Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can some one explain this to me in a little more detail? I was reading on Solomon Ground boas and they said they were polymorphic.....having many different looking young? Dont most snakes have different looking young? Thanks for the help...

Thanks,
Chris
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0.0.2 Gila Monsters
1.2 KSB
1.0 Leopard Gecko -Dudly
1.0 Pacman Frog- Frigity
1.1 Rats -Killer(albino)- Twitch (babies are dinner)hehe

From what I get, is that they have babies that drasticly look different, and stay different. For example some can come out white with a zig zag pattern, while in the same batch, there can be browns. They stay that way their whole life, unlike green trees that turn green as adults. If you check out Jerry Conway, you can see pics of babies at : http://www.kingsnake.com/candoia

I am not sure how or why they come out different, I hope someone can answer the question more scientificly for ya.
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"Life is a Safari"

There may be another answer to this question (as some questions do tend to have more than one answer) but I have heard it said that the reason for polymorphism can be that the resulting offspring may gravitate towards different microhabitats. Presumably to avoid competition??

I think the example that I read was referring to eyelash vipers. The more brightly colored babies were more likely to take up residence in an orchid or bromeliad whereas the duller ones were more commonly found amongst greener foliage.

Whether or not this applies to Candoia I cannot say as I'm not familiar with thier natural history.

Bryan
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"Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only to what we know of it."

Another thought, and also maybe not the right answer, could be that the color/pattern doesn't play a large role in the natural struggle for survival of that species. (My opinion is that) Nature works less in favor of a good design than it does against a flawed one. So all of these variations in appearance in Candoia may be equally succesful and thereby not selectively weeded out.

I think Jerry Conway is one of the only people out there with any appreciable experience selectively breeding candoia, so it would be interesting to see if you breed for one appearance if the resulting offspring bear that trait. I know that with tree boas you can breed for certain traits, reds, yellows, etc., and you will get a proportionally higher occurance of that trait in the resulting offspring. Not 100% though, there can still be some surprises, but I wonder if the same is true of all polymorphic snakes including candoia??

Anyone else have any thoughts?
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"Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only to what we know of it."

basicly polymorphic is just having no idea what the snake is going to look like pattern and color wise.theres two differt kinds the kinds that stay the same color and the kinds that change,like amazons and emeralds are polymorphic amazons dont change uless they darken or lighten but theyll be about the same color as adults on the other hand emeralds change sometimes as babies theyll be orange and change to green polymorpic is a wide variety of colors and patterns some stay the same and some dont.