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Telling boa morhs???

sorazme Aug 10, 2010 03:39 PM

How do you tell the difference between a normal boa constrictor and morphs like hypomelanistic, anerythristic, jungle, and motley? Some of these boas look just like a normal one.

Replies (11)

VolcomHerp Aug 10, 2010 04:24 PM

Funny good question man! I have friends of mine saying the same thing you do at times! Most morphs nowadays you see for sale on kingsnake aren't selectively breed that good nowadays. SOme people are in it just for money but some are in it for their own passion of sticking to what morphs they love and admire and make these morphs really come to life with ahhhhhh!

NUCCIZ_BOAS Aug 10, 2010 05:10 PM

I'm going to completely disagree with you. While there is the exceptional morph that may be low expression and look SOMEWHAT normal..... the majority of morphs are highly visible, even the ugly ones, and look absolutely nothing like a normal boa. These are all pics of my own animals

Even the low expression morphs typically jump out at you as completely different than a normal boa. Looks completely normal, carries the recessive gene for albino

Here is an adult normal boa, (shes het albino, but normal in appearance) We all know what normals look like

Here is a Hypo female.... Hypomelanistic usually involves a slightly different pattern which includes "bow-tie" saddles, and sets the color off to be more of a sandy-brown or orangish.

Here is an adult arabesque, which I think anybody, even the un-trained eye, could see the difference and say "DUH thats an arabesque, it looks nothing like a normal." And they don't, they look nothing alike. Arabesque is a darker black color with spots of brown, and tends to have a "ladder-tail," almost like a motley

Here is a baby arabesque.... which again, looks nothing like a normal in my opinion

Here is an anery..... I could see the resemblence to a normal, but the colors (or lack there of) definately stand out. Anerythristic is the opposite of Albino, instead of leaving light colors and reducing the dark such as albino, it reduces the light pigment and leaves only the dark.

I do not have any pics of a normal motley boa, because I do not own one, but here are some pics of a Hypo Motley and an albino motley, both of which should clearly stand out from a normal, even in the albino phase.....

Motleys have a very weird pattern which can either be a circle-back pattern, or look more like hexagons, and mostly all of the colombian motleys have a ladder-tail which is easily recognized. I have noticed more of the Central American Motleys(which are not pictured because I do not own any) tend to have more of a normal appearing tail with a circle-back or hexagon pattern.

Adult Hypo Motley.....

Pics of albino motley, both as baby, and as adult-


This is a VPI T-Positive, I could see how someone MAY look at it as a normal, but when you set it next to a normal, again, I feel there is no comparison, The T-positive has a creamy vanilla look to it.... atleast mine does. Some T-positives seem to have peaks in the saddles which could resemble a suriname, however the colors look NOTHING alike. This gene is more color based than pattern. When you see a litter of T-positive offspring next to normal hets, there is a very obvious difference between them. maybe someone else could provide a picture? I do not have one


And probably my favorite..... Coral Albino Arabesque Female, first as baby, now a 7 foot adult. Most albino arabesques do not look like this, I only know of a handful in the world, which all came from the same litter. This one just happens to be a smoker, in every sense of the word.




Best way I could tell you to learn which morphs are which, watch the forums constantly to see who posts what, you will see some really neat stuff. Also, buy a copy of John Berry's book about Morphs, I believe there are 2 copies out now, an older one, and a newer one. This book is pretty good, has good pictures and a detailed description of which morphs are which. Hope this helps a little.

VolcomHerp Aug 10, 2010 08:10 PM

Im sorry that you took my post COMPLETELY out of CONTEXT and had to totally disagree with my quick statement! Yes I AGREE with EVERYTHING you posted put I was speaking out loud on the visual morphs NOT Hets... I might have to speak Monosyllabically when i post next time so other might not have to elaborate on such a understatement post that is to the contrary! Thanks again for cleaning up my first reply because i guess it was dull sounding to others 8( LOL
Regards,
Jake

VolcomHerp Aug 10, 2010 08:20 PM

Trust me I know a lot of breeders that could vouch for me on this there are some morphs like Motleys and Arab. and hypos that to a UN-TRAINED herps eye and myself at times could say to them selves almost looks like nothing that special I seen normal BCI's with more character looks. AGAIN my opinion please don't add hype to this. please LOL
JAkE
PS albino's im leaving out of this because it to obvious why there not normal looking 8)

NUCCIZ_BOAS Aug 10, 2010 08:31 PM

Im sorry, didn't mean to blow it out of context, and my response was actually meant to the original post, I guess I just responded to yours after reading it.

I do actually agree with you to an extent, While most of the morphs out there are pretty obvious, there are a few that even the trained eyes have trouble recognizing. The most obvious would be Jungles. Some jungles jump out at you and scream Jungle, others look very normal and have to be sold as "possible" jungles.

The jungles are difficult for me to recognize, I do not have any jungles, never had, so I do not consider myself a trained eye for recognizing them. I have no idea what to look for except for the extremely obvious ones.

LarM Aug 10, 2010 08:20 PM

Do these look kind of special ? ?

Pastel Fem Jungle "PP" PH VPI Caramel

CarmArtJ_09_02

She's right at the 5 foot mark

My Dbl Dose Litter Pink Panther

Here is her sister the 3D Stripey Girl

CarmArtJ_09_06 Jungle Probablt het VPI Caramel

Monstertail Jungle ’07 Fem Hanna

Monstertail Jungle ’07 Fem Hanna

she kind of looks like a Peruvian or at the very least Amazon Basin

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LarM Aug 10, 2010 08:22 PM

How about these ?

Salmon 25% Guyanese 09 Fem from a Jungle litter so an outside chance also possible Jungle

Inside pictures

Outside pictures

Here are a few pics of my two '08 Male Scarlet Hypo's
(Pastel Dream Hypo Boas )

They wouldn't sit still for pictures this took some work

2 in the shade shots

4 more is the Sun shots

Here is pops he's an '03 Scarlet Hypo (Pastel Dream Hypo)
from our own Boaphile

. . . . .

. . . Lar M

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VolcomHerp Aug 10, 2010 08:45 PM

kind of sorta I guess! You know i collect the average joe looking boa morphs. I could get those off your back for whole-sale if you want???

VolcomHerp Aug 10, 2010 08:50 PM

ok if you didn't know im talking out my you know what LOL I think honestly you don't own one boa that is less then the perfect morph description. 10 out of 10 on the picture scale might I add for the record on exquisite boa morphs you collect.

LarM Aug 10, 2010 09:13 PM

Thankyou for the wonderful compliments !!!

Your previous answer was definitely funny, I'd be willing to bet
if I became incompetent and decided to advertise and offer
some of those Boas pictured in my above post as forsale.

I would receive several offers that sound much like your first funny answer !

People are something else aren't they ?!?!

. . . Lar M

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Boas By Klevitz

I Support USark.org

raybrooks1 Aug 10, 2010 11:25 PM

well here is my sharp het anery female

here is my motley (Kirby line female)

ghost female

and last but not least jungle het anery boy (Ronne line)


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2 triple het sharps m/f who are the ones who started this mess with me(joking)
1 motley with attitude awesome girl
1 sharp anery albino f awesome girl
1 ghost f
1 awesome jungle het anery
hmmmmmm wonder what im up to lmao and i owe it all to my friends thanks to Reptile Shop Jeff Ronne and Albert
1 fridge with beer in it who's coming over lol

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