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Onyx boa
Boa
constrictor imperator
The Onyxboa is a brandnew boamorph first produced here in
2008, sofar breeding results indicate that this mutation is
co-dominant, until i have a 100% guarantee that it is a
co-dom trait i will use the name Onyx for the homozygous
form and het. onyx for the visual hets. Hopefully answers
will come in 2010.
The first
ones were born from breeding a visual Honduran T+
male to a 66% poss. het. T+ female, which were F1
descendants of the original WC parents that came in
from Honduras and produced the first T+ Albino from
this line making them also pure Honduran. Over time i purchased nearly all the
offspring that was produced from this line and
noticed that from the respective litters some of the
babys had a distinct pattern that set them apart
from the rest, indicating to me that there might be
something more going on with them genetically
speaking.
In 2007 i paired a T+ albino with a 66% het female
both carrying the same traits at best hoping the
female would proove to be an actual het. and produce
some nice T+ for me. |
On july 9 the female
gave birth to a healthy litter, i slowly opened
the bin to see if there were any T+ born but the
female quickly made me change my mind as she wasn't
to happy with me trying to get a look at her litter,
i did see something dark in the litter but left them
alone untill the female was completely done.
I checked again nearly an hour later as the suspence
was killing me and i was completely blown away
by what i looked at. |
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The
pattern abnormality did indeed proove out to be a
marker for a separate genetic trait and i was
looking at a brandnew mutation, The ONYX boa.
The onyx born in the litter were build exactly as
the parents as babys and the rest of the babys in
the litter and had no pinheads or the bulging eyes
we see in the supermotleys and never skipped a meal
since they started feeding, the have all been
problem free and mature nicely. There was one male
onyx in the litter and at 18 months of age he is
actively courting and breeding a nice female.
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| n 2009 i produced some
more Onyx from a different female and had this little gem
born, this litter also confirmed my believes that
there is a third gene at work with these boas
showing that although progress has been made to
fully understand the genetics of these boas, the
project is still young and hopefully results in 2010
will give more insight in what is going on with the
onyx gene and help unravell what the full potential
of the onyx gene is. |
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| Update
2010 The third gene involved
is a Hypo gene which is a naturally occuring gene in
these Honduran boas, suspected this already in the
first Onyx litter (see first pic.) as you can clearly
see the difference between the normal and the hypos,
confirmed by the first Sunglow Onyx was born here last
year, this year saw several hypos in different litters
and even had a, what i believe to be, Super Sunglow
Onyx in a litter from breeding a Hypo Super Onyx (het
T+) to a Hypo het T+, which would also make these
hypos co-dominant.
It also again confirmed three things,
first that the First Superonyx male born here is
actually a Hypo Super Onyx which i suspected as this
one was much lighter in color as the other Super Onyx
born alongside of him, he also matured into a much
lighter color as the other Super Onyx, but at the time
it wasn't confirmed as i had very little to compare
him to and it could just as well have been a variation
in color in the Super Onyx, so i had to wait until he
was breeding and i got a litter from him.
Second the female was a normal honduran hypo het T+,
the litter contained not a single Super Onyx but
instead all Onyx, which is also confirmation that the
Onyx trait is indeed a co-dominant trait.
Third and definately very important the Supers
definately breed and are viable.
I also bred a Sunglow Onyx into
another morph, besides this being another completely
unrelated breeding it again confirmed the Hypo gene
and the Onyx gene being co-dominant, but it also
produced a completely new designer both in the normal
form as well as in the Hypo form in combination with
the Onyx. For now i will not disclose the details and
pics on this one, these will follow later this year.
All i can say is stay tuned as these new guys rock! |
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