality morphs, as well as morphs for the sake of morphs. I like both because it's fascinating to me that nature can create something within a relatively small geographic range that's so far out of the norm (locality morphs). It's also fun to see what selective breeding can produce (morphs in general).

I think it's interesting and funny that people are averse to crossing BCC into Colombian morph projects that already have BCI hypo blood in them. The reason I think that is most people don't do scale counts and there are both BCC and BCI in Colombia. So, many people have Colombian BCC, and many have Colombian BCI, and many people have Colombian BCCxBCI. And many people have all variations! And practically everyone can't tell the difference (especially after generations of captive breeding). The irony is that salmons and orange tails are most commonly thought to be from Panama, home of BCI and they've been bred extensively into "Colombians", both BCC and BCI. And just because your "normal Colombian" boa doesn't have the hypo trait, doesn't mean it doesn't have the lineage!!!

I bring all of this up because I purchased a hypo jungle that has Peruvian blood in it and I plan to breed him to a Sharp albino. I'm worried that the marketability of the offspring would be greatly diminished due to the fact that the offspring would be 1/8 Peruvian BCC. I worry that buyers would shy away from them because they'll say they're BCI x BCC. Again, I point out that probably EVERY salmon descendant out there is a BCI x BCC offspring (Panamanian x Colombian). So what's wrong with throwing more BCC (Peruvian) blood into the line?

Well, I think I expressed my thoughts rather incohesively! What do you think?.. about the general idea, not my incoherent rambling!!
jb
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Jonathan Brady
*You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.*

I will make this comment:Bcc are NOT exported out of Colombia and haven't been for MANY years. Everything exported is from west of the Andies. ALL the wildlife in Amazonus is and has been totally protected for many years. Actually almost NOBODY has Bcc from Colombia. I was in Colombia several times in the 1990's as an IUCN croc specialist and visited MANY boa farms. All are located in the Rio Magdalena Region and all were Bci. I attempted to try to get the largest exporter to get me some snakes from Leticia[they look a lot like Peruvians] and he could NOT get permits to export. It's been well over 20 years since the last Bcc were exported out of Colombia....TC

I don't claim to know a small fraction of what you know, but let me ask this, since it has been 2 decades since BCC were exported out of Colombia, wouldn't that mean there could be (and probably are) thriving populations of CBB Colombian BCC in the pet trade here? As well as CBB "petshop" BCCxBCI? I THINK that I've heard that Jim Peters line keys out to BCC and Jeff Ronne has repeatedly made it known that his line also keys out BCC. I'm sure there are others as well I've just never followed Amazonian BCC so I severely lack knowledge in that area.
Thanks for your contribution Tom!
jb
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Jonathan Brady
*You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.*

The only Bcc I'm very familiar with were the ones exported from Leticia many years ago. I'm old enough [lol] to have actually imported some personally. They look, act, and probably are the same as Peruvian Redtails. Jim Peters has no Bcc except for his line of Peruvians. His Colombians are Bci from the Rio Magdalena Area. I haven't seen J. Ronne's and have no opinion. As most of you know the Andies seperate S. America with Bci on the west and Bcc on the east. There are some small areas where the range can overlap but damned few and very small in area. A lot of work with D.N.A. needs to be done to understand this confusing ball of worms better. I personally have never seen a Leticia Boa offered on Kingsnake yet that even resembles the imported ones I used to get and sell. There are other areas in Colombia east of the Andies that could and probably do support Boa populations but I'm not sure what they look like. Remember Boas usually don't occur at higher altitudes and the east side of the Andies in Colombia is the Amazon Basin. Again I'll say I don't believe many "pure" Colombian Bcc are held by anyone because of the looonnngg time since any have been available commercially. I KNOW FOR A FACT THEY LOOK NOTHING LIKE THE ONES I SAW AND IMPORTED MANY YEARS AGO!.....TC

Whats your opinion on the fact that alot of Baranquilla Colombians key out as BCC?
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South Central Herpetological

I think the OLD keys are inaccurate and shouldn't be applied. It's my belief that with D.N.A. studies there would be many more SPECIES of Boas than recognized today. I belief scale counts at best are variable among the SAME Boas and it is a poor way to speciate anything in this time of D.N.A. possibilities. That recently was PROVEN with N. American Ratsnakes where we have even new genera today.....TC

On how recently they were mixed. I think this is much more
prevalent than some would have us believe.

I've always thought that a lot of those BCI that come from
'named' lines have such red tails because they have been bred
with BCC & they somehow managed to pin down that trait and breed
it into BCI lines. The same goes for BCA with those bright red
tails. (Or to be more direct, the short tailed boas with the
long tails).

If it is a breeding project of mine, I would want to exclude
any BCI that were the result of BCC/BCI pairings as much as
possible. It might be impossible to do though...

I believe that crossing should not be done at all! I understand what benefit's that crossing brings to morph's, I do not think less of anyone that doe's this and would also defend there right to do so. Just my thought. (short & simple version)
Joel Thomas

Thanks for your contribution Joel.
I used to say the exact same thing several years ago. Then I realized that the populations of animals produced by such cross breedings would never come in contact with my pure locality animals, so it didn't matter to me. They were just boas bred for aesthetic appeal. So, now I appreciate (and own) both. I have the pure and fun stuff. And just the fun stuff.

jb
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Jonathan Brady
*You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.*