Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I always thought this was the case - except with the Calabar Ground Boa (aka Calabar Burrowing Python). By the way, is this snake classified as a boa or a python or is it still debated?
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1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

The Calabar is still under debate. Some even place it in its own family.
However...
Two (other?) types of sand boas lay eggs. These are the Mueller's or West African, Eryx muelleri, and the Arabian, Eryx jayakari. This was discovered quite recently so it's not mentioned in many books. The eggs of the Mueller's take only 14 days to hatch, the eggs of the Arabian take 60 or 90... we forget.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

That wasn't really even funny, was it?
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

fff

Based on what you told me, I was able to find some more info for anyone interested:

http://www.kingsnake.com/sandboa/eryx.html
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1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

I know this is the Boa forum, but now I'm wondering if it's true that all pythons lay eggs?
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1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

Someone on another forum mentioned these as egg layers and I found info to support by searching the web.

It was so much easier to remember "all boas give live birth". Now I'm intrigued to know what all the boas are that lay eggs.

is it just the 2 sand boas and the round island boa?
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1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

Not everyone classifies round island boas (hope I'm thinking of the right one- Tropidophis?) as boas. Taxonomy is very complicated and confusing.
But, happily, the python family is smaller and better defined, and they DO all lay eggs. They're basically the only family of snakes that all reproduce the same way. Obviously, even very closely related snakes can have different modes of reproduction.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

I'm thinking "Casarea dussumieri", but I also read they are highly endangered and may already be extinct.
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1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

All I can find about it is that it's in the Bolyeridae... I own a book called 'The Living Boas' and the author says that it is profiled, unexpectedly, in 'The Living Pythons'... He calls it the Round Island split-jaw. So anyway, I guess it's not extinct, at least not in captivity.
(P.S. I think I was thinking Tropidophis because they live on islands)
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Guess it would have been nice if I posted links I found about round island boas:

http://www.encyclopedia.mu/Nature/Fauna/Reptiles/Casarea_dussumieri.htm
http://www.scz.org/animals/b/riboa.html

I did find Bolyeria multocarinata
https://ecos.fws.gov/species_profile/SpeciesProfile?spcode=C02N
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0.1 Tigergenesis "Kelly"
1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

Well, it's not really that helpful... but I think it sums this whole thing up. Strangely enough, the Living Boas and Living Pythons were arranged according to birth method. Guess the joke's on him now.

"Distinguishing a boa from a python, a common preoccupation of many authors on these snakes, is a waste of effort because neither is a real group. Hobbyists, and many herpetologists, for that matter, should try to stop thinking of boas and pythons as entities. Telling a boa from a python is like telling a frog from a toad- it is all a matter of definition." -
Jerry G. Walls, The Living Boas
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

.
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0.1 Tigergenesis "Kelly"
1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

sounds like an evolutionary thing.
Give it another thousands of years and it sounds like it will be on its way to having live births.

I think

Given that this snake's closest relatives are livebearers, I think that it just 'discovered' egglaying and is on its way to laying eggs that take longer to hatch. Could go either way, though, maybe 14 days is just the perfect amount of time. I'm not sure if muelleri and jayakari came to egglaying independently or not. The sand boa family tree hasn't really been worked out.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Here is a pic of hatching Eryx jayakari bred by John at East Bay Vivarium. No egg tooth (same for E. muelleri) so a little different than the Calabar boas (C. reinhardtii).

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Rick Staub
R&R Reptiles