Reptilia · Squamata
Candoia asperaGünther, 1877
New Guinea Viper Boa
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 120 cm nose to tail.
Also called New Guinea ground boa.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Candoia
- Grows to
- 1200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than only 40% of all boas anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 109 to 6,700 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
35 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 930mm3 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 588mm23 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 550.2g1.2 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 384g13.5 oz
1000 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 1.2 m total length (Reed 2005), Harlow and Shine 1992 (n = 21 adult males, mean SVL 427.9 mm, range 225-584, adult females mean 588.4 mm SVL, range 345-930 mm)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1000m
- Range size
- 447,368km²
mainly skinks (Harlow and Shine 1992)
Sit (O'Shea 2018)
Murphy et al. 2003
O'Shea 1996, O'Shea 2018
0-1000 (O'Shea 2018), max 1000 (Reed 2005)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 17eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–48eggs
- Mean clutch
- 17eggs
Feldman et al. 2015, Harlow and Shine 1992
mean 17 (Scharf et al. 2015), 5-17 (Murphy et al. 2003), 5-48 (O'Shea 2018), max 20 (Reed 2005), 5-48, mean 17 follicles (Harlow and Shine 1992)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Candoia aspera aspera (GÜNTHER 1877) Candoia aspera schmidti (STULL 1932)
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1877
- Type locality
- Papua New Guinea
Keeping one
3 ft 11 in × 23.5 in × 2 ft 11 in(120 × 60 × 90 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 3 ft 11 in (1200 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for New Guinea Viper Boa. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
54kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 550 g, the heaviest recorded for New Guinea Viper Boa — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Boidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Candoia aspera. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/candoia-aspera
@misc{candoia_aspera_2026,
title = {Candoia aspera},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/candoia-aspera}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.