Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I read that if you breed a motley to a motley and produce a super motley, this super motley will most likely be genetically mutated in some way. (kinked tail, head wobble, etc.) Even if the snake appears to be fine, it won't live longer than 2 years.

My question: Is this true when breeding any morph to the same morph? Snow x Snow, etc. etc.

New to the hobby, any info will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance !

Yes this appears to be true with the Motley !

No this is mostly only applied to the Motley at this point not other Boa mutations.

Although some other CoDominant Boa Mutations show some signs of slight problems.

The Motley is a CoDominant trait CoDominance therefore the wild type (normal)looks different
than the Heterozygous or homozygous forms. The Heterozygous form
also looks different than the Homozygous form.

We do not know why yet but there are many discussions about why or what causes
Super Motley's (Homozygous form) not to survive past 2 years of age.

The Homozygous Motley form contains 2 mutant Motley alleles, from discussions possibly this is
a lethal combination programed into the genetic system.

There are other similar combination's from other species that behave in a similar fashion.

People are doing there best to understand these phenomena.

I can't pretend to fully understand genetics entirely, it's way over my head .

Although I can gain a simple understanding of the basic ideas
behind genetics and how it applies to the animals
( Boa Morphs) I enjoy working with

. . . Lar M

My best advice read as much info about Mendelian genetics as you can find

Click the below link
Mendelian Genetics

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Boas By Klevitz

I Support USark.org

Thanks Lar you've been a huge help, I really appreciate it!

I have lost 3 super Jungles (2 normals and an albino) unknowingly buying them before the problems were known (to me). I hear the horror stories with other jungles in other collections and also super motleys, which i have never owned. Then theres the problems with the super aztecs to a large degree too. problems of all supers range from infertile, to star gazers, to sudden death for no apparent reason (which happened to me 3X).

Historically this is not a good sign for supers....this is what i know and since you're new to the boa hobby and you asked is what i think you should know.

Super hypos, super ghosts, and other color type morph supers seem to be excluded, its the pattern ones that are iffy i.e. motley, jungle, aztec.

but here is where Im going with this, other than the "theory" that supers are great because they would make bigger quantities of visual co-dom babies in ratio to normals, the "non super" morph are awesome. I love regular motleys, i love jungles (wackier the better) and i love aztecs. so if you produce litters of co-doms of these, and many other morphs out there which i did not list, whats so wrong with that? I am not at all turned off by the "super" issue. so to answer your question snow to snow will be no "super" issue. Also dont shy away from pattern morphs cause of the super issue as there are absolutely no signs that pattern non super morph animals are sick in any way.

Manny

thanks for your post- very informative and gives some food or thought, cheers
Rob