Reptilia · Squamata
Chilabothrus fordiiGünther, 1861
Ford's Boa
Photograph by Dan Riley, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 109 mm nose to tail.
Also called Ford’s Boa, Hispaniolan Desert Boa.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Chilabothrus
- Grows to
- 109mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 24.4years
Longer than only 0% 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
37 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 860, and Length nose to tail (greatest recorded) as 109 — 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2015
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- A2ce; B1b(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Pupil
- Vertical slit
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 24.4years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 251mm10 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 101.5mm4 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 442.8g15.6 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 4.55g0.16 oz
- Length snout to vent · greatest recordeddisputed
- 860mm2 ft 10 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recordeddisputed
- 109mm4.25 in
860 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), "345–565 (506.6); to 860" (Landestoy et al. 2021), Murphy et al. 1978 (neonates 24.6-25.7, mean 25.1 mm - I think he means cm, same manner SVL 196-207, mean 152, not sure how this is possible, weight 4-5.1, mean 4.4 g)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Dietcomputed
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 10–402m
- Range size
- 23,160km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
Banfi et al. 2023
"Chilabothrus fordii is another small-bodied species, frequently occurring in arboreal situations at night but also found on the ground underneath cover objects during the day or crossing roads at night in lowland regions that are more xeric" (Landestoy et al. 2021) (recorded by Anuj Shinde),
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 5.5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Chilabothrus fordii fordii (GÜNTHER 1861) Chilabothrus fordii agametus (SHEPLAN & SCHWARTZ 1974) Chilabothrus fordii manototus (SCHWARTZ 1979)
- Described by
- Günther
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1861
- Type locality
- Dominican Republic
Keeping one
4.25 in × 2.25 in × 3.25 in(11 × 6 × 8 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 4.25 in (109 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 Ford's 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.
44kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 443 g, the heaviest recorded for Ford's 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
- — 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 · 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
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Largest clutch recorded
- — 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Sex decided by
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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 fordii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chilabothrus-fordii
@misc{chilabothrus_fordii_2026,
title = {Chilabothrus fordii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chilabothrus-fordii}
}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.