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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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| Update
2011 I did several Onyx
breedings again this year, some repeat breedings and
some fully unrelated breedings to furthermore
establish the genetics and compare the results from
the previous years to see if they match up in results
in the repeat breedings as well as in the unrelated
breedings both in combination with Super Onyx as well
as in combination with Onyx, needles to say but as
expected the results from these breedings all matched
up with the results from previous years prooving again
the co-dominant genetics of the Onyx mutation.
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| First litter was from breeding a
T+ Sunglow Onyx to a prooven Onyx het T+ female, the
female produced a small litter but the odds were
great and although no Super Onyx were produced the
Red Baron's in the litter more than compensated for
that! |
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First litter to
follow this one was from a Hypo Super Onyx het T+
to a Onyx het T+ female sadly enough she went
early producing one premature baby and a bunch of
slugs, the same male was also paired up with an
unrelated hypo 50% poss het T+ female, this
virgin female produced a beatifull all Onyx litter
with Hypo Onyx (poss Super), Onyx, Sunglow Onyx (poss.
Super) and T+ Onyx, the results in this litter
matched up with a previous litter i had from a
different female last year, besides this the
female luckily prooved out to be an actual het.
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Another pairing was
from a T+ Sunglow Onyx x Hypo het T+ female, this
female dropped a fantastic litter again with with
(poss. Super)Sunglow Onyx, (poss Super)Hypo Onyx,
Onyx, T+(sunglow) hondurans and het (hypo)T+
hondurans.
Looking at the results in these litters in
combination with last years results the Super
Sunglow / Super Hypo (onyx) seem visually very
different than the regular Sunglow / Hypo in
being that they are much lighter in color, hope to
proove this in the future. |
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| Now the
real exiting stuff....
Last year i produced a new
designer form in combination with the Onyx gene,
the breeding was from a T+ Sunglow Onyx to a F1
completely unrelated honduran Motley female...i
especially did this breeding as looking at the
results with the Onyx sofar i had a very strong
feeling that i could expect something exciting
and the two genes would in some way interact and
make something special!
Well needles to say all my expectations prooved
to be right with an additional bonus but at the
same time the result raised more questions.
So here we go, when the female
gave birth last year i couldn't believe my eyes
as there were T+ in the litter which was a total
surprice as the original motley male to whom she
was an F1 offspring from came in from a
different shipment as did the female she was
produced from so these had no relation to the
Onyx and the honduran T+ gene in them other than
that these came in a year before the onyx
parental stock came in also from Honduras,
In this litter were Sunglow Onyx, T+ Onyx, Hypo
Onyx (het T+) and 4 identical fully striped
animals and one (stillborn) motley....the big
question was what exactly was i looking at...were
these identical full striped animals Onyx Motley
or were they a completely new (Super?) form that
was formed by the interaction between the motley
and onyx gene.
With a combination like this and the results
from that breeding one litter is only indicative
of what possibly could be going on but not
conclusive!, so i deceded before making anything
public that i needed at least two more breedings
before anything conclusive could be said about
the new fully striped form.
With that in mind i planned two breedings for
2011 being that i bred the same T+ Sunglow male
to the same female to see if the results would
be the same, and to make sure that the results
were not exclusive to that pairing i planned a
second breeding using the Hypo Super Onyx male
in combination with a completely unrelated
motley female to make sure that if this was a
new genetic form it was also being prooven
genetic by a completely different breeding using
the same ingredients.
The first female that ovulated was the unrelated
motley female bred by the Super Onyx male, she
produced a small litter of babys but that litter
alone made a lot of things clear, especially
since the (homozygous) Hypo Super Onyx was the
father so all babys would carry the onyx gene.
The litter had 5 babys..1 Onyx 1 Hypo Onyx 2
Motley Onyx and 1 carbon copy of the new (Super)
form identical to the 4 that were born in 2010.
So this prooved that the new
form definately can be reproduced besides
this as there were 2 clearly identifiable Motley
Onyx it also made it clear that this new (Super)
form is indeed a completely new form and not a
double single gene combination as the visibly
very different Motley Onyx are besides this it
once again confirms beyond a doubt that the Onyx
gene is Co - dominant.
Next was the by now prooven Motley het T+ that was bred by the
Sunglow Onyx, well to make a long story short, she had a small litter and a
number of slugs but with 4 babys i hit on the best odds possible hitting both
the T+ Onyx Motley and the New Super in the T+ version, and again confirmimg the
genetics with as a bonus we can now see them in the T+ version.
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