Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Don't you hate when you have to save a snake from a rescue shelter? This boa was at a shelter for a couple months when one of the owners decided he was afraid of snakes and wanted to euthanize it. A good samaritan who worked there asked if we would take it, and we agreed to just be foster parents until we could find a permanent home for it (I won't breed locale crosses).

Supposedly it is the result of an Argentine X Colombian breeding, but I thought it looked way more like it was crossed with a nicaraguan. Her sides are covered in black spots and she has wonderful iridescence. (unknown age, she's a little over 4 feet) What do you think she is?

can't make any guesses. It's not fair to anyone down the line.

It's: a boa.

jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

Not sure what you mean by "not fair to anyone down the line". I'm just trying to satisfy my own personal curiosity, not create a pedigree. I was hoping to find people who have bred arg x col that would know what they look like as adults.

There's a local pet store that has been breeding "Argentine X Columbian" [sic] boas for years. I have a feeling this is one of the babies, and while I've seen the argentine mom for myself, I've also seen them selling nicaraguans as "columbian red-tail boas". So maybe they misidentified the dad and that's why the pattern looks so central american-y.

There's just no way to know for sure. Unless you're able to trace back the lineage of the animal, a guess is just a guess and is subject to human error as well as our minimal understanding of these animals and the minimal percentage of the population we've seen.

So again, it's "a boa". That's all you can really say.

Sorry man,
jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

is a GREAT question to post on this forum.

my pure guess would be along the lines of a central american cross - but I could imagine it came from an argentine cross as well.

great job for taking the rescue in. I'm sure "the boa" appreciates being taken care of.

Patrick

It's a nice boa. Your answer will vary greatly depending on who you ask. Locality people or morph people. Locality people have more of a problem when there might be a mix of some kind!

Although I don't consider myself a "locality guy", I would venture a guess that if you were to ask ANY locality guy about that boa, they could easily agree with the following statement: "I don't have a problem with the boa. It's a fine boa. It's intrinsic value is no greater, or no less based on it's potentially mixed lineage."

The only thing I have a problem with is guessing, and then possibly assigning a country of origin label (or mixed country of origin label) to something.

There is one COMPLETELY indisputable fact about unknown lineage animals. They're UNKNOWN.

If you can't KNOW something, then you CAN'T know it. That's all. So why spend the effort to guess, especially when:
1) you're likely to be wrong
2) you can't prove that you're right

Talk about an exercise in futility.

If the OP is happy with the boa, that's all that matters. Right?

jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

I think these sort of threads are some of the more fun ones.
of course no one would assume that anyone is trying to establish "facts" about a boa's origin - familyjewels even started the post by admitting that he was only interested in people's guesses.

"what kind of boa is this" just seems like the most innocent of questions.. and one that is at the essence of a natural couriosity.

Here's an Argie x Colombian (50% Agrgie) that I used to own (het Albino) . She was more silver than the others that I've seen before , so it may not be a good comparison to your supposed one . I think yours is definitely possible to being an Argie cross. I wish you had a full body shot to show us.
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Snake room janitor

I hate that I don't have an "edit " option on this site -- Hint hint.

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Snake room janitor

That's the kind of picture I was looking for. I can see some similarities in the dark speckling between yours and mine, but that's it. Yours is much closer to what I'd expect to see in a colombian cross- crisp, sharp lines and very closely spaced saddles. Beautiful animal. Oh well I don't care, she's a great shoulder pet.
I try to leave my breeder boas alone to do their thing and not stress them out, so I forgot how amazingly mellow a well-handled boa can be. If I decide to keep this as a 'pet', my husband will want a 'pet' too - probably some monitor that gets 6 feet long.

kasey