New Boa!

[bioteacher]

She probably has 75% of her genetics (bloodline) from the hogg island boa species and 25% of her genetics from the columbian red tail species. A lot of breeders interbreed species to produce certain traits. Think carpondros (a carpet python crossed with a green tree python) - in this case it would be 50% carpet python genetics 50% green tree python genetics. The same thing has been done to produce your boa - only one parent was probably a pure hogg island boa 100% and the other was a 50% hogg 50% red tail boa.

By saying that she is het for sunglow... the breeder is saying that it is hypomelanistic and that it is het for albino. Sunglow is a combination of hypo and albino. Hypo is a codominant trait though, so your boa would express the hypo gene - which it seems to be doing. Albino is a recessive trait - you need two recessive alleles (think back to punnet squares from school...haha) to express the trait. The salmon is just a color variation of red tails. So if it was sold to you as a hypo/salmon het for sunglow, then it should technically be salmon (just a color trait), have the hypo gene, and be het for albino. I don't know enough about hogg island and red tail boas to tell you if your boa is a salmon AND is hypo. I also don't know if you can produce a sunglow from a salmon albino that isn't hypo or if "salmon" and "hypo" are considered the same thing.

If I'm not mistaken, sunglow was first a red tail trait that had been bred into hogg island boas... I think.

If you took her and bred her to a 100% pure red tail boa, then all your offspring would be 37.5% hogg blood and 62.5% red tail blood - remember half of the genetics from each parent (your boa --> 1/2 of 75% hogg is 37.5% + 1/2 of 25% red tail is 12.5% + theoretical pure red tail --> 1/2 of 100% red tail is 50%... add it all and you get: 37.5% hogg and 62.5% red tail). Breeding her to a het albino would produce albinos, het albinos, salmon sunglows (?), hypos het albino, hypos, salmons, salmon hypos, salmon hypos het albino (which yours supposedly is), and sunglows - probably missed something there. Punnett squares are the easiest way to look at it as long as you know the genetics of the two being crossed and which are dominant and recessive traits.

As for a boa and ball interacting... there shouldn't be a problem holding them both - it may cause them some stress though as they don't hang out together in nature. Definitely don't keep them in the same tank and if you do hold both and one displays being stressed or hostility, then only hold one. I have held several snakes at once from different species, but only for a short amount of time for a photo or to show someone/my students phenotypic differences between species.

I hope all this rambling didn't confuse you more!

[Cupid]

That actually helped me A LOT!! Thank you so much for writing all of that out for me!!

[bioteacher]

No problem!

Not to complicate things, but I did a quick search: hypo and salmon are the same thing, just different lines (ie different names for almost the same end result - salmons tend to have a brighter base color).

So that would mean your boa is a hypo or a salmon (depends on what the sire and dam were), either way it has reduced melanism and it is het for albino. It would produce sunglows if crossed with any compatible line of het for albino.

[Cupid]

Thanks for the clarification! What if I bred her to an albion? Would sunglow still be possible?

[BigJ]

No problem!

Not to complicate things, but I did a quick search: hypo and salmon are the same thing, just different lines (ie different names for almost the same end result - salmons tend to have a brighter base color).

So that would mean your boa is a hypo or a salmon (depends on what the sire and dam were), either way it has reduced melanism and it is het for albino. It would produce sunglows if crossed with any compatible line of het for albino.

So to make it more complicated hypo and salmon CAN be interchangeable, however salmon is not the only form of hypo...just the most common!

Thanks for the clarification! What if I bred her to an albion? Would sunglow still be possible?

So if you bred her to an albino sunglows would be possible. You would also get salmons 100% het albino, albinos, normals 100% het albino!


EDIT: I almost forgot! You have to make sure that the albinos are compatible! did he tell you what line of albino she is?

[Cupid]

I didn't ask what line of albino she's from. I actually didn't know there were different albinos in boas. I got the guy's card, though. I'll shoot him and email and ask! Thanks for the info.

[benwallage9]

Couple of things salmon relates to a strand of hypo I believe... It was first produced by Rich Ihle.. I'm pretty sure the salmon is more sought after but some people aren't a fan of hogg and Columbian crosses...

If you did ever want to breed you would need to know a couple of things like what albino type she is. There are three Kahl, Coral, and Sharp in columbians. Kahl and Coral I heard are compatible. Sharp on the other hand isn't compatible with either types and it is the more sought after type. If she was fairly cheap she's most likely a kahl as it's the most common... To breed her you could make sunglows with just an albino of the same type as she is. As hypo and salmon are co-dom genes (however, they don't make supers in the same sense as ball pythons) half the babies would already come out hypo or salmon so your bond to get a sunglow or two. My guess is this guy bred a salmon hogg to a sunglow boa cross or vis versa which is why he labeled it a hypo/salmon because it is hard to confidently tell them about.

The nice thing about having so much hogg in her is she shouldn't get as big a red tail female both length and girth wise. Congrats on your first boa they are amazing and I think much more entertaining then ball pythons even tho I have way more bps lol...