het leopard(hans winner)& poss het leapord(Phil)

hope you like them
100% het leopard sonoran male(Hans Winner)
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female poss het leopard (Phil)
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wow amazing snakes!! Love the last one

Its a bit of a cliché, but you really have to see that 100% het in the flesh to really see whats going on with it, its amazing. It has the all-black eyes of a visual Leopard, and some really cryptic aberrant patterning going on, with great colours all the way through it. Sweet boa.

I have yet to see the pos hets in the flesh, but they look the business in the photos, very interesting morph to be working with.

Matt,the possible hets are awsome,but that 100% is incredible.I saw this guy down in Bens,fantastic looking animal.

Beautiful Boas Paul and thanks for sharing. The female I had isn't there is she??

Are you thinking of working with any other Boa in the near future?

Yeah Phil, thats the cool thing about these possible het Leopards; regardless of the eventual outcome, you still have some really unique looking boas.

It would be interesting to see would two of these possible hets produce similar looking offspring; somewhere in-between Leopards and regular Sonorans.
If so they could be a new morph all on their own, either way these pos hets will be great looking as adults

If the possible hets prove out to be hets they will produce leopards and normals 66% possible het leopard.If they dont prove out they will produce normals

Ah yeah I understand that, but i always found it very interesting that with the Leopards, even the possible hets appear to carry some sort of visual indicator. These possible hets are not normal looking Sonorans, so if they are proved out to not be hets, i thought that maybe there might be ome other type of heritable trait going with them. maybe not though.

Cheers for the reply though, and sorry for Hi-Jacking the thread Paul!

Het leopards do not carry a visual marker.Hans winners line has had little out crossing so all his boas look very similar,nothing more.

OK, my understanding was that there is at least some kind of visual indicator. For instance, that 100% Leopard is set apart from both leopards and wild type Sonorans; its eyes are jet black. Surely that is a visual indicator?

A 100% het albino boa does not show any signs whatsoever of carrying the Albino gene, but as far as I can see there is a visual indicator with the 100% het leopards, if not, then how come it has the black eyes of a visual Leopard?

Also, will all "normal" Sonorans that are born from possible hets, look like these possible hets?

Just to say, I'm only asking all of this out of genuine interest, and I'm not undermining your knowledge of these boas, or arguing for argument's sake, hopefully it is not coming accross as though I am!! I've no interest in that kind of carry on.

The black eyes it only looks like it has matt look at the first photo of the 100%het

Phil would no more than this, but AFAIK theres no definitive visual marker that indicates whether a Sonoran is carrying the leopard gene or not. Many hets will show prominent head spears, dark eyes, bold markings, 'different looking' saddles etc. but when you see some bloodlines of Sonorans in, for example, the U.S., some look very like het leopards but have no leopard genetics in their history at all.

Sonorans are very variable and different bloodlines can look quite a bit different. Theres no denying that many het leopards do have a 'certain look' to them, but no one feature is a solid reliable indicator that an animal is carrying the leopard gene. Its the same with Kahl albino BCIs.....the presence of a 'visual marker' was bandied about for het albinos for a while, if I remember correctly it was eye colour, however thats been more or less dispelled as a myth. AFAIK the same applies to het leopards.

Either way, they are stunning looking boas!

Great info Karl

OK thanks for that guys, didn't mean to rock the boat, so sorry if I did haha! And yeah, they're definitely class looking bos.

Matt don't ever worry to ask whatever it is that may cross your mind. If you don't ask you cannot know and I for one found this a very interesting thread (I didn't know either). No boat rocking at all

OK cheers Tan!

@Paul, yeah I did notice that with the eye alright, you can see the difference when the flash is on, compared to the time we first saw this one in Ben's.. It was a bit of a snapper that day, is it still feisty now? I'll have to call over for a proper look at them

Cool discussion IMO Matt! Thats what the forum is for after all. Phil knows a lot more on this subject though as he's worked with the trait directly.

A lot of hets for recessive traits share the same problem - many have a certain 'look' to them, but some totally unrelated individuals with no recessive genetics can look similar.

Hi Matt,its good that you brought this up as there is a common misconception that there are markers for het leopards.I think Karl pretty much explianed it.

As for the black eyes,i have had a friend piont out the black eyes on the possible hets a couple of times.I think it all depends on light,the size of the pupil at the time etc,as the eyes seem to darken and lighten unlike the leopards eye which, asfar as i have seen in my litter are always black.

Quite a few people have now seen my possible hets and any of them will tell you there is a great deal of variation in the litter,some look very similar to the Hans Winner line and some dont.I put this down to the fact that Dan &Colette produced the mother and father of this litter from a hans winner leopard out crossed to a Marcia Lincoln sonoran.So some look like the winner line,some look like the Marcia lincoln line and all the variations inbetween.

Very interesting great topic ; as I've 3 or these that Phil bread there is a big difference between them even the ones that tony has are totaly different , great looking snakes,

Thanks again Phil

well to be honnest, i think even if you bought a poss het leopard and dosnt prove to be a het well it still quite a pretty snake as i think there may be some influence on the litter from the leopard gene itself,
i saw a similar thing in an anery II litter (also sonoran)
the gene (anery II) seemed to have some sort of infulence tho the babies were all poss hets they were all bit darker than the avaerage looking boa,

so i go by,
if is just 66%,
its still worth every pence...(kinda)

yes matt thanks for asking these questions cause its clears a lot up for me :P

no matter how many forums or articles i read, i cant quite get the understanding, as i was explaining to Phil, though he did help me with a lot of confusion i had going round my head about genetics.

i have the 2 pos het anery type 2's and now the pos het leopard thanks to Phil so this is exactly the type of thing i need to be reading :) cheers guys

Congratulations on the new additions, very nice indeed

Had a look at these today, cracking boas

Beautiful snakes dude.

Fantastic colours on the male.