Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So today I was pretty much shut down when I mentioned the idea of a leucistic brazilian rainbow boa. I was told that I missed the point of the snake and that white snakes are boring. I was a little taken back because it seems to not be a problem with ball pythons or corn snakes. hmmm. Well my thinking was that it wouldn't just be a "white" snake, it would a white snake with the most stunning rainbow sheen in the world. I kinda thought the "rainbow" was the point of a rainbow bow. Anyways, I just wanted to know the opinion of more people on the idea of a leucistic brazilian rainbow boa.

He's not a leucistic BRB but Fluffy my Calico BRB is mostly white. I can say there is not much iridescence in him. From what I've seen over the years the more dark a BRB is the more iridescence it shows so IMO it makes sense that the lightest ones are not very iridescent. That said I still would think a Leucy BRB would be cool even though color and iridescence are what they are known for.

Just took Fluffy outside and the dark areas are still iridescent while the white areas are not .

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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Crazy! I love her face!
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~Cynthia

"And in the spring, I shed my skin and it blows away with the changing wind..."

Wow, what a beauty! Well that kind of sucks that the sheen doesn't show with the white. Still want one though lol. I've only seen one other calico and it didn't have nearly as much white. Is the calico a proven morph?

I believe the 'other' calico that you saw is Fluffy, he lost some color a while ago.

As already mentioned Fluffy went through a secondary color change and may be the other one you saw.

Pre-secondary color change...

Got him from Brian Sharp back in 2007 and he's still on Brian's website (has not been updated in years)

It is not yet proven but I am raising up offspring to continue work on this morph.

There have been a couple other Calico's pop up but none with Fluffy's extreme expression, not even with his prior expression.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

The idea of an all black does really appeal to me now. It would be so beautiful in the light (in theory).

Cliff or Anyone,

If you are interested in “black” BRB’s I would strongly suggest taking a look at Onyx, one in my collection that is extremely dark. Unfortunately for the picture on my website I had to use an iPhone image, which is not a good picture. Onyx maybe gravid now (fingers crossed) so I am not taking any more picture of her just yet. Last year was the first time she breed for me and there was a statistically significant split between babies that looked “normal” and babies that where very dark in color. This make me think that the hypermel. trait could either be dominate or polygenic. I held back two babies (needed the money : (… one “normal” and one “dark.” The normal offspring continues to get redder with age and the other continues to get even darker. I am hoping that a back cross will produce an even darker animal and eventually a “black” BRB.

Also check out Aubrey Ross, she has two animals that are very dark and produced some amazing looking offspring last year.

John Wiseman

These two were born here in one of my 2010 Peruvian Litters. Several babies in the litter are very dark. These two and one other especially so. I am holding some back to see how they turn out. So far at 9 months of age they are staying very dark.

Male

Female

Peruvian rainbows are my favorite subspecies of rainbow boas. I actually thought Onyx from any earlier post by rainbowsbydesign was a peruvian when I first looked at the picture. Peruvians thicker lines make them so beautiful. I want to add them to my collection, but I never see them at shows and I don't know of any breeders.

I breed them and do not cross them with my Brazilians even though Peruvians are no longer recognized as a seperate subspecies.

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>>I think an all-black Brazilian would be pretty cool, too. Now that would *absolutely* show a nice sheen!
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Someone else said something similar on another forum, and it got me thinking. There are plenty of all/mostly black colubrids, but are there any black boids? I can't think of any off the top of my head, other than some one-in-a-million genetic mutation I saw on Youtube. I wonder why. I'm thinking it might have to do with temperature of the locale, but then again there are plenty of patterned snakes living in the same locales as all black snakes. Any thoughts?

What about black bloods? I've seen some that are perfectly sooty.
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~Cynthia

"And in the spring, I shed my skin and it blows away with the changing wind..."

Bloods are pythons. I think they were referring to boas (boids). And I have not seen any black ones either. I guess we could just keep a boa under a UV lamp and let one get a nice tan. Lol jk

The word boid is from the family name Boidae which includes both boas and pythons. The Boelens Python comes to mind as an almost completely black boid. They are a montane snake and the black color is used in their basking to gain heat.

>>The word boid is from the family name Boidae which includes both boas and pythons. The Boelens Python comes to mind as an almost completely black boid. They are a montane snake and the black color is used in their basking to gain heat.

I guess that is as close to an all black boid as there is. (I believe black blood pythons still have a very visible pattern, although I'm no blood python expert.)

I referred to the "one-in-a-million" morph, this is the video I found showing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1H3-I9Ajj0

So what would an all black E. cenchria be called? How about "Anti-Fluffy?"

That extremely hyper-melanistic BCI is absolutely INSANE!

Many people would be willing to give their left test*cle for that animal!..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Oh...forgot about Savu pythons. Duh, I used to own one. They do have white bellies though.
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~Cynthia

"And in the spring, I shed my skin and it blows away with the changing wind..."

Unless, I am learning something way wrong boidae is the family for boas, pythonidae is the family for pythons.

>>Unless, I am learning something way wrong boidae is the family for boas, pythonidae is the family for pythons.

You're both right. Some consider pythons to be a sub-family of the Boidae family; others classify pythons as their own family. I won't go on a rant about this being yet another perfect example of why taxonomy should not be taken too seriously, although I'm sure Cliff would enjoy that.

Anyway, for this discussion, I was referring to both boas and pythons when I said "boids."

Lol I guess you would be the best person to define what you meant. I think I have seen some ATBs that were rather dark almost black. Other than that the black bloods would be the only python I could think of.

Here is a comparison of a very dark BRB and a very light one. I am working towards the black BRB and have noticed that the iridescence is MUCH more noticeable on the darker animals.

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Aubrey Ross

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www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Very nice. What a difference. My mind has def been changed. Darker seems to be the direction to go in.

Thank you!. Yeah, I really like the super dark ones. Very under-appreciated in my opinion.
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Aubrey Ross

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www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

WOW Aubrey, those are some awesome pictures!! I think those dark BRBs are stunning in their own right. It really helps to have that nice high orange one next to your dark BRB to show the drastic difference!!! Great work!!!!!
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Ike Lightner

2.3 BRB Breeders(Dugo, Sultan, Roxxy, Brazita, & Lucille)
1.0 BRB striped holdback of my 8/23/10 litter of 25 (Nando)
1.1 100% het hypo BRB (Diego & Rasheena)
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0.2 BRBs still in CALI, about to join me in Missouri!!!! 1 hypo/1 het hypo (Ireena & Liddia)

Thanks for the kind words Ike!
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Aubrey Ross

�
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

So ETB x ATB would be a big no no to you. woops lol

>>People are free to take taxonomy as lightly or strictly as they wish. So long as they're not poisoning the gene pool with that ticking time bomb known as cross-breeds, I'm all good.
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It's not a "cross-breed" if... oh, never mind. You're just egging me on now! Just for that I'm going to try to breed my female Jamaican boa to my Indigo snake...

Well, you know I can't stay out of this. I don't agree with what you are saying for a couple reasons. First, it is based on the premise that there is something "wrong" with breeding two snakes together that are very similar genetically and possibly only classified as different subspecies by *some* taxonomists. Again, taxonomy, imo, is as much about humans (ie, human opinion, human desires, in some cases human selfishness) than the animals. But regardless, it comes down to individuals' opinions. Heck, the example above shows that taxonomists can't even agree on the Family level of boas and pythons. So what you are saying kind of falls into the "preaching to the choir" category. You yourself just said people are free to take taxonomy as lightly or seriously as they want.

Secondly, what is a "pure strain?" Not trying to play semantics, I think this is an important issue. The different subspecies didn't evolve separately in isolated containers; quite the opposite. They branch out from a common ancestor. This is why I like to say evolution is analog, not digital. There is no distinct line between subspecies, which is exactly why taxonomy is so subjective. That's why I always laugh when I read about how different subspecies have intergrade zones where they interbreed. Of course they do! That's evolution. How do you know your BRB's are "pure?" How do you know they didn't come from an area where Peruvian types "interbreed" with Brazilian types? Conversely, if you have a BRB that has a few more/less mid-body scales than normal (ie, more like a "Peruvian," but is otherwise a beautiful rainbow boa, does it really matter? (Especially now that they are classified as one species.)
I know it wouldn't matter to me one bit.

Lastly, I can see some merit in what you are saying with endangered species, but with non-endangered, captive snakes, there are plenty of sources one can go to to find "pure" animals anyway.

I guess we have to agree to disagree

I for one love hybrids, designers and cross-breeds. I also very much enjoy and want to keep localities and "pure" bred snakes. I think there is a place for both and agreeing with snakesitter, the key to it all is record keeping! For instance Brazilian are beautiful and I want to keep them around. Argentine's are beautiful and I want to keep them around. A mix between the two would probably be beautiful (never seen one). There is a place for all three. And without records, we may not be able to keep all three. We would end up with one new snake. Look what happened to the Hog Island Boa. It was mixed so much that there are barely any left of this locality. So to natsamjosh, I agree that mixing is good and also very natural, as it does happen in overlapping zones with a variety of snakes. But, we have to not rely on the fact that there are plenty of "pure" breed breeders out there and just mix on a whim. One of my new favorite snakes that as peaked my interest is the carpondro. They are quite lovely. However, I would hate to see any of the localities of the GTP disappear or any of the carpet subspecies disappear (which I feel is happening anyways to the carpets due to all the designer strands here in the US. Thank goodness Australia has done away with allowing exports of these. It may just save them.)

f we continue we're getting seriously off-topic.
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>>> Just for that I'm going to try to breed my female Jamaican
>>> boa to my Indigo snake...
>>LOL? What, looking for a now larger, more highly intelligent snake that still musks you at every opportunity?
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Man, you just talked me out of it!!! That would be a scary combination for sure! Thanks!

These two are from my 2010 Peruvian litters. The orange male was born in august and the dark female was born in september.

Thank you Cliff. Please do post pics of Jasper. I'd like to see this dark face of hers.
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Aubrey Ross

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www.SlipstreamSerpents.com