"calico" hog island boa?

I just saw an ad on KS for a calico hog island boa. I've never heard of such a thing, wondering what exactly that means.

There is a photo, but nothing that looks to me like something super different... but perhaps I'm missing something. Does this mean a cross of some kind? I haven't been on the web for snake-purposes a whole lot lately.

Thanks.

I have seen the mother to that animal in person at Ben Cole's house. She is definitely a calico. I know he did a breeding loan with P.M. Herps with her, as he offered this one to us when they produced her as a first time offered animal.

I would give Ben or Paul a email for more info as I am not real familiar with the project but remember the mother when I flew down to Ben's last year.

Ben's email is : bcherps@yahoo.com

Hope this helps.

Can you describe what the calico trait is, though? I'll email them as well. Is it a coloration trait, or pattern trait?

Thanks.

Hey,

I was contacted by a member to reply to this thread.

First-the animal for sale by Travis Cossette was produced by Paul Mitchell Jr-of New Jersey, with one of my females that I have on loan to him. I am liquidating some projects to raise money and Travis bought this animal from me a couple weeks ago at the orlando show.

Second-The name "calico" is a descriptive term that was given to the mother by Dennis Sargent when I bought her from him in October of 2002. This is not the same as calico balls, or calico retics. The calico name is given to the animal due to it having a majority of three colors-orange, brown, and white. Yes if you look hard enough or scale by scale there is yellow, black, shades of tan, etc etc. But the overall look is a brown body with white highlights and an orange belly with black highlights. It is a coloration trait, not a pattern mutation but it acts like melanistic or hypo where if present in high enough proportion it disrupts the normal pattern.

Again this is a desciptive term so there is some play and people could argue that all hoggs have all of these six colors. However-by looking at the adult female after ontogenic color change that almost all boas go through you can see she is not the run of the mill hogg island.

I have not ever seen any other hoggs that look like her and I have seen lots of hoggs, and talked to a lot of boa people. Dennis has over 50 years in boas, has traveled many of the countries they come from and has been writing a book on boas so I had no reason to ever argue with the name calico as it was written on my reciept from him.

I produced 2 litters of dead babies from the mom one in 04 and one in 05. I was having mediocre sucess with colombians and great success with true redtails so last year before daytona I talked paul inot taking my hoggs since he had a large group and has done quite well with them. He bred his hypo hogg male to them and produced 5 live babies. 1.4 were aberrant hypos, and this female. He delivered the non hypo to me at daytona as part of my "half" I sat on her since and she has started to develope the orange belly so I felt that she is going to turn out like mom and decided the calico moniker was deserved now. Enter Travis, who made me an offer on a group of babies that I said yes to, is now trying to sell it and is keeping the calico name I hope to let the buyer know what lineage it is.

Paul is keeping a trio for breeding(est 2009), and has the third hypo female in his possession that we have thought about selling to get the word out also. However with the hypos we don't know if we will be able to tell if they are calico or not.

Here is a pic of the litter, a pic of moms belly, and a pic of her compared with a regular dark hogg, and a light phase (or I have now seen these listed as pastel hoggs).

IF I had created her I would hae named her a UOT hogg-for Ugly on Top!LOL

thanks
ben cole

Looks like a HonduranXHog Isle cross to me.

It definately is not a cross. Dennis was one of the first people working with the roatans, and hondurans. I bought both groups from him and they were kept seperate before and after.

thanks
ben

Originally Posted by Metachrosis

Looks like a HonduranXHog Isle cross to me.

Strangely enough, they do sorta have that look, don't they. On the flip side, I have seen Colombians born, from a trusted line, that were peaked out, and had intense reds like true red tails. So weird things can, and do, happen.

Problem is, once you mislead someone in one aspect, it's hard to trust things after that. Respect goes right out the window.


Ugly on Top. HA HA HA I love it.


Rick

Thanks, the comparison photos were really helpful. It was hard to tell in the ad, of the baby, what was meant by calico. Gotta love hog islands.