Amazon - Tree Boa (Head Shot)

[crotermund]

Ken had already settled down for the evening when I was doing my final walk of the lodge on this particular night. Our guide mentioned that a couple different tree boas lived at the lodge and occasionally could be spotted at night. I found him crawling outside a woman's bedroom window. He had an incredible squeeze and was quite snappy for a boa constrictor. Anyway, our guide wouldn't let me handle him, but captured him so that we could take pictures the next day. Hopefully, these full frame shots will complement the pictures that Ken just posted.



I was approximately 8 inches from his face when I took these shots. I figured if he snapped he would only hit my camera lens anyway.

[MacroLuv]

Very nice! Did she lick lenses?
(I'm using he or she according to noun gender in Croatian; for example: snake (Croatian: zmija - noun of female gender - she) or spider (Croatian: pauk - noun of male gender - he).
By the way, in Croatian language verbs/adjectives are telling us not only about Tenses but about gender also.
For example:
"I was born in America."
Do you know from the sentence who told that, female or male?
But in Croatian:
Female: "Ja sam rodjena u Americi." or "Rodila sam se u Americi." or "Rodjena sam u Americi."
Male: "Ja sam rodjen u Americi." or "Rodio sam se u Americi." or "Rodjen sam u Americi."
And one more interesting thing:
to born - Croatian: roditi
Now see connection of word roditi with word roda.
Roda is Croatian word for Stork. According to mythology, the 'stork' is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. This story probably came about because White Storks have a habit of nesting on buildings in urban areas, so they are often seen around human habitation.
Lithuanians and Poles believe that storks bring harmony to a family on whose property they nest.

[beetleman]

I cannot stare at the second picture for too long, I start getting hypnotized . Reminds me of the snake in the cartoon "Jungle Book" Beautiful eyes and beautiful pictures Craig

[Bruce Williams]

Wow Doug, I wuz gonna say the exact same thing about Kaa, the Jungle Book python "Trust in mee...da da da da just in me..."

Back to the photos. Really excellent Craig - both of them - can't chose between them. Would love to see larger images - sometimes that 800 pixel limit....

Thanks for the interesting info on your language Nikola. I have always found gender to be the hardest thing to come to grips with in the languages I have tried to learn - 4 years of schoolboy French and much more recently, 2 years of Italian.

Bruce

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

Very very cool!

I have never seen this species, wouldn't have thought he was a boa. Thanks for showing us this.

[Moebius]

Mike,

Since a language barrier exists down there, sometimes id's are based on generalities. Thus, we only have an id from our guide, which may not coincide with a scientific id.

Thus, it may very well be that this is not actually a boa constrictor. I tried googling 'Peru boa constrictor' and could not get a id on it.

Ken

[crotermund]

Thanks a lot guys.

Mike -

Ken is absolutely right about the language barrier and we did have to trust that our guide was communicating the correct things to us. I am no expert in herpetology, but the Amazon Tree Boa is actually a smaller variant / relative of the more common boas that we might think of. I did a quick search to see if I could id this one and I may have gotten lucky. I believe this Wikipedia entry is actually our snake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_tree_boa

Please let me know if it looks like a match to you guys.

Here is a gallery of a number of different Amazon Tree Boas in their different color phases:

http://markmlucas.com/Boa%20Tree%20Gallery.htm

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

The head does look a LOT like an emerald tree boa now that I think about it, especially the mouth. Look at the mouth on these two shots.

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... d+tree+boa
http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... d+tree+boa


A good look at the head scales of the amazon tree boa would help ID these for sure, but I'll bet the guide gave good info here.

I must admit I've heard some amazing (wrong!) species IDs from guides, even without a language barrier!

[Danny]

I thought Mike would enjoy this series . Excellent details and ratio, impressive powerful shots, love them !!!

Danny.

[Ken Ramos]

A great set of shots Seems as though the snake is quite inquistive about what you are doing, especially in the first image.

[cactuspic]

Great images. I love those eyes. I wond what I look like when I view my next next meal.

Irwin