Reptilia · Squamata
Chilabothrus gracilisFischer, 1888
Hispaniola Boa
Photograph by Kristof Zyskowski, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A tree-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 130 cm nose to tail.
Also called Hispaniolan Gracile Boa.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Chilabothrus
- Grows to
- 1300mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Arboreal
Longer than only 44% 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
39 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2015
- Red List criteria
- A2c; B2b(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
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 950mm3 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 730mm2 ft 5 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1300mm4 ft 3 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 890mm2 ft 11 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 250mm9.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 307.5mm12 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 583.7g1.3 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 60.5g2.1 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.95g0.14 oz
950 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), max 900 mm SVL (Landestoy et al. 2021), max TL 1.3 m (Reed 2005), Murphy et al. 1978 (mother: measured 890 mm total length, 730 mm snout-vent and weighed 60.5 g postpartum neonates TL 301-314 mm (x = 308); snout-vent 246-254 mm (x = 250); weight 3.8-4.1, mean 3.9 g)
snakes only in this source
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
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 100–400m
- Range size
- 35,928km²
no actual data but can be imputed as carnivorous like all snakes
Banfi et al. 2023
Gearty et al. 2021
max 400 (Reed 2005), so I write 100-400
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 7.5
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 5–10eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
midpoint of the reported range — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
max 10 (Reed 2005), 5 (Murphy et al. 1978; n = 1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Chilabothrus gracilis gracilis (FISCHER 1888) Chilabothrus gracilis hapalus (SHEPLAN & SCHWARTZ 1974)
- Described by
- Fischer
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1888
- Type locality
- Haiti
Keeping one
3 ft 2 in × 2 ft 2 in × 6 ft 5 in(98 × 65 × 195 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 4 ft 3 in (1300 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 Hispaniola 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.
56kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 584 g, the heaviest recorded for Hispaniola 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
- — 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
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Sex decided by
- — Population trend
- — 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 gracilis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chilabothrus-gracilis
@misc{chilabothrus_gracilis_2026,
title = {Chilabothrus gracilis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chilabothrus-gracilis}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.