Reptilia · Squamata
Epicrates crassusCope, 1862
Paraguayan Rainbow Boa
Photograph by João Paulo Antunes, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Neotropic region, reaching 146 cm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Boidae › Epicrates
- Grows to
- 1463mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 25years
Longer than only 49% 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
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
- 2012
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black, Brown
- Pattern on the back
- Banded, blotched
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1371mm4 ft 6 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 1103mm3 ft 7 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1463mm4 ft 10 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1615.9g3.6 lb
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 20.4g0.72 oz
1371 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), "reaches sexual maturity with at least 970 mm SVL in females and 870 mm in males (Pizzatto and Marques 2007)." (Fiorillo et al. 2021), Diaz-Ricaurte et al. 2022 (1 male 1090 mm SVL, 900 g, 1 female 380 mm SVL, 29.3 g), "Largest specimen SVL 1320 mm, Tail Length 143 mm" = 1463 mm TL (Passos & Fernandes, 2008, recorded by Anuj Shinde), Williams and Vera 2023 (max 120 cm TL), Pizzatto and Marques 2007 (female SVL 1102.6 + 93.4, range 970-1371 mm, N = 27; males 1094.6 ± 116.5 range 876-1301 mm SVL, N = 36)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 8–2188m
- Range size
- 4,594,353km²
mostly rodents, sometimes birds (Williams and Vera 2023)
Rahhal et al. 2023
"Three of them were moving during the night and one during the day" (Fiorillo et al. 2021), diurnal (Williams and Vera 2023)
arboreal and mostly terrestrial (Fiorillo et al. 2021), semi arboreal (Williams and Vera 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 12.7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8–22eggs
- Mean clutch
- 12.7eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 12.7 (Meiri et al. 2019, Pizzatto and Marques 2007), 8-22 (Fiorillo et al. 2021, Pizzatto and Marques 2007), 10-20 (Williams and Vera 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Cope
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1862
- Type locality
- Paraguay
Keeping one
4 ft 10 in × 2 ft 5 in × 3 ft 7 in(146 × 73 × 110 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 ft 10 in (1463 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 Paraguayan Rainbow 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.
139kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,616 g, the heaviest recorded for Paraguayan Rainbow 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
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — 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 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
- — 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
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). Epicrates crassus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/epicrates-crassus
@misc{epicrates_crassus_2026,
title = {Epicrates crassus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/epicrates-crassus}
}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.