What morph (if any) of boa am i dealing with?

[Evenstar]

Nicaraguan isn't a morph, it's a locale that boa constrictors have been imported from.

Without knowing more about the parentage of the boa, it's impossible to say what's going on. My first thought on seeing it is that it's a BCI x BCO hybrid, but I'm not a boa expert by any stretch of the word.

Totally agree. We can't make any kind of a guess based on one picture. Do you still have the parents? Can you post pictures of them? What is the parents' lineage?

I'd like to see the parents, but my first reaction was some sort of Central American. I'll admit I've never seen a boa who has such a dramatic color/pattern change that starts abruptly at the neck.

She does have some very interesting color changes going on. I'll agree with Judy that it appears there may be some BCO (Argentine) influence going on. But there's no way to say for sure until we can get a little more information.....


If you're going to be working with boas, you need to understand that there are "localities" and "morphs". In ball pythons, there are no various localities - every different animal you see is an example of a morph - a specific inheritable trait or combination of traits that express themselves as dominant, recessive, incomplete dominant, or co-dominant - but all the animals themselves come from one specific geographical area.

Boas, however, have a much wider range and can be found in several various geographical areas. Boas that come from one specific area, or "locality", tend to be slightly different from boas coming from another locality. While their traits which distinguish them to their locality, may be inheritable, they are not delivered in the same way. These traits will blend with those of another locality to create something in between. A boa cannot be "het" for Nicaraguan, for example. If one parent was Nicaraguan and the other was Colombian, then the resulting babies would be a 50-50 Nicaraguan x Colombian cross and not a morph.

Hope that is helpful to you!