Generally, in how much time does IMG truly show up?

Her name is Sesame bun :slight_smile: Her breeder couldn’t give me an exact date on when she was born (he said he has hundreds of boas) so she might be a little older than yours possibly. She also had a big poop in the chute in those pics so a bit chonky in the rear there. When I first got her, she seemed pretty small and slender for her age. Her breeder said he purposefully feeds them less to keep them small for the bins. Did yours do this too?

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I’ll post photos as soon as possible, he just ate yesterday. He is a lot darker already than your girl (she is stunning btw).
On his head there are already black freckles and his arrow pattern on the head is completely fused to a much darker and iridescent stripe that engulfs all the saddles. And again those are getting filled with dark speckles.
His tail is becoming “dirtier” like in hypo IMGs. I’ll show you the day after tomorrow

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beautiful, I don’t know much about IMG but my no boa (looks like anery but more red tail) started changing color at 2-3 years he is now 5 .

Here.
You can see his freckles all over the saddles, the tail and the belly







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Hopefully he darken’s up over the next year for you. If not he does have a very nice pattern and color to him now.

The colors, contrast and clean lines on him are STUNNING! I think he’d be beautiful whether or not he turned black to be honest.

Yeah he is a quality animal, there’s no doubt about that. Even if he doesn’t go full jet black- he’s so sweet and interactive that I really don’t care at all tbh, he is defo my favorite pet and snake. Too bad that I’ve underfed him for this long, but again he is my first boa. He will get better and better

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Please keep us updated as he sheds!!

Second round!





These were taken in full sun. He is becoming darker around the muzzle and the belly. Definitely the tail is losing color. He is becoming much more iridescent

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This is the second shed. I was expecting more. But there are signs of darkening





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Now that is one pretty fantastic boa!!!

He is a fantastic looking boa. I love his pattern and side striping alot.

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Yeah but I’m afraid of him having been misidentified. Definitely the dark isn’t showing up as fast as a true IMG would. I truly don’t know

Wow he’s grown a lot and progressing for sure. I would just sit back and enjoy the journey however long it may take. I was just thinking to myself the other day once they hit full black yes they’re beautiful but there’s also less of something to look forward to each shed. Seeing the change each time is pretty exciting :slight_smile:

That’s the problem: probably he won’t turn full black.
I’ve never seen ad adult RLT motley besides the one posted in the topic here previously.
He looks somewhat darker, but definitely not as dark as IMG would make him

What was the pairing that the breeder used to produce him? You should find out if there is any hypo in there, it’s a dominant gene so if it’s present at all would fight the other genes to make him lighter from what I understand. Have you reached out to the breeder and what did they say?

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Ok, I just looked at the link you gave above of your snake. It says:
Description: BORN FROM ALBINO MOTLEY RLT X HYPO IMG HET ALBINO”

It looks like there could potentially be a hypo gene in there from one of the parents? Since it is a codominant gene that could explain everything.

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I thought about that. But would it completely negate both the motley and the IMG combined? Probably not, since they are somewhat “stacking up” the darkness, or at least that’s what usually happens.
RLT should darken a bit too as it naturally “connects” the saddles with a darker stripe.

Only time will tell. I’ll wait till the end of the summer, when the eventual true IMGs of the breeder will be ready

Just from my observation, I’d conclude he has both hypo and IMG. Hypo does negate a LOT of the darkness in IMG. IMG tends to be a solid black color that looks like it “floods into” the rest of the colors over time, and I see that on your snake in the areas where he does have black along the spine and on his face markings. But he definitely won’t be a 100% black animal- likely something along the lines of when you look up pictures of hypo IMG.

To add, I’ve seen the level of darkness in IMG to be genetic. (ie: selectively bred darker IMG produces darker IMG, and there are weaker IMG)

Yeah, that might be the case. I haven’t seen the pictures of his father besides the tail in a photo of the lock, which was indeed pretty dark but not jet black- as respecting the hypo IMG combo.
I’ve never seen an hypo IMG RLT motley. RLT might also contrast the dark somewhat