Reptilia · Squamata
Candoia carinataSchneider, 1801
Pacific boa
Photograph by Nicola Crockford, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 780 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Candoia
- Grows to
- 780mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 16.6years
Longer than only 13% 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
38 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Length snout to vent (greatest recorded) is given as 1,160, and Length nose to tail (greatest recorded) as 780 — but snout to vent is part of the animal's total length, not more than it. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 16.6years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 602mm23.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 161.5mm6.25 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 205mm8 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1016.1g2.2 lb
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 384g13.5 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.9g0.14 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 1160mm3 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recordeddisputed
- 780mm2 ft 7 in
720 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 1 m (Reed 2005, too round for me to act on), Murphy et al. 1978 (stillborn neonates 160-250 mm TL, 3.9 g), Wynn and Zug 1985 (female sexual maturity as 350 mm SVL, then says the smallest adult is 620 mm, the largest 1035 mm SVL, then in page 18 give 1160 mm as max female SVL, 605 mm for males), Harlow and Shine 1992 (males: n = 61, mean SVL 480.4, range: 317-720 mm, females n = 67, mean SVL 602.3, range: 405-725 mm; shortest juvenile 153, longest embryo 170 mm SVL)
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
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Caves, Forest, Subterranean
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1530m
- Range size
- 424,922km²
ectotherms (Smith et al. 2001), mainly skinks (Harlow and Shine 1992)
Sit (O'Shea 2018)
O'Shea 1996
O'Shea 2018
0-1525 (O'Shea 2018, same max in Reed 2005)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–51eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.4eggs
O'Shea 1996, Harlow and Shine 1992
5-6 (O'Shea 2018), max 80 (!) Reed 2005, 64 (Murphy et al. 1978: n = 1 female, all dead), 7-8, then in p 22 say 7-27 (and 1-30 follicles) but mention Murphy's 64 (Wynn and Zug 1985), 4-51, mean 12.4 follicles (Harlow and Shine 1992)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Candoia carinata carinata (SCHNEIDER 1801) Candoia carinata tepedeleni SMITH CHISZAR, TEPEDELEN & BREUKELEN 2001
- Described by
- Schneider
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1801
- Type locality
- Indonesia
Keeping one
23 in × 15.5 in × 3 ft 10 in(59 × 39 × 117 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 2 ft 7 in (780 mm), at 0.75 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Pacific 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.
92kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,016 g, the heaviest recorded for Pacific 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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 carinata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/candoia-carinata
@misc{candoia_carinata_2026,
title = {Candoia carinata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/candoia-carinata}
}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.