hey guys gals non-binary pals today i'm going to do kind of a bit of a fixer video so i'm here to
talk a little bit about boa species in general so i put out one before i'll put the link right here
you can go watch it if you want to but i was kind of really fast rolling through stuff and i also
kind of misspoke a little bit so in this video and sev is at the clock and i think she's going
to pull it off the wall no okay cool i don't know i hear it on the wall but i'm going to clarify
a little bit about boa's species and kind of difference when people ask a lot about what kind
of boa do i have bcc bci ca like what are all those things and i'm going to talk a little bit
about that so with me to start off with is sev or short for severus who is our large female guyana
boa so we thought she was a boy when we got her as a rescue and then during the veterinary testing
we had her probe again because she went yeah i want to just double check to be sure and she's
a girl but so sev here is a true red tail boa or a boa constrictor constrictor or boat or bcc so
starting from the top boa that is the genus that is comprised of as of today you know october 2020
there are three boa species in the genus boa so the genus makes up the thing and then it goes into
individual species and those are boa constrictor boa imperator which was considered part of boa
constrictor for a long time and boa sigma i can't talk too much about boa sigma because number one i
don't know as much about them other than there's been a lot of taxonomy and issues over the years
but then again people embroiders were part of boa constrictors for decades as well as they're really
rare in the hobby and if anyone watching this video knows anyone here in the states that has boa
sigma uh hit me up please or uh let me know who they are because i'd really like to talk to them
but so the three species bow and brighter bow constrictor and boa sigma so we're mostly going
to focus on the imperators and the constrictors so this is where it gets a little bit confusing
because of just a basically new taxonomy and what they found to be the different things
so starting with the true red tail boas or boa constrictors so in the species boa constrictor
there are eight separate subspecies and what a subspecies is is basically it's one population
of a species that kind of got that branched off either through isolation through geographic
ranges or habitat or whatever it is that are characteristically different enough either through
dna or through physical characteristics that they can be defined separately so for instance
this girl here is a boa constrictor constrictor so that is her genus that is her species and
then subspecies constrictor constrictor in the constrictor species there are eight subspecies
which includes you know the amarelli and longicada and all these other ones including the argentinian
boas which are one of my favorite bows and i really can't wait to get a pure-blooded argentine
in boa as well as other ones that i really wish we had here in the states called like nebulosa which
is a clouded boa which looks absolutely crazy but in so that's there we go that's taken care of bcc
that's the species subspecies right then there's another word that gets thrown around a lot
especially with both constrictors as well as other species of snakes and that is locality so in
you know so for just the constrictor constrictor just that particular sub species
is the constrictor so right boa constrictor constrictor just these guys just this subspecies
of the boa constrictor there are seven to eight depending on how you ask different localities
based on the region where they're found so for this girl guyana boas that means they're found
mostly in the country of guyana there's also peruvians and trinidads and surinames and all
these other different localities that are the same species or same subspecies of boa
constrictor constrictor but individually their characteristics are a little bit different based
on where they are some of the most red red red tailed ones are the peruvians and the surinames
uh through you know dna and you know differences and stuff like that they actually found that the
guyanas and the surinames in a large portion of their range actually integrate and overlap so to
be completely honest if we're going on just kind of you know on a dna level the guyanas and the
surinames are the same but if you look at specific bloodlines that have been kind of selectively bred
you end up with different characteristics the guyanas they're a little bit kind of more brown
they have more maroon tail and the surinames and peruvians they're a little bit more kind of a
silvery color as adults they have usually a little bit more red tail the boa constrictors as at least
with the constrictor constrictors and we'll get into some other subspecies just in a second
usually are the ones that are the largest the ones who can get the seven to ten foot range i think
think the largest recorded one with verification was about 13 feet which was just a monster female
but these are the ones that usually get a little bit heftier um they are still very arboreal um she
finally calmed down but she's been out for a while you would not believe how much how overweight she
was when we first got her and you can still kind of see where she's toning down a lot but she
immediately as soon as she's out of her vision cage is just climbing all over the place
but so we've talked about the book constrictor constrictor let's show you some other book and
stricter subspecies so this is a ball constrictor longicada or its common name is the long-tailed or
peruvian boa so with the peruvian red tail that was the locality of the bcc or boa constrictor
constrictor subspecies this is a separate species in and of itself so that's the boa
constrictor so same species and then longicada is the subspecies which is a little bit different
these ones kind of go through a bit of an autogenetic change which means that they
physically change characteristics from baby to maturity uh they're born kind of looking like
a normal boa as you can see you can see it's just like she looks a little kind of grayish
as she gets older she will turn kind of a silvery like black and white or black and gray color
these are one of the ones that actually do have some morphs
associated with the species and i'll talk a little bit about about morphs later in the video
these ones actually they stay a lot smaller they usually don't get over six feet period um they're
usually around the four to five foot range females still getting bigger the long tails they're called
longicada which is latin for the long tail not because they have the actual longest tails so
the section between where the vent go where the vent starts in the tip of the tail
but because actually males of this species as a whole have incredibly long hemipenes which is the
male reproductive organs so when they're referring to longitudes long tail it's actually referring to
long male parts but anyway i absolutely love these ones when i said that they have a true morph to it
there are two or three specific and separate lines actually i think they are compatible but there are
two different two or three different bloodlines of aneurystic so that will make this girl truly and
she is heck for annery as well so if i can find another hat male or a visual male to pair her to
obviously when she gets older i can produce visual anreytheristic longicauda boas i love these guys
to death in a fully mature longicauda ball are gorgeous i have one more bc to show you and then
i'll talk about the other species of boa imperator which probably has even more confusion than these
guys do so if you guys have watched any of my videos you are a little familiar with this snake
this is blue and yes because like every person who's had a reptile ever thank you jurassic world
you everyone is named now blue i can't remember if she actually was named after the velociraptor
from the movie or not i think it was before the movie even came out but it was because of her
color she is really weird and she is a little bit special she kind of goes through this kind
of darker kind of grayish color to almost like a steel cobalt blue depending on just the light her
hormones if she's in shed or whatever else what she is what blue is she is a ball constrictor
but she is actually a hybrid of two different subspecies and that is the argentinian boa bco
uh because i could never pronounce the name its latin name so i'll just throw it up right here
and the boa constrictor amareli or bca or bolivian short tail boa so she is technically
a pure boa constrictor but because she is a mix of two different subspecies that are physically and
genetically different enough to be categorized as such she's technically a hybrid boa so we're
not going to breed her or anything like that but she's a good really good pet she also got a little
overheated i think either in transport because she we got her from out of state or for whoever
had her to begin with so she has a little bit of a neurological issue because of the overheating
her brain kind of got a little cooked um also boas aren't necessarily the most intelligent
thing to begin with but so the argentinian boas are actually probably the largest uh species
of the largest subspecies of the boa constrictors as a whole females often achieve lengths over
eight feet ten is not out of the norm we're a ten foot like bolivian or a peruvian or guyana bow is
actually a pretty big boa male is obviously stay a little small they're very dark almost kind of
black and white they also have a morph they have kind of like a t-positive albino recessive trait
to make them kind of caramel color and then the bolivian short tail boas or bca's around morelli
are a lot smaller they're one of the smaller subspecies they're also in that kind of five
six foot range they don't get very big they do have shorter tails you can't really tell you can
see it's pretty small here just so there's the vent there's her tail it's still pretty small
and they're called silverback for a reason they are very gunmetal gray silver color and that's
where she kind of gets that color from and then it seems like she hormonally changes or something
else to closer to the where is your head to the argentinian star i got dry throat i feel like i'm
gonna cough to the argentinian colors so but if you look right there at her head you can see it is
almost like a perfect medley of the two different characteristics of the two different subspecies
so hopefully this clarified a little bit about the boa constrictors or the bcs and then the bcc bco
bca and all that other stuff localities subspecies and species now we're going to talk about the one
that is probably the most common the pet trade has all the morphs and probably has the most
confusion to it and hopefully i can shed a little bit of light on that and that is the boa imperator
all right boa imperator common boa colombian boa colombian red-tailed boa
they are all different common names of the same snake and that is the boa imperator
it's kind of like with you know mountain lions cougar puma panther i think catamounts in
there too all the same animal but so the boa imperator formerly boa constrictor imperator
but they found enough genetic difference to make themselves their own separate species kind of like
the difference between chimpanzees and bonobos something like that right so bow and broader
these ones are and like i said before there are a few morphs throughout the boa constrictor but for
the most part all of the common boa morphs that we have here in the hobby where you going buddy all
come from the boa imperator there might be hypo i don't know there's something about the hypo that i
can't remember if it originally came from there or it just kind of got put into there really quickly
between the imperators and the constrictors but either way so the hypos the jungles the motleys
the albinos all most of those all come from boa imperators and if there are any that say like
you know redtail boa or peruvian rotel they're all crosses and actually a lot of the boas
in the hobby especially in the united states are mutts between the two because for a long time
they were considered the same species and we were mostly just breeding for color and to make really
pretty snakes which you know we're all a little bit guilty of where are you going bud i don't know
where his face is but so the boa imperators for the most part come from central and south america
and overall have a further northern range than the true boas or the boat i could i shouldn't say
true boas it's the true red tail boas so the bccs or the bcs for the most part all have a
further southern range than the bis the sigma's kind of go along kind of the coast and on some
islands on the west coast of central and south america for the most part but the bis those are
the ones that have a couple different localities and i'll talk a little bit about that in a second
so as you can see it still has the saddles like the beat like the bow constrictors they still have
a little bit of a red tail uh but not usually as deep red it's usually has more browns more maroons
in it um this guy doesn't actually have a name we just call him the double head he's double head for
antheristic type one and vpit positive and he comes from a pink panther line so he's kind of
a bit of a more pastel color so he's not as dark brown as you'd see a lot of them but i like
just kind of the natural color of a lot of snakes in general i do love morphs but i'm really getting
into the actual natural beauty of snakes in and of themselves as a whole these guys don't get
as large and heavy bodied and long as the boa constrictors like the argentinians and like the
bcc's but they can achieve lengths of well over seven to eight feet um it doesn't happen as often
normally six to seven is more you know normal or more common they do have localities and so with
the fact that they are now their own species the different localities may end up being
eventually classified as subspecies so you know for instance when you hear about a ca so the ca
is in reference to central american bloodlines so if you have an animal that's a ca something
that means that its bloodlines have been traced accurately back to central american populations
and so as a whole this is not you know set in stone but as a whole cas or central american
boas are usually a little bit smaller their prey is not as lo is not as big the further north you
go there's a lot more varied prey further south the prey is a little bit more abundant larger
so a larger snake happens to evolve that way so they're a little bit smaller they have a tendency
to be a little bit more cantankerous and i have exceptions to that rule and i have
absolutely stereotypes for that little bit of a lot rule as well where are you going buddy
but i don't have so this guy is probably the closest i have to just a regular looking
common boa or um colombian boa or whatever you want to call that there are other ones that are
specific on the different island locales that may also eventually be their own you know distinct sub
species but as of right now as far as i am aware they are all just still localities and regions of
the one species boa imperator so hopefully this clarified a little bit
i know i have a tendency to ramble and so i kind of speed up the videos a little bit
but i think i do need to sometimes kind of slow it down make sure i get it all right and i'm not miss
speaking because the spread of misinformation regardless of what it is is never a good thing
so someone absolutely did call me out that i did misspeak that i called these guys bci's which is
no longer the case they're no longer a subspecies that their own species boa imperators just to
quickly sum up again round out this video sorry it's a little bit a longer one but i think this
one's actually a pretty good one and i've been dying to remake this i guess not remake this but
kind of clarify a little bit so boa that that's the genus so that you know the ball constrictors
sure there's tree boas and like doom rolls and stuff like that but we're talking about the true
new world ball constrictors right so there's the bow that's the genus then we move down to
species three species constrictor imperator and sigma sigma over there can talk too much about
really most of the time anyone's ever gonna hear about are the two imperator and constrictor
once you get to the constrictor species eight different subspecies obviously the most popular
bcc boa constrictor constrictor those are the true red tails the really big boas the peruvians
the guyanas the trinidads all the southern brazilians all of the different localities
of that species book constructed constrictor as well as the other ones the argentinians the
bolivian silverbacks longicadas other ones like that then boa imperators with my little boy the
double het dh here i guess we can call him dh doesn't sound right i have to think of a better
name for him those are the common boas common colombian um red tail whatever you want to call it
boa imperators they're their own species the most common the most morphs i honestly
don't think there's much of a difference of personality between the two um they're
both fairly personable they're both they're all fairly slow moving they're all fairly arboreal
they all need uh you know really high humidity like over 70 humidity is very good for them and
then the sigmas so hopefully this clarified it for you it was informational enough for you you got to
see a couple of really cool boas i love doing book constrictor videos i don't know why i just have a
hard time coming up with good content with them other than maybe just showing them off and maybe
i should just do more show and tell videos if so that's something you guys want to see or have
ideas let me know down in the comments hit me up jzsreptiles@gmail.com um if you're interested in
merch i know i'm not wearing it right now but you know just the little jz's reptiles logo
our really awesome cool uh calubrid snake shirt masks bandanas whatever it is if you're
interested in baby snakes any questions please let me know hit me up on instagram facebook the email
whatever it is hope you enjoyed it hope you're having a great day and we'll check you next time