Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Now many of you might be wondering… “Hey! What in the world is The Boaphile doing here posting on the Ball Python Forum!? This may come as a complete surprise to many of you but I have successfully bred two types of Reptiles. Boas, duh and BALL PYTHONS! That’s right. I had a single pair of Ball Pythons that I cared for and belonged to my son. Not that he did any of the work. Anyhow back in 1988 or 1989 I bred this pair, had five eggs laid and successfully hatched all of them. Way way way before Ball Pythons, and Boas for the matter, were cool. So that I think gives me a small chair somewhere here at the table.

Well, I was unable to find the original post by SerpentCity regarding this but am sure there are some skeptics and figured I would chime in since I have a pretty good memory for such things. It has been a long time since I last spoke with Scott at SerpentCity but I remember what had happened up until about something between six and eight years ago with one particular female so here goes:

First I am pretty sure this was or perhaps IS a female Scott had owned for many many years. Something over 20 years sticks in my head. Anyhow, after these many years never attempting to breed this female Ball Python Scott decides to breed her. She bred successfully, laid a nice clutch of eggs, and hatched them out and badda boom badda bang end of story right? Nope, next year Scott decides NOT to breed her… badda boom badda bang, more eggs, good ones again and babies hatch again. Last I heard she had done this an additional year and badda boom badda bang, eggs hatch. I remember Scott not knowing for sure what was happening. Sperm retention or parthenogenesis. I told Scott he HAD to write something up on this. This was ground breaking very important information that the world needed to know. He said, yea yea sometime. So if Scott is now revealing this information here at the Ball Forum, I know of no other place it has been revealed before now except to people like me in discussions. I think I have all these facts correct. If not Scott can correct me. However, the greater points are these.

1. If this whole story was just made up by Scott so he could get attention or for some other nonsensical reason, he began setting this up by telling me about this female Ball Python 6 – 8 years ago. I haven’t spoken to Scott for probably five years. It strains logic to believe that was his intent way back when he told me about this many years ago.

2. Scott is a scientist. One of the most educated Herpers anywhere. I’m sure Scott has approached this like a scientist would an experiment only trying to do his best to determine the truth.

3. Why not? Why can’t sperm retention be a reality? Why can’t parthenogenesis be possible in Ball Pythons? There is no evidence that these things are not possible. Only the assumption by some that they are not.

Some Boa anecdotal information for you:

1. Pete Kahl told me years ago about an Anerythristic Boa that was a proven breeder that had been bred by an Albino male. She produced all normal babies which you would expect being double hets, save one. The one was an Anerythristic. Obviously the female had retained enough sperm long enough to produce one more Anerythristic.

2. Last year I had a female that had produced slugs and preemie babies the year before, once again produced slugs and FRESH preemie babies. This after not having a male in her cage since the year previous.

3. This year a female I had bred last year (2001) that had produced mostly slugs and a few babies gave birth again. This time very early in the year she had three live babies and a large number of slugs. I had not put a male in with her this year. In fact, it had only been about three months since the other robust females had had the males introduced to them. To short a time for a proper gestation period. I do not make mistakes when it comes to this. I NEVER EVER temporarily EVER place one Boa in with another Boa. It is not possible that I made this mistake. I have NEVER done this. It is just one of those Boaphile no no’s. I don’t do it ever. So this female gave birth to live babies after delivering a litter the year previous and more than sixteen months after the last male had been removed. Parthenogenesis or sperm storage? I think sperm storage is more likely but who knows for sure? Nobody does without doing genetic fingerprinting of Mom and babies.

4. I have heard MANY stories of people breeding supposed “Het” for whatever animals and not producing any of the expected simple recessive progeny. This includes hets purchased from Herpers with the best possible reputations. I do not believe these Herpers would ever rip anyone off. However, if sperm had been retained and any other male had previously been in with the “hets” produced, even years before, it is entirely possible that non-hets could be produced. This either using the more likely retained sperm or parthenogenesis, while it seems very unlikely, could be the root issue.

Now take this opportunity after reading all my rambling to check out these cool little babies! “Pearlescent Boas” is what I call them. Remember, while these animals may not be "Ball Pythons"... they were produced by a Ball Python breeder!

Here is their Daddy!

The Boaphile's Spot! !

Posted by serpentcity on May 13, 2003 at 03:11:49:

Hello Ball Python lovers:
This is my first-ever-in-life posting to the BP forum and it's about 1:25 a.m. (some old habits do die hard!) so please bare with me. A recent article in REPTILES mag (Female Burmese Python Clones Itself, June '03, p. 11) has compelled me to share my experience with forum readers....
I received my first BP on 07/31/1969 when I was 11 years old. This was a well-started hatchling for which my dad paid $25.
The snake thrived...survived my high school years...college years...(I'm lapsing into Ralph Davis speak...). In fact I got permission from the dean of housing to keep this and 2 other snakes in my dorm room my freshman year at the Univ of New Mexico. So anyways...
It's now 1983, my BP is approx 14 years old and I'm a first year vet student at the Univ of Illinois. Another student has an adult BP of what we think is the opposite sex (based on spur-size; remember this is 1983. The only person I knew breeding BP's at the time was Dick Goergen [anyone remember those orange-sided beauties?]. So we put our 2 snakes together and.............nothing happened. Never saw any action whatsoever. We were pretty pre-occupied with school so we let it go at that.
Now it's 1988, and my BP is approx 19 years old, going strong. Going for 20 years, thriving on neglect. No hot spots in the cage, just natural seasonal cycling. During several months of cooler weather the snake would just fast. Fine, one less mouth to feed. The snake would disappear into its hide box for weeks and weeks....
Then one day in late winter 1988 I caught him out of his hide box cruising around and he had this huge symmetrical swelling in the rear portion of his body. I'm thinking he's got a big-ass renal (kidney) tumor. I mean a serious solid-tissue carcinoma! I pick him up but he's not behaving sick, ie he's not weak, he's not uremic or gouty. So I'm thinking in a few days he'll start to crash, nothing to be done therapeutically, he's lived a good life. So back in the cage he goes and several days later he's out cruising again and this time he's quite a great deal thinner in the rear....and I'm thinking lots of thoughts (chief among them were that he shat a tumor, afterall he is a male BASED ON SPURS). I just knew I was going to find some surprise under his hide box! Don't we all love those surprises?!
So I lift his box and there lie 5 infertile slugs. I had an epiphony moment! My boy laid eggs! It was this moment that I learned one CANNOT sex a BP by its spurs. And it may partially explain why we got nothing, including no combat, back in '83.
Now it's 1992, I've moved up to the Chicago area, I've got
my basement full of snake cages, got flexwatt all over the place, Helix thermostats, etc. I've got my lady set up with a hot spot, about 20% of her floor heated. It's 4 years since she laid those spuds, and she decides to do it again. This time I'm ready. About 30 days after shedding she lays again but this time
I decide to let her do the maternal thing. She stays with them, doesn't come out searching for food like in '88. About 10 days later I catch her thermo-regulating on the hot spot, which is right next to her hide box. I think this is a good time to end the experiment and chuck the slugs in the trash. So I lift the box and there lie 4 GOOD eggs. Very caved in, one quite a bit more so than the others, but I knew a good python egg when I saw one (I'd bred Indian and Burmese pythons several times by this point). The humidity was very low, I wasn't doing anything to increase it, why bother? So I carefully removed the eggs, candled them and they were vascularized!!!Even the very caved-in one! Talk about an adrenalin rush! So I set them up in the incubator....and 3 hatched about 58 days later! The very caved-in one contained a full-term dead embryo. All including the dead probed out female, and all appeared normal in every way.
All along I knew 2 possibilities existed: parthenogenesis or sperm storage of 9 years' duration. I should add that this female was never exposed to another BP since 1983. Nada. Yeah sure some people will think I'm still smoking that wackyweed but folks I gave that up some time ago. I looked into DNA analysis but it was still quite expensive and I was just starting Serpent City and couldn't justify the expense at the time. The mother died of undetermined causes in 1994 (25 years old) and into the freezer she went. I figured I could eventually do the DNA work. But of course I had a power outage, things got kind of ripe, and the whole mess got discarded. One of the offspring got stolen, one was given to a friend (no longer accessible), and one is still accounted for.
A couple of additional comments:
1) Fertile BP eggs seem to be able to tolerate very low humidity at least during the first 10 days of incubation, given good maternal care.
2) Gravid BP don't ALWAYS require male contact to sustain follicular development, at least in my case.
3) If this was NOT parthenogenesis then this WAS sperm storage of 9 years' duration, probably a record in herpetoculture.
I would be happy to answer any questions I failed to address should there be any. Thanks for taking the time to read this....Scott J. Michaels DVM/Serpent City

It is very interesting and it certainly has implications for the het business. I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes open to the possibility and see if we can get a feel for how often it happens and under what circumstances. As mutants become more common and crosses are made it should be easier to find these cases without DNA tests. By the way, what would the tests cost now? Maybe paternity tests would be practical when selling high end hets?

I just checked my e-mail and they guy in Tulsa still has what looks like 4 good eggs with the mother who is reported to not have been with a male for 3 years. The contacts I've been given for him don't believe the eggs are good so are suggesting waiting rather than bothering to incubate them now. Of course they might be bad or there may have been a more recent male some how but if you have an incubator running in Tulsa and want to help find out drop me a line and I'll get you in touch with them. Even without the possibility of this being a case where parthenogenesis could be documented I think it would be worth helping out.

I got some more info on the clutch in Tulsa. Report is it has never been with another snake for the 3 years with the present owner or the 7 years with the owner before that. It would be nice to give the 4 good looking eggs (I think they said 7 total) the best chance possible to hatch.

....want to have to retell the story. That IS the story and I'm sticking to it!