can u tell me about my boa?

[ellanor]

Would like to introduce you to Vin Diesel, my newly acquired boa. He is approx 12-18mth old and I have never seen a boa this colour or with this patterning. Think he might be a bit underweight tho.
He's hand reared and was taken in because his previous owner could no longer give him care he needed. He is my first boa so any comments are gladly received.
My only problem is trying to get him onto frozen mice, the previous owner fed him live ones (VERY BAD!)

[Boabrat]

 Hmm, well to be honest I can't tell you a whole lot about Vin from the pictures I have seen. Sorry about that, but I can pass on the next best thing I think. Here are some 'very general' descriptions of colors exhibited by boas I have seen and owned along with what general locality they came from.

 First off, the area that some of the most colorful and diverse in pattern boas come from is generally Central America. Honduran boas are among my favorites because of their patterns, colors and temperaments. I have seen them range from olive green to coral red in the same snake. The first snake pictured below is from a (now proven) 'Tiger Boa' from Honduras. The picture does not do her justice, her saddles showed the same coloration as her tail, deep rust red in color. Also her body was almost a mottled green, which pictures just don't seem to pick up well. You can however see the red in her belly fairly well in the picture.


http://www.weaselmonkey.com/images/tiger3.JPG


 Central American boas commonly show the same brown colors in their saddles at neonates to sub-adults. I have also seen a rather large diversity of color in them as well, but not to the extreme of the Honduran or El Salvador boa species. I can't seem to find any of the pics I took of the CA litter I had a few years back but you can find all sorts of pictures on the web. One place with a decent diversity of photos is:

http://centralpets.com/pages/reptiles/snakes.shtml

 There you will find all sorts of photos submitted by folks along with some decent care information.

Other near CA boa are the many Mexican subspecies. I would direct you to http://www.riobravoreptiles.com/ to see pictures and all sorts of good information about Mexican boas. They also have some killer information on island species, BCC red tails, and common Columbians (BCI).

I hope something in this post or at one of the sites I mentioned helps you out. If I think of more I will post it for you.

- John da BoaBrat