Reptilia · Squamata
Corallus caninusLinnaeus, 1758
Emerald Tree Boa
Photograph by Edeag3, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A tree-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 195 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Corallus
- Grows to
- 1945mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 68% 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
36 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Green
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Venomous
- No
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1710mm5 ft 7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1386mm4 ft 7 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1945mm6 ft 5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 445mm17.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2984g6.6 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 29.3g1 oz
1945 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max 1850 mm TL (Reed 2005), Murphy et al. 1978 (neonates measured and weighed: total length 420-470, mean 455 mm, weight 24.4-34.2 mean 30.5 g), Pizzatto and Marques 2007 (female SVL 1385.5 ± 182.5 (1120-1710, N = 25), males 1055.3 ± 202.8, (835-1405, N = 11))
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1000m
- Range size
- 1,105,203km²
carnivore (see Pinto‐Coelho et al. 2021)
Rahhal et al. 2023
Stark et al. 2018, O'Shea 2018
Scharf et al. 2015, Murphy et al. 2003, O'Shea 2018
0-1000 (O'Shea 2018), max 1000 (Reed 2005)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 8.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–18eggs
- Mean clutch
- 8.3eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.9per year
Feldman et al. 2015, Meiri et al. 2019
mean 8.3 (Meiri et al. 2019), 6-15 (O'Shea 2018), max 18 (Reed 2005), 10 (Murphy et al. 1978, n = 1), 3-15, mean 8.3 (Pizzatto and Marques 2007)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Indiis
Keeping one
4 ft 9 in × 3 ft 2 in × 9 ft 7 in(146 × 97 × 292 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 6 ft 5 in (1945 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 Emerald Tree 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.
241kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2,984 g, the heaviest recorded for Emerald Tree 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.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 1 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Locality typebreeder consensus
Adult size, how white the dorsal markings are and how deep the green. Amazon Basin animals run larger with a bolder white line; northern animals are smaller and more broken in pattern.
Worth knowing. Emerald tree boas are born red, orange or brick and change to adult green over months to more than a year. A photograph of a neonate says almost nothing about the adult, and the change happens whatever the locality — it is not a trait a breeder selects.
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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — 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). Corallus caninus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/corallus-caninus
@misc{corallus_caninus_2026,
title = {Corallus caninus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/corallus-caninus}
}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.