Dog head boa
| Dog head boa | ||||||||||||
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Dog-headed boa ( Corallus hortulanus ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Corallus hortulanus | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The Tree Boa or Gartenboa ( Corallus hortulanus ) is a species of snake from the family of boas (Boidae) leading from the southern Colombia and Venezuela and Guyana , French Guiana and Suriname across eastern Ecuador and Peru , and large parts of Brazil to northern Bolivia occurs.
features
Dog-head boas are slender snakes with a wedge-shaped head clearly separated from the body and large, protruding eyes with vertical pupils. They rarely reach lengths over two and a half meters. They are brown, reddish, gray, black or gray-green with irregular dark spots on the back and flanks. These are square, pentagonal or hexagonal on the sides with a lightened center and a more or less lighter border. The back pattern is very variable and can consist of a zigzag band or adjacent spots. The darkly spotted head shows a black stripe on the temples. The belly is off-white or yellowish with black, gray or brown spots. The head has two rows of Loreal shields , usually a large pre-ocular shield and two subocular shields and about ten other small ocular shields. The 11 to 15, rarely up to 24 superlabial shields , of which the fifth and sixth touch the subocular shields, as well as the 14 to 17, rarely up to 19 infralabial shields, show thermal pits. The middle of the trunk has 47 to 63 oblique rows of smooth scales. There are 260 to 290 abdominal and 117 to 130 undivided subcaudal shields . A long prehensile tail is well developed.
Way of life
The species prefers to colonize lowland rainforests up to a height of about 300 meters. The species is nocturnal and feeds on birds, small mammals and lizards. The species is considered to be aggressive and can cause deep wounds with its backward-curved fangs and is therefore sometimes falsely feared as poisonous in Venezuela. Up to 40 boys are born alive .
proof
- Ludwig Trutnau : Non-poisonous snakes, part 1 . 4th edition. Eugen Ulmer GmbH & Co., Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8001-3223-0 , p. 173-176 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Species entry in The Reptile Database ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
