Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I adopted this snake recently. It was originally purchased from a Pet Shop in Lynchburg VA as a Suriname. It is a about 4 feet at 9 months and a gorgeous snake in perfect health and temperament. I believe it to be male, though I have not probed it yet. While he has a brightly colored tail, there are little other traits of suri. Many say he looks like a cross, but I am unsure as to why? I am interested in determining what he is for the purposes of breeding him correctly and representing him as such.

He has lots of BCC traits..... I would classify it as a Shield BCC and stop at that... it could be an intergrade, but it's hard to say from a photo.... I've seen crosses that look just like the BCC parent.... I would say, if you are unsure about lineage... and you breed this animal... be sure to disclose that information before selling any offspring..... You can't look at a photo and declare "this boa is a Surinam" with any real accuracy....

Would a scale count determine this?

scale counts will be identical... these are in essence the same snake.... with just some very subtle differences.... no way to rule it out either way with anything you can measure. There is a new school of thought emerging when it comes to locale boas... A push to get away from stamping locale names on boas based on appearance..... With little doubt... you could say that boa comes from bloodlines from the shield..... but it would be a long guess to give it a locale designation... thus perpetuating these "market" descriptions of each locale.... It's a great bcc... nice example of what the Northeastern region of South America has to offer