Emerald tree boas, both Corallus caninus and batasii, Northern and Basin, are probably our favourite snakes. Historicaly they have been thought of as one of the hardest snakes to keep in captivity. Wild caught specimens make very poor captives, avoid, they die almost every time!! Also avoid any CB animals that have been housed in the same room as wild caught emeralds. Like vipers emeralds can carry a multitude of pathogens with incubation times of up to 9 months, quarantine new animals for a year if in any doubt of their origins.

However we have found our own CB babies to grow into solid adaults that eat in the day, are not sensitive to temperature and humidity and a pleasure to keep. Grow them on slowly, we are fairly sure from our experience with these animals that prolapse and tail kinks are due to inapropriate growth rates. Feed small prey items, the fur is not digested, gives faeces the correct consistency and acts like fibre in our diets. Large prey items are too much rich innards and not enough fur.