Amazon Tree Boa (Corallus hortulanus)

The Amazon Tree Boa is a beautiful, unusual looking snake. One of the most diversely patterned snakes,
they are found in a rainbow of colors and designs. Mostly arboreal, this snake eats, drinks, sleeps, mates and gives birth in the trees. Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo is home to two Amazon Tree Boas. They can be found in our Tropical Rainforest building. We have two males: one red phase and one yellow phase.

Description: 

This species exhibits a variety of colors and patterns, from gray or black to red, orange, or yellow with eight different pattern shapes. A female of one pattern and color may produce a litter containing young of other patterns and colors.

Habitat: 

Mostly found in rainforests in the Amazon, but also in cooler forests along the coast of Brazil, and in dry forests as well as grasslands.

Range: 

Entire Amazon rainforest as well as drier areas in southeastern Brazil.

Diet: 

Young snakes feed on small rodents and fledgling birds. As young mature, their diet shifts toward larger birds and mammals and adults eat almost exclusively mammals.

Life Span: 

20 years or more.

Family Life: 

Females have delayed ovulation, usually 2 - 3 months after breeding. Gestation occurs 200 +/- days later. Females are ovoviviparous – retain egg case in body, eggs hatch inside, and give birth to live young.

Status: 

Not endangered. However, their rainforest habitat suffers from destruction.


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