Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a pair of boas from our regular herp shop as Boa Constrictor Ortonii, but at the moment we are unsure whether they are truly ortonii's or not. Usually the shop is pretty reliable and the employees knowledgable, but the owner is sometimes questionable and he did the purchasing on these animals. They are healthy and bueatiful, but we'd like to be able to actually tell what subspecies we own. Thanks

Ben

Do you have any pics to show?
I haven't seen that (ortoni) species in a VERY long time.
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Greg Holland
G&M HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

I know that those boas(ortonii) are supposed to be very rare, and I have also heard that the end size of the boa is one of the largest differntiating factors, but ours are still babies. Sorry the if the foto doesnt make it easy to see everything, but since they are new I wanted to let them get adjusted to their terrarium and not bother them to get a good picture. Thanks

Ben

I really hate being the bad guy on this but you Boa looks to be more Colombian then anything else. Your saddle count is 27 (if I got it right in the picture) where the B. C. Ortonii has a normal saddle count in the mid 30’s (33-37 on average). Further more the B.C. Ortonii has a pattern and color that is more similar to a B.C. Mexicana the a BCI.
I again will have to turn to Hermann and his website to add any additional info to this. He does have a section on this (no longer accepted in taxonomy) Ssp.
Good Luck and I hope this helped some.

Hermann's BC Ortonii page

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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

Thanks for your help. I am still a beginner when it comes to boas and mainly picked these up because they look so nice with the silver gray color. Is there any way to tell for sure exactly which subspecies my pair are?