Reptilia · Squamata
Chilabothrus anguliferCocteau & Bibron, 1840
Cuban Boa
Photograph by Robin White, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 400 cm snout to vent.
Once published as Epicrates angulifer — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Chilabothrus
- Grows to
- 4000mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 22.6years
Longer than 95% 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 240 to 4,770 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched, uniform
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 22.6years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 4000mm13 ft 1 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 2000mm6 ft 7 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 492mm19.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 515mm20.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 31,573g70 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 103.3g3.6 oz
4000 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), Rodriguez-Cabrera et al. 2022c (1 female 1800 mm SVL, 200 mm tail, gravid, 2,130 g post partum; 4 hatchlings 384-552 m SVL, 420-600 mm total length, 42.5-165 g, but the 2 small ones were conjoined by the yolk sac; in the literature they report neonates with "total lengths ranged between 600–610 mm (Sheplan & Schwartz, 1974); neonates of C. angulifer frequently exceed 600 mm SVL and 146.6 g"), Murphy et al. 1978: neonates 600-621 mm TL, mean 615); SVL 540-558 mm (mean = 553); weight 164.3-170.8; mean 167.6 g)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Dietcomputed
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 330m
- Range size
- 30,242km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
Murphy et al. 2003
Feldman 2015
Arboreal&Terrestrial (Feldman 2015)
max 310 (Murphy et al. 2003), 0-325 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–10eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
2-6 (Branch and Erasmus 1984), 2-10 (Murphy et al. 2003), 1-7 (O'Shea 2018), "the female gave birth to two normal babies (within the range of sizes reported for neonates of this species...., a pair of twins and five infertile ova" (Rodriguez-Cabrera et al. 2022c), 4 (Murphy et al. 1978, n = 1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Cocteau & Bibron
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1840
- Type locality
- Cuba
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.
1960kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 31,573 g, the heaviest recorded for Cuban 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 female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — 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 · a typical adult
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Fangs
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Pupil
- — 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). Chilabothrus angulifer. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chilabothrus-angulifer
@misc{chilabothrus_angulifer_2026,
title = {Chilabothrus angulifer},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chilabothrus-angulifer}
}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.