Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I enjoyed your web page (rubberboas.com)very much and found it most informative. I have recently brought home from north eastern Idaho a captured Rubber Boa and would like your aid in identifying its possible age. I believe it to be female and it is approx 8" in length. From your web page I woud guess it to be about 9-10 months old. Would you concur? Thank you in advance, Rick

Rick:
The Rubber Boa web site is the great creation of my son Ryan W. Hoyer. He is in the process of revising and upgrading some of the information on that site. I am not certain if he has competed that task and if it is now available in the upgraded version.

With respect to the approximate age of your specimen, I assume that instead of 8 inches, its actual length is closer to 9 1/2 to 10 inches. Regardless, at that small length, it is either last year's neonate (newborn) or a neonate of 2001. Since the normal range of parturition (birth) occurs sometime between the latter part of Aug. through Sept., its approximate age would be from about 10 months if born last year and 1 year, 10 months if born in 2001.

If born last year, it would have shed twice since then, once last fall 1-3 weeks after birth, and once this year whether or not it has had a meal. Thus, the scarred area where the umbilical cord was attached should still be reasonably prominant and not fully healed. Not having experience at assessing what is unhealed vs relatively healed or having a boa of known age for comparison makes it difficult for you to make a judgement. However, if the area of cord attachment, about 2/3rds way down from the neck on the ventral surface, has 3-4 ventral scales still strongly to moderately pinched at their centers and it looks as if the area is not quite totally healed, then the boa was born last year. If instead the 3-4 ventrals involved are only slightly constricted at their centers, only an observable faint yellow line exists where the embryonic cord was attached and the area thus looks fully healed, then the boa was born in 2001.

In either case, if you hold the boa up to a light bulb, it should be semi transparent, a situation that becomes less and less apparent with each succeeding year of age. Also, there should be no sharp demarcation between the ventral yellow and dorsal brown coloration except perhaps on the tail or region of the vent. If such a demarcation exists and extends up to mid body or beyond and/or the boa is not semi-transparent, then you have really understated its length and thus it could be older than mentioned above.

Richard F. Hoyer