Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

Here is an Update photo of the Hypo Arabesque. I know a lot of people have been asking, and here he is. He is about 4 feet. Take Care, Jeremy Stone

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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com
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Hi Jeremy,

First,let me say that is a beautiful snake.

I was wondering if you could explain the genetics behind the Arabesque morph? I believe it is a co-dom trait, but I was hoping you could shed some more light on the subject. Are Arabesques related to the circleback trait? I had a really nice female circleback that produced two litters for me. In the first litter, I got close to 50% circlebacks with one that really looks Arabesque, which I kept. In her second litter I didn't get a single circleback at all which had me scratching my head as to whether she was genetic or not. Sadly, I lost her after this years litter so I now only have her one Arabesque looking baby to work with.

Any info would be greatly appreciated. I posted a pic I took of her last year, my digi cam and my picture taking ability weren't the best so she looks kind of shiny and you can't see all of her pattern. I'll try to get a new pic of the baby I posted as soon as I can.

Thanks,
Rick S.

Sorry I don't have any answers, hopefully Jeremy does. But I wanted to say that your cb looks sweet. I as well have a cblt and he has an arab look to him but with shorter circles between the saddles then an arab. Mine has also shown to pass on the trait, the previous owner bred him, the female died during pregnancy but he cut her open to find a litter circleback laddertails.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com
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I figured since I mentioned him I would post a few pix of him now that I am home from work.

Oh, his name is Lucky because of the crappy treatment he has had happen to him causing physical defects such as, his missing eye, healed (what I am assuming is a cyst that healed) on the top of his nose, bumps from broken ribs that have healed, and even with all of this he is still a sweetheart of a snake.

Let me know your opinions on him. I know he is nothing "special" but he is rather sharp looking.. Oh and he is het albino too..which is always a nice bonus..lol
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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com
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Hello,

To answer your question. The arabesque is inherited in a Dominant fassion. Meaning that if you breed it to a normal, 1/2 will get the gene and 1/2 won't stastically. The Salmon gene does reduce the pattern of the Arabesque a little and so some of the arabesque hypos will be hard to tell from just the look. However, as they grow, the arabesque changes colors. They turn into a beautiful Buckskin. As the Arabesque turns, when it is hypo form, the Hypo arabesque also goes through this color transformation. The head also seems to come through on the Salmon arabesque. The arabesque head pattern is a very strong one. That is another way to tell. The Salmon Arabesque is TWO dominant Genes in One snake. I believe the Salmon Motley, and the Salmon Arabesques were the First BOA mutations that had 2 different Dominant genes appearing in the same snake. Then the following year we saw the Salmon Jungle. In the future we will see many more.

Here is MY opinion on the Circle backs. Those can be inherited from one parent or another, but I don't think it is dominant in the way the arabesque is. As you breed heavily patterned boas, many of the babies will have connected pattern, and that connected pattern gives it a look similar to the arabesque pattern. I get MANY emails from a lot of people asking me if they believe they have arabesque boas. The best way to answer is by the Parents. IF one of the parents is an arabesque, then you have a good chance of it being one. IF not, then Really you don't have much of a chance. Maybey .0008 percent. Most of the people who email me have central american boas. As many know the Central American boas have connected patterns, and in the looks of the middle of the pattern, you will see circles. That gives it a CERTAIN look, and I just think it is passed on to the babies. If one parent has a lot of pattern, some of the babies will.

Now, about the Laddertail. I have produced many of these. They are awesome in looks. In fact, I had one in my Sunglow litter today. I don't beleive it is inherited in a Dominant fassion, but this is just my opinion. I think the same thing is going on as what I was saying above.

I know people are sending me these pics and asking questions because they just don't know, and they think they have something that looks similar to the Morph of a Motley, or Arabesque, or Jungle. Most in fact all of the time, I see them as just abberant snakes. In order to prove them in a dominant fassion they have to breed them. If you breed TWO strong patterned circle backs together, I'm certain you will get some more in the offspring. Does this make it a Morph? I don't think so. However, others might want to weigh in on the subject. This is JUST my opinion. I think they become a PROVEN morph when you have multiple breedings that come to the same conclusion. That is why BUYERS need to be careful when they are buying animals that are "Jungle", "Motley", "Salmon", etc.... There is a lot of Fraud in these animals. The best way to know is to ask for pics of the parents. Any seller asking a good amount of money should easily be able to supply pics of the parents.

I hope this helps. I really like the looks of many of the CBLT's out there. They are great. ALL the boas are just awesome. Take Care, Jeremy Stone

I think you are probably right in that my snake is just an odd one that popped out. Here is a bit of info on the parents of the litter she came out of. Max, the female, was a rescue that I got 5 years ago. She was in good shape when I got her, no scars, mites etc., but she was mean as hell. I used the t shirt trick and she turned out to be one of my best boas as far as temperment goes. She was a very heavily patterned CBLT and very dark, I suspected she was CA, but had no concrete proof. The male was her exact opposite. He has extremely thin saddles that are completely unconnected and he is very light and had lots of nice pinks. He has started to have a bit of a color change over the past year or two, and has seemed to get a bit darker especially in the tail and has lost most of his pink. The litter they produced was bit over 50/50 with CBLT's just ahead of regularly patterned babies. At the time I was under the impression that CBLT was co-dom or dominant, so that was what I expected. Last year Max was bred by the same male, but could possibly have also been bred by another CBLT I have. From this litter I got no CBLT's which really made me wonder what had happened and if the CBLT was genetic or not. Sadly, I lost Max this year after her second litter. I took her for a necropsy, and when she was opened up, it was apparent that her previous owner had seriously power fed her. She had so much internal fat that it completely encased her functioning lung, a lot of her organs and her uterus. The guy who did the necropsy was amazed I was able to even get a litter out of her. Most of her organs were also much larger than they should have been, he compared her liver size to that of a 14' burm, and she was only 6.5'. He felt that whoever had her first had really fed her heavily to ge ther to size and had then eased back on feeding which possibly stunted her growth, she never grew lenghtwise while I had her and she was healthy weight wise but far from obese. I was amazed at the amount of fat in her considering she never looked overweight compared to truly fat boas I've seen.

As the one I posted the pic of has gottne bigger, I have noticed she has gotten lighter. Her head pattern is also fairly heavy and looks very similar to the one you posted. She has a lot of speckles also. I took her to the All Ohio Reptile show just for display, and had a few different vendors offer me $300-500 for her. Everyone who has seen her in person always loves her look, too bad it is most likely just an abberation! What would be your reccomendations as far as breeding her to see if she could possibly be the odd genetic Arabesque? Most likely I will use my F1 hypo with her next year if she gets to 6', I figure that way it is a win/win no matter what.

If you have time and would like to see more pics from the litter she came from, I have pics of all of the babies posted on Webshots, under sboaman68. There is also a pic of me holding Max, but it doesn't really show her pattern all that well.

Thanks for the info, I really do appreciate it,
Rick S.

Awesome snake JS!!!!
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Greg Holland
G&M HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

very very nice indeed, keep them coming.

with regards

Chris Gillam

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