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My male Dumeril boa has shown a proclivity in the past for hooking up with BCI girls, however, none of those were intentional or cycled. He is now again hooked up with a big girl cycled and conditioned for breeding. I have never seen this cross, and am not sure if they are genetically close enough to produce. Any input?

thanks,
nate.

Chances are good that they will produce and i look forward to babies
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Dan S.
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nate,

IMO = They are definitely able to make babies and are closely related enough for some taxonomists to reclassify the Dumeril into the genera Boa. I have bred Dumeril's in the past and noted fertile mating's took place between DEC/Feb. So depending on your location and time of cycling, their fertility periods may not be in cinc.(sp). So if no young are produced try breeding them much earlier then now. My Dumerils breed from October till mid March.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

This dumeril male has five very gravid dumeril girlfriends right now (the first just completed her shed). Really, I remembered that he liked to hook up with BCIs, even though I had never gotten anything out of it, and put him in with my one unbred female BCI. He went right into it. So, I know it's late in the season, especially for Dums, but the female is BCI, and I've had them go later.

Thanks for the input. My son just broke my camera, and I don't have the new one hooked up to the computer yet, so pics will be coming.

Fingers crossed.
nate.

keep us posted, I have considered this breeding, I had my male dumeril mate with a female burmese python once.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

Such a cross may (or may not) return viable offspring, however a fully fertile F1 would be most unlikely due to genetic recombination incompatibilities caused by different numbers of chromosome pairs (Dumeril vs BCI, that is). As interesting as it may seem, I personally would not recommend it.

IMO if a woma can breed with a ball python and still produce viable, fertile offspring then anything is possible. I can't wait to see the offspring from this crossing if it works!

In both Python and Aspidites, 2n = 36. In Boa 2n = 36 too, but in Acrantophis 2n = 38. Therefore, while Python regius and Aspidites ramsayi are genetically compatible (as weird as this may seem), Boa constrictor and Acrantophis dumerilli are not. Sure, based on morphometrical similarity you'd expect things to be the other way around, but morphometrical similarity doesn't always imply genetic compatibility.

Wow thats odd, I wouldn't have expected that. Although it could be possible because if you look at another animal hybrid, the mule,a horse and a donkey have a different number of chromosomes, I want to say one has 38 and the other has 36 just like the boas but don't count me on that. The resulting offspring, the mule, has 37. I'd imagen if a dumeril and a BCI were able to produce offspring, just like a mule, the offspring would have 37 chromosomes. But the offspring would probably more likely be sertile more often than not due to the difference in chromosomes, but there are mules who have produced offspring so its not a 100% thing.

You're right, there's always a small chance of a "lucky" recombination, but most of these would be carrying some kind of "Down syndrome" related genetic disorder, which isn't an attractive scenario either.