Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if someone could explain pastels to me.
What are their defining characteristics?
What do you look for in a pastel?
I’ve read Jeff Ronne’s info on the boamorhps website which pretty much says it’s a reduction in black, but I still have a really hard time telling them from normals. I’ve seen someone that had pastel salmons and they looked way better than normal salmons, but I can’t really tell what to look for in the pastel trait.
Also, how is this trait inherited?
Can anyone help?

Here is an example of what I consider to be a perfect pastel. Notice the lack of black in the saddles and in the side medallions. The black is even fading from some of the tail blotches.

Matt

n/p

did you get a chance to read this thread. Long, but has good info:

http://www.theboaforum.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=boapics1;action=display;num=1050880714
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Dave Lee

The term is simply an adjective that is now used to describe a wide variety of common attributes in an even wider variety of different boas of just about every locale & subspecies,or random combinations. It can be used to describe uniquely beautiful animals like Matt posted above,to normal animals with better than average color,to the soft colorful appearence of many B.c.c....which makes it virtually impossible to outline a mode of inheritence,without any linear continuity you cannot begin to assess a possible genetic link.there are as many animals that could catagoriclly fall into the decriptive definition of "pastel" as there are breeders selling them,and new examples every year,with no real solid longterm info on their parental origin,or previous productive track record...so, the answer to your question is really anybody's guess,depending on "which pastels" you're refering to,and "if" they even have an observed history.
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