Columbian BCC – Boa constrictor constrictor
Marion is a Columbian red tail boa and is much larger than normal. She is absolutely massive for a boa, and her head size rivals the burms. Marion’s scale counts indicate she is a BCC which explains her massive size. (BCC should have greater than 80 mid body scales – Marion has 86 putting her solidly into the category of BCC.) She is a good example of a bcc that does not have peaked saddles, nor a bright red tail. Marion could also be considered partially melanistic. She has much darker coloring than other Columbian boas making her a massive dark beauty – as you can see in the last picture of her on this page the last half of her body is extremely dark.
This big beauty came from King County Animal Control. She was found in an abandoned house so we do not really know anything about her other than what we’ve been able to discern from her color, size, scale count, and behavior. She is a very curious, and out-going individual, but also very calm. This makes her an excellent education animal, and you can see her in some of the Education pages. Her massive head leads us to believe that she is quite old – a good estimate would be that she is close to 20 years old, or older to have a head this large. Compare her to Elsa who is 11 years old and has a much smaller head. Elsa’s body is about the same size as Marion’s though, which means Elsa was fed better when she was young. Power feeding is not recommended as it can cause stress and increased wear and tear on the boa’s body ultimately detracting from their general health.
Marion is a very large boa. She helps us to teach people about the size potential of the Columbian boa. She is over 9 feet long and extremely strong. This is NOT a snake that most people should have in their home, yet the Columbian boa is one of the most common snakes found for sale in pet stores. Many people buy these without doing any research, and realize after it’s too late, that it is an animal they can’t really care for properly. Marion lives in a 10x3x3 foot enclosure in the Snake Haus boa building.
This picture shows her preparing for a meal. She has just been given a medium frozen rabbit which she is coiled around at the bottom right corner of the photo. She used her “tree” to stalk her food from this evening and you can see her tail still anchored to it. The “tree” is a 3 inch pvc pipe anchored to the wall and ceiling. We prefer to give all of our boas something similar for climbing and perching on. You can see a small portion of Elsa’s enclosure below her. Elsa is our other giant sized boa.