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I recently received a few Rufescens Sand Boas from a well respected Kenyan breeder here in California. He told me up front that although his stock were 100% Rufescens, that one of his breeding pairs threw about 25% of each litter with orange "spots". When I received them, sure enough, several have this mottled orange and brown pattern. I've linked to a photo showing two hatchlings with this mottled appearance and a normal looking rufescens from the same litter. This gentleman told me that he believes that both parents from this pair carry a recessive gene for this trait. I've never seen nor heard of this before. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Steve
Link

Forgot to mention this, and not sure that its really relavent to this post, but this particular breeder is adamant that the Rufescens Sand Boa is uniquely different from Eryx colubrinus loveridgei (hemipene size, breeding cycle, etc.). Enough so that he believes that they should be classified as a separate species.

Steve

I don't have very much Rufescens stuff or a lot of experience with them yet to say for sure but I do agree they are a different animal from the Kenyans. And for your other question not sure either but that orange is pretty intense, looks cool with a different pattern. Different from the tigers I've seen to.
Mark

Steve, I got to see one of the original imported Rufescens and it looked very similar to those. Not at all what I would have thought. The original male bred to a kenyan and produced some solid colored offspring ? I also agree that they are, at the very least, a different subspecies.
Holloway Herps

Jeff, thanks for the reply. Based on all the photos that I've seen of what I had always assumed were "typical" rufescens sand boas (the solid dark colored ones), I never would have called these mottled looking guys rufescens if I had seen them sitting on a table at a show. Would they produce "typical" stripes if crossed with a normal?

I do have a few of these guys available in the Classifieds if anyone is interested.

Steve

I my self haven't bred any Rufescens that had that pattern but I would think they would produce some stripes ?? Just a guess but I would think so !!

Thanks Mark,

Yeah, they are kind of neat looking. The orange pattern down the back has kind of a "precursor to a stripe" look to it.

Steve

I have bred a 'tiger' to a normal female and received 0 stripes and a bunch of tigerish and normal looking offspring. I have only tried this pairing once though.

Cool looking animals.

-Chris
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Christopher E. Smith
Contact
Captive Bred Herps
Wildlife Research & Consulting Services, LLC

Thanks Chris. Interesting. I know the n=1, but it seems like you might have gotten 1 stripe if you could have (if the litter were big enough). I would have bet that you would have gotten a stripe or two.

Steve