Dodoma

Dodoma sand boas are gorgeous. They tend to stay much cleaner and have a more reduced pattern with very circular blotches and even a patternless head. Hailing from the Dodoma Valley in Tanzania, these beauties have been plugged in with several different morphs with outstanding results. Perhaps the most successful pairing has been with the already outstanding deep deep orange of the nuclear sand boas. Nuclears were line bred by Roy Stockwell of Canada for over twenty years to be the deepest orange with the cleanest patterns, even into adulthood. The combination of these two is called a Nuclear Meltdown which has the best of both worlds. Deep orange, reduced pattern, circular blotches and a very clear and clean pattern. Brian Russo has a NuclearMeltdown male that is also heterozygous for albino and anery, or snow, that throws absolutely amazing babies. The dodomas can often prove to be tricky feeders especially when introduced to new environments. The genetics behind the animals cannot be described as a morph but a locality. The pairing of dodoma and normal sand boas could be compared to two people of different ethnicities having children. The kids wouldnt be one or another, but a mix, in the snakes cases these would be called dodoma crosses or 50% dodoma. 

Splash

The splash gene is my personal favorite. Its pretty similar to a pied ball python, but most of the affected area is near the tail. The way it interacts with other morphs i stunning, particularly in albino snakes. The area of splash is often a perfect crisp white, similar once again to the pied morph in ball pythons. It is also commonly paired with snow and anery sand boas, but with a base color similar to white to begin with, the splash isnt quite as dramatic. These are also becoming more and more affordable as more people begin to breed them. With some luck I'll be one of them in the future. Im excited to see how the albino splash combo pairs with the nuclear color. That orange screams on nuclear albinos and the contrast of the white will probably bring a tear to my eye. I am aware of several breeders already beginning to work towards this combo, so it shouldn't be too long before we're all crying over them. The splash gene is simple recessive so it's inherited the  same way albino and anery is and it also means that it will hold its value a little longer because its not as easy to produce. 

The Tail WIggle

One of my little snows is about as vicious as a sand boa can get, which isnt that vicious, but even still it seems she enjoys biting me. Recently, however, i havnt been getting bitten as much because she's predictable. Normally its almost impossible to tell when a sand boa will bite you because they generally strike side to side, which requires no recoil to bite. You can tell when most snakes will attempt to bite you because they bunch up like an s and spring forward. The little girl is predictable because every time she gets ready to bite me her tail starts to wiggle back and forth like a dog wagging its tail. I thought it was funny at first but it got me thinking about other animals that bait in prey, like angler fish and snapping turtles. I believe that a larger species of sand boa, the indian sand boa, commonly displays this behavior when threatened. Adults of the species usually retain a few of their juvenile rings at the base of their tail to make this effect even more confusing. Who knows, maybe my girl's just playing.

Variation Within Genes

No two snakes are the same, though they be be the same morph or have the same type of pattern; it's almost like they have their own fingerprint. Albinos have an extremely wide range of color alone, from pink to yellow to peach blotches, and varying shades of orange. The albino mutation itself is a lack of color though, so how could these snakes be so different if they're all lacking color. It couldn't be that they're all different mutations, because they wouldn't be compatible, which they all are. The variation of color occurs in anery as well, with black and white varying to more brown and cream. This, in my opinion makes it all the more exciting, with more possibilities and higher expectations for the future of sand boas.

Sandboasomes

Heres a little reproduction background. Females gametes aka eggs are haploids, meaning they only have 23 chromosomes. All of these have 22 autosomes which determine which genes are inherited and one X. Now gametes are not like normal cells, most cells contain 46 chromosomes, a pair of the 23. We all know that when the sperm reaches the egg a zygote is formed a baby grows and pops out after 9 months blah blah blah. In humans the way sex is determined is 100% dependent on the males. The sperm either have a Y chromosome or an X chromosome, its 50/50. If a sperm with the Y reaches the egg a boy develops, if X, a girl. The combination of both 23 (haploids) create the full 46 (diploid) I'm not sure how sex is determined in sand boas, but based on a 1970 study of boid karyotypes (chromosome pictures) it was determined that the kenyan sand boas close relative, the javelin sand boa has 34 total chromosomes but they are not arranged the same as humans. They have 16 macrochromosomes and 18 microchromosomes. To be perfectly honest i do not know what the significance of this is, but it does not appear to mention any of these chromosomes determining sex, though I'm sure they do. Sand boas karyotype is unique among boas as they have two less than the usual amount of micro chromosomes, and their macrochromosomes include 8 metacentric and 8 acrocentric chromosomes, as opposed to the usual 10 and 6. Metacentric chromosomes have the typical X shape with the four armish things, where as acrocentric chromosomes are more of a half X. If thats confusing there's a picture below.

Know What You're Getting

I cannot stress the importance of purchasing your snakes from a reputable breeder enough. My very first snake was a normal female kenyan sand boa. I got it from pet shop in Kansas City and I absolutely adored her. She was sold to me as a "100% Egyptian"; at the time I didn't realize the significance of this, as pure egyptian sand boas are hard to come by. Only now am I realizing that only a couple of people work with them in the entire county, and they don't sell for fifty dollars either. This is why its important that you find a breeder you can trust. Imagine putting down a thousand dollars on a "Het Paint" only to find out you just bought a normal sand boa for twenty times its actual worth. The breeders you can trust are generally the breeders who produce the highest quality animals as well, which definitely wouldn't hurt, especially if you plan on breeding in the future. A few breeders I 'm a fan of are Jeff Holloway, Brian Russo, Scott Miller, Mark Bpp, Mark Huntely, Warren Treacher, Lee Frey and Steven Stephenson. All of them produce great animals.

Inheritable Paradox?

Paradoxes in pattern are very rare. These are blotches or spots of irregularity, different from the rest of the pattern. Now normally these are not able to be passed on to offspring, they just look cool. In sand boas, the albino paradox gene  is in fact inheritable; it's just simple recessive. The morph looks like an albino snake, but with jet black blotches all. These snakes have been selectively bred to have more and more black however, and the recently produced Albino Paradox Stripe tend to have black all over them. This could be because of the presence of rufescens blood, but only time will tell. Paradox Albinos are not the only form of paradoxing that occurs in these snakes. Brother Boa's produced an anery snake, which is normal black and white, that had oranges flecks on it. I believe they have produced more than one, so hopefully it proves to be recessive! I also believe that Sand Boa Morphs have produced a snake with a normal phenotype, but with a small spot of white within the pattern. I am only aware of the one however. It should be interesting to see how the Paradox gene blends with other genes after seeing how it reacted with the stripe. Nothing too major occurred when mixed with the anery gene, just a snow with black blotches. I am anxious to see how it will do with the splash gene, as many albino snakes have a solid white tail because of the gene. Will the paradoxing extend to the splash itself? That would be one killer snake!