Family member found boa in her yard!

[fangsalot]

ok,,so i get a call from a family member saying she has a boa constrictor in her backyard,so i tell her to send me a pic before i drive 30 minutes to her house(it mightve been a black racer or something)and low and behold

she was sitting sunning herself in the grass after a huge meal,im assuming from a toad because there everywhere in her yard.shes about 1 1/2 foot long and didnt even try to be aggressive.no external parasites or scars or abrasions,im assuming she hasnt been out long.now,to me she looks like a "dirty" hypo because of the orange tail.i have REALLY BAD pics for the moment because im not home to upload them to my computer but the tail is even more orange than they look here..so what do you think?

so i take her out today and she striking like crazy!!! do you think shes gonna calm down after awhile?yesterday i assume she was cold because she was a sweetheart but after a night of warming up..now shes a snappy little b****! thanks for looking!

 

[mma316]

It may be a wild specimen. I see your in Florida, and I knew that more than likely that was your locale when I saw the title on the post! I hear that there is quite a few species of tropical exotics thriving down there, especially snakes. If you plan on keeping it, I think you should try handling it frequently. That will help it feel less intimidated by your presence. It doesn't work all of the time though. I had a Blood python the exact same size, and it never calmed down. The damn thing would even strike if you got within 2' of here eclosure.Good luck with your new find.

 

[fangsalot]

"BETTER" PICS!

so what do yall think?what kind of boa?BCC?BCI?what kind of color mutation?

 

[pitbulllady]

It is a hypo, but it looks more like the hypo Nicaraguans than a Colombian, since they do tend to be more "muddy"-looking than hypo Colombians. I seriously doubt that it's a snake born in the wild in Florida, since there is only ONE place in Florida where Boas have been able to accomplish this, and that is the Deering Estate in south Miami, and their population has been extremely self-limiting due to the fact that they are BCC's, which have no cold tolerance at all. This snake appears to be a recent escapee; probably a new owner failed to lock the enclosure or had it outside for a little sunny photo shoot and got distracted long enough for the snake to make its escape. Wild CA Boas are notoriously nasty-tempered, and even captive-bred Nics are often very feisty, and this snake has also been eating VERY well, better than a wild snake would eat, and I don't just mean its most-recent meal. It's almost FAT, all over, and that didn't happen overnight and is NOT going to happen if it's having to hunt its own food. I certainly hope it didn't swallow a toad, since I learned the hard way as a teenager that toads are very toxic to Boas. They aren't designed to eat them like Hognoses are and toads will cause rapid kidney failure in a Boa, IF the snake doesn't get sick or die immediately. A local kid thought she was doing me a favor by putting a toad she'd caught(regular American toad, not a Cane toad, which we do not have in SC)in with one of my young Boas, and the snake must have mouthed or struck at the thing, and when I found it, it was in convulsions and soon died.

You might want to put up some posters asking if anyone has lost a young pet snake and don't tell what kind it is, just have any callers have to ID the snake, since I really believe it is a recently-lost pet. If you can't find an owner, then I guess that like me with my little BRB, you've got yourself a nice new snake!

pitbulllady

 

[Cowin8579]

Right on, def not like a columbian. Distinct reduction in black lines/pigment. Didn't didn't catch a multi million dollar snake, but awesome find.. and it is worth something. Is it from a captive collection? Hard to say. You tend to either see specialty high red tail boas from specific locals, or the common red tail boa.. whose tail is barely red at all. Are there breeding adults around there? Not sure. I once found a parakeet in my backyard in PA, and kept it as a pet. Every animal has a story. Might be escaped?

 

[pitbulllady]

Observe it and see if you notice any color changes, especially if it appears to be a different color at night than in the day. I DID see some Hogg Island x Hypo Nics for sale at the last Columbia, SC reptile show that looked just like this little snakey, and the vendor was from Florida-can't remember where, exactly, but there ARE a lot of reptile breeders in the Port St. Lucie area. He might have had one escape while unloading them. Even at the show, their ability to change color, a'la the Hogg Island gene, was noticeable. The dark "peppering" on this snake does remind me of a Hogg Island or Corn Island Boa, and the latter are natural hypos and are often called "Red Nics".

pitbulllady

 

[fangsalot]

do you have any pics of Hogg Island x Hypo Nics?i cant find anything on the web

 

[pitbulllady]

do you have any pics of Hogg Island x Hypo Nics?i cant find anything on the web

Nope, sorry. I didn't take any pics of those and really didn't take a lot of pics at all at the last show, since I was "wheelin' and dealin'" with vendors about prices of animals I wanted, lol.

pitbulllady

 

[fangsalot]

so you think thats the final verdict hogg and nic hypo?i reeally want to know what we have here.at one glance it looks like one thing..then i find a pic online that looks like something else.

 

[J.huff23]

Thats so awesome. I would love to find a sweet boa like you and PBL.

 

[fangsalot]

so,hypos are generally from nicaraguan decent.but is there anything in her appearance that suggests a cross with anything else?does that question make any sense? lol