Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got a Mexican boa and was wonder what locale, if possible to determine, it was.

http://www.moreliapythons.com/Dec03/03' Mexican Boa/

And once that has been established, breeders that have 02' or 03' females available.
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Jim Kuroski

Who produced it and what did they say it was?

You could not say you had a Tarahumara boa unless it was produced from known animals of that line. There are some similarities between the Tarahumara boas and some of the Sonorans, especially before the Sonoran gets to 4' at age 20 months. With a nice Sonoran boa going for $75-125.00 and the dwarf Tarahumara boas costing $500-600.00pr. it is already happening that people are comparing the two and marketing Sonoran babies that have some of the look of the Taras for more money. Now with 3 or 4 litters produced over the last couple of years there are more around and more photos and info. These people, whether hopeful owners or outright scammers look at the photos and info and focus on any similarities, ignore the differences and make their own plans for producing Tarahumara boas.. In a year or so there will be ten people claiming to have litters of these neat boas, unfortunately none came from there!

It might be tempting to look at a couple of photos or a new acquisition and say 'it looks like a ABCDEF, then it must be ABCDF' but the assumption would be meaningless without knowing the origin of the boa. This has been argued many times here before and I'm not starting another feud but this is the scoop; there is absolutely nothing wrong with a generic Suriname boa, or Colombian boa or Mexican boa, they are all great. On the other hand, known locality boas, especially something rather rare and different like the Taras are something special. These populations have characteristic attributes which set them apart but ONLY knowing where the boa or it's progenitors were collected makes it a Tarahumara boa, a Hog Island boa, Trinidad boa and so on.

Any boa with a stripe is a striped boa, and most any hypo-melanistic boa is a hypo boa but only a boa that actually came from a certain locality is that locality of boa. Locality of origin is not just a description...

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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

I am unsure who produced it, and it was sold as a Mexican boa for a Sonoran price. So your saying without proof of the parent lineage it is worthless to call it anything other than a Mexican bci. That is fine with me, but what should I buy if I want to pair it up? That's the real reason I am asking. This is my first boa (have bred pythons for a few years) and I know all about "pure" and "locality" arguments. Just wanted your thoughts.
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Jim Kuroski

Why does there have to be a known bloodline for someone to call their Sonoran a Tarahumara? Just because this guy has what you know is the only documented WC pair doesn't mean that other importers haven't brought them in as well. And from the limited pictures I have seen of your Tarahumara and the like Sonora's they all appear to look the same. If there is something that you can justify as differentiating between what you have and other do then fine, but to make comments that if it's not from that one pair than it isn't a Tarahumara is unjustified. The Tarahumara region of the Sierra Madres directly boarders Sonora. I think it is very possible that more exist. Share your knowledge if you are so confident that there is a difference.
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Jim Kuroski

I am not saying that it is right to called what we have "Locale Specific". What I do with my imported scrub pythons, is normally refer to them as this type or that type based on an educated guy of charateristics that make up that population and sketchy at best import data. I don't see why letting others call theirs Tara's if they look like Tara's is such a big deal. And you would still have an advantage over the market if anyone was looking for a true lineage known specimen. Just seems a little ritious to me is all.
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Jim Kuroski

Here is a female that we have had since 1999. Although we cannot trace her exact lineage, she was an adult when we aquired at a stagering 38 inches long. Now she is 41 1/2 inches and feeds on freshly killed Lg rats once a week. We have just about every morph of the CA Boas except T positives and the only snake that she comes close to is Gus's Tarahumara boa. So we are actually breeding her to another dwarf boa male now and we will see what happens. We are interested to know if there are any documented scale counts on the Tara's and if there are 100% accurate? Also does the count differ from Sonoran boas ?

Thanks,
Wyatt