Boa constrictor constrictor Colombia report, Colombian Common boas

Boa c. constrictor

Colombia

A report about Boa constrictor from Colombia by Dr. Ian Stephan

Colombia is a large country. It is one of the world's hotspots for plant and animal diversity, and has a wide variety of habitats. Two major habitats dominate Colombia, the upland area of the Andes, and the lowland area of Amazonia and the Llanos. Now as anyone who understands speciation knows, such differing habitats and physical barriers often lead to the 'creation' of new subspecies and species. Or at least, the separation of species and subspecies.

In Colombia there are two subspecies of Boa Constrictor: imperator and constrictor. It may even be possible that longicauda reaches Colombia (will leave this one out here for now!). Imperator is the form found west of the Andes, in the Pacific region and in the northern Caribbean region.

Constrictor is the eastern / lowland form, present in the Llanos (Orinoco) and Amazonian regions. There is of course some intergradtion between these two forms and both have been found in
the areas outside of their usual limits.

The subspecies imperator ranges north towards (see map) Mexico, northeast to Venezuela, and south to Peru, and perhaps Bolivia. Constrictor ranges west to Ecuador, south to Peru and
Bolivia, east to Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana.

Naturally, within such a large area, both subspecies display a huge degree of variation in both colouration, morphology, and meristics (scale counts). It is also VERY important to remember
that even within a particular area, that this species is highly variable.

For many years boas have been imported from Colombia, although it's been a long time since they have left via the Amazonian region. Therefore, the majority of imports are all imperator. The common boa. The 'Colombian' Boa. This is not to say that Bcc does not occur in Colombia.
Few people in the US probably have pure B.c.c's from Colombia.

I will make a brief note about the Leticia boa here. Recently a trend has started, probably driven by financial reasons, to sell a certain look of Boa constrictor as a 'Leticia' boa. Now not one of these Leticia's looks anything like a boa you'll ever see in Leticia and the name is clearly misleading.

I have read various posts on this site how the Leticia boa is an integrade of B.c.c. and B.c.i., but I can assure you it is nothing of the sort. Leticia is deep within Amazonia (see map) and very
close to Iquitos. I am sure nobody here that Iquitos boas were imperators?
So why should the boas from Leticia be such?

Many years ago many B.c.c's did leave Leticia. However, these were collected over a wide area, and not just from the vicinity of Leticia. But, the boas leaving via Leticia WERE B.c.c.

Trade routes within Amazonia dictate that any B.c.i leaving Leticia would have been an unusual occurance (The majority of B.c.i's leaving Colombia come from the
north (Cartagena / Barranquilla region).

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