Pacific Boa Constrictor Snakes (Candoia bibroni bibroni)

Alfie's snake named Samael... Samael ( Hebrew : סמאל ‎) (also Sammael ) is an important archangel in Talmudic and post-Talmudic lore, a figure who is accuser, seducer and destroyer, and has been regarded as both good and evil . It is said that he was the guardian angel of Esau and a patron of the empire of Rome. Also called Sammael and Samil, he is considered in legend both a member of the heavenly host (with often grim and destructive duties) and a fallen angel , equatable with Satan and the chief of the evil spirits. One of Samael's greatest roles in Jewish lore is that of the angel of death. In this capacity he is a fallen angel but nevertheless remains one of the Lord's servants. As a good angel, Samael supposedly resides in the seventh heaven, although he is declared to be the chief angel of the fifth heaven.

Is it a Fiji boa? Is it a fire breathing dragon? You decide.... Well. OK it's boa - and a very tiny one, but such Fire!

I have two extremes of Fiji Boa size in my house at the moment: Thomasina (vastly pregnant) I estimate at over 2m long, weighing almost 3Kg, while the two babies we just got from Taveuni, now three weeks old, are about 33 cm long and weigh 11 gms each. The babies are eating one small frozen (and thawed) house gecko a week (straight from the floor of a feeding cup), while Thomasina really hasn't eaten much at all for the last 2 or 3 months. It's the coldest time of the year here right now (down to 20oC at night) and the babies are spending all their time curled up into little balls hidden inside dried fern leaves, while Thomasina, who is too fat to coil up tightly, seems to be enjoying a "cushion" made of a locally woven coconut leaf bag filled with fern leaves. My others are also all curling up under the smallest hides they can fit into at night, (sometimes it's a pile of 3 snakes with a hide riding high on top of them as they all push in at once). They seem more ...

Finally we have some new babies - not from our own pregnant snake-in-waiting, but from our friends at Paradise Resort on Taveuni Island. During land clearing a pregnant wild female was found and gave birth in captivity on 29 June. She had 27 live babies, in three different colour ways, many with amazingly orange eyes. See below for photos taken 9 - 10 days after birth..... Momma, resting

It is now between 6 and 7 months since Thomasina was bred, and as she has put on more than 1Kg (almost twice her body weight), and stopped eating, we think she may be close to giving birth. Here's a brief run down of her pregnancy: Date and measurements Event Months after mating 14 Oct 2009 (2m long, 1.5 Kg) Put in with 2 males, mating began immediately 0 7 November 2009 Removed from males 0.75 (3 weeks) 15.Jan 2010 (1.75 Kg) Putting on weight, feeding weekly on geckos, chicken portions, rats/mice 2 to 3 months Late Feb Shed 17 April 2010 Last accepted food, started fasting after this 5 to 6 months 15.May 2010 (2.7 Kg) "Blue" (getting ready to shed) 6 to 7 months Reading suggests that Candoia bibroni bibroni may be pregnant fo...

Just to show you where my snakes come from: we have Taveuni, Kadavu and Viti Levu snakes. See how different they are in the post below