- Holy cow.
Cupcake is a common boa constrictor
and she is a beastie.
Certainly one of the largest boa constrictors
I've ever seen, at least personally.
She is absolutely amazing.
And my buddy Sergio was actually in town the other day,
and he said that his favorite vlog that we'd ever done
was talking about all our boas
and the truth is we have a lot more boa stuff
than we had back then.
So I thought to myself,
why don't we go ahead and just go through the list of boas
and show you all the cool boas,
not just boa constrictors, but boas in general.
Oh, she's giving' me a little hug,
and I tell you what, boas are strong.
There's no doubt about it.
But she's an absolute wonderful animal,
I can't imagine a boa getting much bigger than this.
This is an absolute beastie,
but again, we have some cool boas.
What do you say we buckle up today
and just show you all our boas?
And welcome to the vlog Reptile Army.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
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Of course, there's boa constrictors,
and then there's a whole bunch
of different types of boas as well.
This happens to be Bredlow
the Dumeril's boa constrictor from Madagascar.
These are set to be pound for pound,
the strongest snake in the world.
And trust me, he can give a pretty good squeeze
for an animal that's only six and a half or seven foot.
And this is about as big as they get.
A giant female may be eight or nine foot,
but typically they only get about six to seven foot
to be totally honest.
Ironically enough, Dumeril's Boas
are the most common of the three boas
that are actually native to Madagascar.
You have Dumeril's Boas,
and what they call Malagasy Ground Boas,
and then Sanzinia, which are the tree boas.
But from what I've understood in the wild in Madagascar,
you don't find Dumeril's Boas hardly ever.
I've never been there, so I don't know,
but that's what I've heard.
I've heard that these guys are actually a more rare one.
The fact is, is that they've been in the country
for a long time.
You can't import any of those animals
into the country from Madagascar anymore.
So it's just really with a founder stock
that have been in America
for the last probably 30 to 40 years.
It just so happens that Dumeril's Boas
are being bred at a much higher percentage.
And they also have more babies.
Sanzinia, the tree boas, are very difficult to breed.
And then the Malagasy Ground Boas
only have like three or four babies
because they're really giant.
These guys can have 15 babies or so, so it's pretty cool.
And they're definitely more common
and they are absolutely beautiful.
I mean just take a look at the pattern on this guy.
So again, lots of really cool boas. I love them.
And people are always opining for more boas stuff.
So I hope you guys are enjoying it.
Certainly one of the most striking of all of the boas
are the Emerald tree boas.
Of course, there's Amazon Basin Emeralds
that have more white.
And these are the Northern Emerald tree boas.
Of course this is Carl and he is an absolute ripper.
And it's really amazing
to be able to hold something like this too.
Again, these have the largest teeth
of any of the non-venomous snakes.
So you definitely don't want
to get bit by something like this.
But thankfully Carl seems to be very docile
and what a beautiful snake.
I mean, to be totally honest with you
when I was a kid,
little baby Red Emerald tree boas
are what got me really interested in boas
to begin with, to be honest with you.
I just see pictures of them.
And I was just absolutely blown away.
And it's so amazing that all these years later
we're able to actually work with them.
Again, they're a tree boa.
They don't get handled all that much,
need a little bit higher humidity,
but I tell you what,
they are absolutely incredible to work with.
And just take a look at this guy,
how freaking awesome is that?
Then you have all these boas,
that come from like Hispaniola, right?
You know, that whole kind of Caribbean,
there's a whole bunch of different ones.
This happens to be what they call
a Dominican Red Mountain Boa.
Of course from the Dominican Islands
and just absolutely wonderful.
The thing that's interesting about these boas,
they'll sit at the edge of the cave
and actually snap bats out of the air.
If you ever see those videos of like those boas,
this is the ones that are doing that.
And it's just absolutely incredible.
What unique animals.
And again, all boas are live bearers,
so these guys are going to have live babies.
That's really what makes the difference
between boas and pythons
is that pythons will lay eggs
and boas will have live babies.
Something like a Dominican Red Mountain Boa like this
will have anywhere from 13 to 20 babies.
They come out pretty small and lanky,
but they're absolutely amazing.
And then another boa that used to be
in the same genus of Epicrates
is all those Dominican ones.
But now they've actually separated out
into a different genus.
But of course the absolutely stunning Brazilian Rainbow Boa.
But of course the animal is on display
here at The Reptarium, is an absolute beauty.
Her name is Tiger Lily and she's amazing.
We work with a bunch of different rainbow boas.
We've got the Colombians,
we've got different colors of Colombians.
We even have some different colors of Brazilians,
but hey, the actual normal color,
this is the way they would be found in the wild,
is stunning.
Can you imagine coming across a snake like this
down in the Brazil area and just seeing this in the wild.
I've never seen it.
And I hope one day I will, because holy moly,
this is an absolutely stunning snake.
We have Lucky, the Amazon tree boa.
Now these are actually in the same genus
as the Emerald tree boas,
but they come from the same areas as well,
but they're a little bit thinner body.
They actually stay on the ground
a lot more than the Emerald tree boas to be honest with you.
And they definitely have much more of an attitude
than the Emerald tree boas right?
Emerald tree boas are typically relatively docile,
to be honest with you.
Whereas these guys are, ow!
These guys are absolutely crazy.
So I always have to keep him kind of focused on my hand
because if not, he's going to come back
to the heat of my face and my mouth talking
and he's going to bite me in the face.
And that's something I really don't want to have.
This happens to be what they call a Tiger Amazon.
The thing that's interesting about these guys
is that they're extremely polymorphic
in the sense that they can have, again,
live young and they can have up to 20 babies,
but each baby can sometimes be a completely different color
than the other.
So you can have red babies, orange babies,
I mean green babies, yellow babies,
all kinds of different stuff.
And of course the Tiger, whoa!
The tiger is actually, oh, oh, oh, come on, come on.
The tiger is actually an incomplete dominant.
So it's kind of a more striking animal
and I've never bred Lucky,
but I absolutely should sometime
because he's absolutely incredible.
But Ooh, doggy, you got to be careful of these guys
because they are feisty little monkeys.
This of course is Verde, the Green Anaconda.
And you might ask yourself like,
"Why would you show an anaconda
if you're talking about boas?".
The truth is,
the anacondas are actually in the Boidae family
And so they are basically a boa.
As a matter of fact, down in South America,
they often call them water boas,
to be honest with you,
even though they are anacondas
and they are also ovoviviparous,
which means that they have live young, right?
So of course Verde is a couple years old,
two and a half years old.
And she's not that big, right?
You got to remember that first year,
oftentimes anacondas don't grow much.
Then they get to this size and they start to explode.
So I'm expecting Verde to go from this size
to probably like six, seven foot
probably in the next year and a half.
And then we all know when we got Ivy
when she was six or seven,
boy, within a year and a half, two years,
she got to the size she is now.
So they definitely grow quick once they get to this size.
So I'm excited for her growth
and I'm excited to get her a new enclosure
and bigger stuff with the expansion.
She's definitely going to have a nice waterfall
and stuff like that.
But anacondas are definitely in the Boidae family
and they are absolutely spectacular.
Coming back at you with another Hello Fresh deal.
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Shuffle 'em, shuffle 'em, shuffle 'em, shuffle.
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What does it say?
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Next you get into the true Red Tail Boas
or what they call boa constrictor constrictor.
And there's a few different localities.
These guys, this is actually a Suriname one,
and it is an absolute ripper.
I mean just the pinks kind of coming through
and that dark red tail.
Now these guys typically can get pretty large too.
Obviously Cupcake is a Giant Colombian Boa
that typically don't get that large,
but these guys can get that large,
in some cases over 10 foot in length.
So this girl one day will be a giant snake
and she looks beautiful now,
just wait until she gets big.
Another interesting boa is this Hog Island Boa.
These of course are an island off of South America
and they stay a little bit smaller
and instead of having that red or kind of brownish tail,
It's almost like a faded.
It almost is hypoish, which, but to be honest with you,
all of the Hog Islands are this way.
And the thing that's interesting about Hog Island Boas,
is they'll actually change color
much like the gargoyle geckos
that fire up and fire down.
Believe it or not, sometimes at night,
these guys will turn to be really dark
or really light depending on how it is.
This is one of the only boas
that goes through an actual color change
during its mood and temperature, right?
So if the temperature drops, it'll get darker.
If the temperature is up, it'll get lighter
and sometimes just the mood and stuff like that.
So Hog Island Boas are definitely very unique boas
and you don't see them around nearly as much as you did,
maybe 15 or 20 years ago.
So hopefully one day we can breed these guys
and produce more babies because they are absolute rippers.
And getting back to the constrictor constrictors,
this is actually a different locality.
I showed you the Suriname,
this is actually the Guyana phase,
and they all look just a little bit different.
Each country that they come from
have a little bit different size,
a little bit of a different color to them.
Oftentimes the Guyanas have more of this
kind of mauve lavender look to them a little bit,
really still that beautiful color for a tail like this.
And oftentimes Guyanas don't get as big
as the Surinames.
Most Guyanas had top out at like six, maybe seven foot,
something like that,
but they're still a boa constrictor constrictor.
And again, there's Peruvians,
there's a whole bunch of different ones.
Then you get into like short tails of the Bolivians.
I mean, there's a lot of boas out there.
So we work with a lot of them, but not all of them,
but this is an absolute, incredible one too.
And the Guyana Red Tails,
the first Red Tail Boa I ever owned
when I was like 16 years old.
So for some reason I just always have loved them.
Then of course, we actually have the Viper Boas.
These guys are cool.
These are what they call Candoia Aspera.
And they're an Indonesian Dwarf Boa.
And they're just absolutely incredible.
Look at that orange color
and they're very polymorphic.
These guys can go from this kind of orangy color.
Sometimes you get redder animals.
Sometimes you'll get brown animals,
almost all black animals.
And look at that shoveled head.
That's one of the things
that make these guys so interesting.
They have that kind of flat head that looks like a shovel.
Absolutely love this species.
And we have a bunch of them.
With any luck, we'll produce some babies.
Because we had, I think two babies last year.
So this year let's hope we actually get some babies
because they are absolutely amazing and just cool things.
There's actually another species
that's actually called Candodiae Carianada.
And those are the Solomon Island Ground Boas.
And those were the first live bearing snake
that I ever produced when I was like 16 years old.
So this whole genus, this Candodiae genus,
is really special to me.
I cannot wait to produce some more viper boas.
Then of course there's sand boas.
These actually are Kenyan sand boas
and there's all kinds of species of sand boas.
The Kenyans are probably the most common in the pet trade
and this is actually what they would call
an anerythristic Kenyan Sand Boa
because it's lacking the orange and red pigments.
Of course this would be a more normal one.
And of course we have high orange ones,
there's all kinds of different ones.
There's striped ones, there's albinos, all kinds of stuff.
So the Kenyan Sand Boas are probably
the most propagated sand boa
and they'll have up to 30 plus babies in a litter.
And they're absolutely adorable.
They look like little carbon copies of the adults,
but they can be a little bit snippy at times.
There's no doubt about that,
but they are really cool animals.
So I've been working with the sand boas
since I was a kid and I can't imagine life without them
because they are so absolutely adorable.
Matter of fact, I really should add even more sand boas,
to be honest with you,
because the species I'm working with are wonderful.
And speaking of awesome sand boas, I love these guys.
These are what they call the
Sunset Indian smooth scale Sand Boas.
These are the largest species of sand boas.
An adult female can get like up to four foot or so.
They're really big
and they have only a small amount of babies,
typically somewhere between four and six babies.
And they come out looking
kind of really orange and beautiful.
They have like bands on their back.
But to be honest with you,
the non sunset ones turn kind of brown when they get older
and are kind of just a uni-colored animal.
The sunset is actually a morph
of the Indian smooth scale sand boas
and these guys will breed true. Right?
So they're basically like almost like an incomplete dominant
to be totally honest with you.
So the fact that we're working with both
the normal smooth scales and the sunsets are pretty cool.
And this is a little male sunset,
so I can breed him to the normals
and get half the babies will come out sunset.
The other cool sand boa that I've been working with,
in love for a long, long time
are what they call the rough scale sand boas.
You can see they're a little bit feisty,
a little more feisty than the Kenyans are.
And they stay a little bit smaller.
These would also be called Conicus,
and they're again, rough scale sand boas
because their scales they're really rough.
If you're rubbing your hands on it,
it almost feels like sandpaper
in a little bit of a way.
And they're really awesome animals as well.
But these guys will have a little bit smaller litters
than the Kenyan sand boas,
maybe maxing out at about 8 or 10.
I think 10 was my largest litter ever.
This girl looks like she's gravid right now.
So she's probably going to have some babies here
in the next month or so.
But look at that cute face,
and just like the Kenyans,
they come out looking just like the adults.
So that's, what's interesting with most sand boas,
is when they're born,
they don't go through any oxygenic color change at all.
They literally look just like they do as babies
as they will as adults.
Back to boa constrictor imperator,
the Colombian boa constrictors.
This is actually what they would call a Kahl Strain Albino.
Just look at the color of the tail with the albinos here.
And the reason they're called the Kahl Strain,
is actually a guy named Peter Kahl
was the first one to ever produce albino boas.
And this is his particular strain.
There's also another strain called the Sharp Strain.
It's a guy named Brian Sharp that actually produced
not too long after Pete produced the Peter Kahl line.
And the fact is, is that if you breed a Sharp albino
and a Kahl albino together, they're not compatible.
So you essentially, uh, tell you what
it is getting tight on me here.
Boas are very strong and he's not trying to choke me.
He's just trying to hang on,
but I tell you what
he's definitely got quite the grip on me.
There's no doubt about that.
But if you breed a Kahl and a Sharp together,
you actually will produce normal boas
because they're not compatible.
And depending on who you talk to,
some people think the Sharp albino is a little bit prettier.
It's definitely a little bit more rare.
Either one are absolutely wonderful.
And then one of my favorite boa morphs,
to be totally honest with you,
happens to be this right here,
which is actually a Motley Boa.
It's an incomplete dominant mutation.
Just meaning that if you bred a Motley Boa
to a normal boa,
about half the babies would come out Motley.
And if you breed Motley to Motley
they do actually have a super Motley form as well.
But let's look at how cool that pattern is.
And it's just got a different color too.
It's a little more chocolatey.
Doesn't have the reds in it.
I don't know, I just have always loved these earth tones
when it comes to snakes and Motley boas are amazing.
So for those of you guys that have been opining for boas,
I hope that you got your boa fix in today's video.
Another cool boa, but a Central American boa,
is actually the Leopard Boas.
Now these were originally produced over in Europe.
I don't know, maybe back in the late nineties,
early two thousands.
And this is like an incomplete dominant thing.
So it does actually breed true,
and they are unbelievable,
just a crazy color and pattern mutation.
Oftentimes they have really dark eyes
and the things you can do with the Leopard Boa
are crazy cool.
Definitely, really excited to be working
with these in the future.
I hope that we can produce these
along with other mutations bred into them.
And again, the Central Americans actually stay smaller
than the Colombians,
typically only getting about five foot.
So again, I hope you enjoyed the boa segment here today.
If you enjoyed this video,
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Have an absolutely wonderful day Reptile Army.
Remember be kind to somebody, and I promise,
I'll see in the next one.