Locality Boas

I'm curious if there is a way to pinpoint locality of a boa based on appearance or sometype of external "marker". I frequently have people come in with animals that they've purchased that were sold as "redtails" with little to no history of the animal. As people get more educated in the hobby they start asking how to pinpoint what they have. Curious if there was a website out there that gave examples and ways to tell the difference. (For the record I've been telling them that they are most likely columbians but I couldn't give them a positive answer).

I'll open this can of worms.

Let me preface my comments by stating what I'm about to write is simply my opinion based on writings and talks of people much smarter then myself, combined with my own deductive reasoning. This is a very complicated issue in which many people become very passionate.

With that said...

Unfortunately, even if you were to capture a boa within a given locality, there is no guarantee of any real locality specificity.

Boas are polymorphic creatures by nature. In simple terms, they will exhibit varying degrees of coloration and pattern, even within a given litter.

Secondly, except in extreme case such as insular populations which have been isolated, there is always some degree of integration with neighboring ssp. You can attribute specific characteristics to certain recognized ssp, but it is difficult to argue away any possibility of integration.

All this refers to wild populations which one could logically argue would be more likely to be pure, then any captive populations.

If we look at captive populations, again I believe we can generalize locality based on certain traits, but in the end, we are really just trusting the reputation (and beliefs) of the person with that particular locality animal.

Who is to say that generations back, there had not been any integration.
In the early days of herpetoculture, the reptile trade was much like the wild west. With few exceptions, almost anything could and did happen.

We have come a long way in the last 10 years alone, but even today, there are no real guarantees on bloodlines in regards to locality.

Again, just my opinion. I would love to hear others.

I couldn't agree more.



Ben Cole

I remember back 15 or 20 years ago that whatever country was open for export, that was the type of boa or iguana or whatever it was, was named for. If Guyana was open, we had Guyana boas. If Suriname was open we had Suriname boas.

There is no guarentee that the country they were shipped out of is the country they originated in. I was in Suriname, looking at some very purple boas and remarked how they didn't look like what I had come to know as surinames. The exporter said they must have slithered over from next door, which as all we geography buffs know is.....Guyana. Guyana was closed to export that week so all the boas, the ones from Suriname, Guyana, and who knows where else as there were A LOT of them, were being shipped to the USA as Suriname Boas.

Kind of makes you wonder just how pure some of the purists are. Sort of like Peruvian Redtails. Some of them look almost identical to pretty common boas, others you can definately tell are not typical.

Just another part of what makes boas so cool.