The_Boaphile
02-21-2002, 07:48 AM
The Mother of all Hypos is a female originally captured by a retired Dr. from Arizona. I won't mention his name here as I do not have his permission to do so. Many folks do know who he already though. Anyhow, while on a trip to Panama he saw a Boa at a train station in Gamboa Panama. This city is on the Colombia side of the Panama Canal. Just about the center of Panama between the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. See the map below:
http://www.theboaphile.com/mapcanal.gif
This original Boa was captured in 1983 by the Dr. He brought her home and bred her for the first time in 1989. She had some babies with these really pretty "Orange Tails". He sold these for $100 each and the normals for $50 each. They were cheap. Nobody recognized the fact that they were Hypos until about 1994 or 1995, when some years after Jeff Gee acquired his first "Orange Tails" he bred them together producing the first "Super Hypos" or double dose Hypos. These of course were called F2 Hypos by many for years. Actually every baby in that litter was an F2. Any offspring produced by offspring of the original female owned by the Dr. are F2. This stands for "filial 2" or second generation. Whether Hypo or not. Double dose Hypo or not. Anyhow that's a topic for another day. Jeff Gee did not start the Hypo thing but certainly is the one who made them popular and brought them to everyone else in the country. Now in the mean time Rich Ihle acquired his "original" female and started producing his own "Salmon Hypos". He has certainly brought Hypos up to an even higher level and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for that. Rich lives in the same State. The trait works exactly the same. In fact the offspring, with the exception that the Salmon Hypos that generally have more red in them, they look very much similar to one another. So I believe they all originally came from this original female.
Now there has been recent this notion that the Hypos have sabogae blood in them. This just defies logic. The sabogae come from the tiny Island of Taboga off the cost of Panama. To believe this would be to believe that this tiny island population of Boa Constrictors somehow altered the genetics of the mainland form of Boa constrictors. Of course there is a very small number of Boas on this Island. My understanding is these Boas are very tiny due to the lack of food availability and or due to dwarfism. So these fragile Boas somehow made their way to the mainland and due to these hugely advantageous traits (Hypomelanism, and possible dwarfism) repopulated the thriving foundation of millions of Boas doing quite well on the mainland? I don't think so. Island populations typically are started by individuals that "raft" to the Island and somehow survive against the odds to establish "insular" forms of animals that after some time become genetically separate and diverse from the mainland forms where they originated from. It seems perfectly logical to me that the sabogae Island form (now called Taboga Island) originated on the mainland and that some of the individuals that made it to the Island happen to be Hypos from Panama and not vise versa. The only photo I have seen of an alleged sabogae is obviously a Hypo. It defies all logic to believe they originated on the Island and moved to the mainland. The obvious conclusion would be that they originated on the mainland and then rafted to the Island and brought along with them this Hypo trait.
So anyhow, that's my two cents worth of opinion and information on this often confused topic.
http://www.theboaphile.com/mapcanal.gif
This original Boa was captured in 1983 by the Dr. He brought her home and bred her for the first time in 1989. She had some babies with these really pretty "Orange Tails". He sold these for $100 each and the normals for $50 each. They were cheap. Nobody recognized the fact that they were Hypos until about 1994 or 1995, when some years after Jeff Gee acquired his first "Orange Tails" he bred them together producing the first "Super Hypos" or double dose Hypos. These of course were called F2 Hypos by many for years. Actually every baby in that litter was an F2. Any offspring produced by offspring of the original female owned by the Dr. are F2. This stands for "filial 2" or second generation. Whether Hypo or not. Double dose Hypo or not. Anyhow that's a topic for another day. Jeff Gee did not start the Hypo thing but certainly is the one who made them popular and brought them to everyone else in the country. Now in the mean time Rich Ihle acquired his "original" female and started producing his own "Salmon Hypos". He has certainly brought Hypos up to an even higher level and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for that. Rich lives in the same State. The trait works exactly the same. In fact the offspring, with the exception that the Salmon Hypos that generally have more red in them, they look very much similar to one another. So I believe they all originally came from this original female.
Now there has been recent this notion that the Hypos have sabogae blood in them. This just defies logic. The sabogae come from the tiny Island of Taboga off the cost of Panama. To believe this would be to believe that this tiny island population of Boa Constrictors somehow altered the genetics of the mainland form of Boa constrictors. Of course there is a very small number of Boas on this Island. My understanding is these Boas are very tiny due to the lack of food availability and or due to dwarfism. So these fragile Boas somehow made their way to the mainland and due to these hugely advantageous traits (Hypomelanism, and possible dwarfism) repopulated the thriving foundation of millions of Boas doing quite well on the mainland? I don't think so. Island populations typically are started by individuals that "raft" to the Island and somehow survive against the odds to establish "insular" forms of animals that after some time become genetically separate and diverse from the mainland forms where they originated from. It seems perfectly logical to me that the sabogae Island form (now called Taboga Island) originated on the mainland and that some of the individuals that made it to the Island happen to be Hypos from Panama and not vise versa. The only photo I have seen of an alleged sabogae is obviously a Hypo. It defies all logic to believe they originated on the Island and moved to the mainland. The obvious conclusion would be that they originated on the mainland and then rafted to the Island and brought along with them this Hypo trait.
So anyhow, that's my two cents worth of opinion and information on this often confused topic.