![]() Matt and I were not the only ones who were drawn to odd animals after we got our first taste of college freedom. ![]() Living with tarantulas takes some getting used to. Later that night, I woke up while swatting myself in the face, convinced that Spot was crawling up my throat and preparing to bite me in the eyeball. The spider stalked, trapped and ate crickets with an impressive efficiency. Compared to Kaa, Spot was as lively as a circus chimp. When we got home, we named the spider Spot and put him in Kaa's old terrarium. We weren't in the market for a fat hairy spider but, hey, how many people did we know with dangerous arachnids in their apartments? The store owner said he was fresh out of baby boa constrictors but had just received a new batch of giant tarantulas from South America. "You sold us a sick snake, mister," I said. We took Kaa's stiff body back to the pet store. One of the rare female visitors to our apartment noticed that most snakes prefer to coil up, not stretch out and remain as straight and still as a speed bump in the road. Kaa died one afternoon just a few days after we brought him home. "I think we bought the laziest snake in Christendom," Matt said. ![]() We decided to name the runt reptile Kaa, after the crazy-eyed snake in "The Jungle Book." Unlike his namesake, who could hypnotize prey, our Kaa was a lethargic and useless serpent. "Eh, he'll get bigger and be eating live tapirs by the time we're seniors," Matt said. "Well, this isn't going to impress anyone," I said. We had enough cash to purchase a baby boa, which really looked more like a tapeworm. If I wanted to sleep with a snake or eat breakfast in my underwear, who was going to stop me?Īfter Matt and I scratched up $50, we went down to the pet store. ![]() It was a symbol that I could do as I dang well pleased now that I was in college. Sure, I had grown up catching hognose snakes in the hills of North Florida, but I was ready to own a real snake - you know, a boa constrictor. Hunted for their fine, ornate skin and for sale in the exotic pet trade, some boa constrictors have protected status in their range.When my roommate Matt Fuqua and I arrived at the University of Florida, one of the first orders of business, after the ceremonial hanging of the beer signs in our sad apartment, was to go out and buy a pet snake. The largest boa constrictor ever found measured 18 feet. Boas are about 2 feet long when they are born and grow continually throughout their 25 to 30-year lifespan. Reproduction and Conservationįemale boas incubate eggs inside their bodies and give birth up to 60 live babies. Their jaws can stretch wide to swallow large prey whole. Boas will eat almost anything they can catch, including birds, monkeys, and wild pigs. ![]() Their jaws are lined with small, hooked teeth for grabbing and holding prey while they wrap their muscular bodies around their victim, squeezing until it suffocates. Significantly smaller than anacondas, boas can grow up to 13 feet long and weigh more than 100 pounds. Like their anaconda cousins, they are excellent swimmers, but prefer to stay on dry land, living primarily in hollow logs and abandoned mammal burrows. Behaviorīoas are nonvenomous constrictors found in tropical Central and South America. Depending on the habitat they are trying to blend into, their bodies can be tan, green, red, or yellow, and display cryptic patterns of jagged lines, ovals, diamonds, and circles. Boa constrictors wear some of the most distinctive markings of all reptiles. ![]()
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