If you’ve spent any time looking at information on boas, snake keeping, or reptiles in general on the Internet you will probably have come across this rather odd convention. Most common on forum signatures you’ll often see something like this:

Common Boa Constrictor 1.1.0
Hog Island Boa 0.1.0
Brazilian Rainbow Boa 0.0.2
Rosy boa 1.1.0

The first time I saw this I was quite confused, so if you’ve felt the same way you’re not alone. Once I discovered the meaning of this common notation though it all made sense! The numbers refer to the male, female, and unsexed or juvenile snakes a keeper owns.

So in the example above, the signature is saying that the person has one male and one female common boa, a single female Hog Island boa, 2 rainbow bows of unknown gender, and a male and female rosy boa!

Hope that sheds some light on these common but confusing numbers!