Rubber boa

[ CHARINA BOTTAE ]

It can take years of hiking the same trails or of living in the same neighborhood to see the secretive rubber boa. This native boa comes out at night on a slow-motion hunt for small rodents and sleeping birds. On the rare occasion when one of these boas emerges during the day, it moves so slowly and is so perfectly camouflaged that it is difficult to spot on the ground. Even then it hardly looks like a snake, with a blunt tail that looks like a second head and soft velvety skin that bunches up in delicate folds. When preying on baby mice, the boa will elevate its head-like tail and make false strikes to distract the mother mouse. Tiny baby boas make their first appearance of the year in August and September. These adorable youngsters are best left in the wild because they may live up to 50 years and are an important part of local boa populations.

NATURAL HISTORY

This snake is generally found in coastal and interior mountains, and extends from British Columbia to Santa Barbara. Isolated populations of a smaller boa, thought to be a separate species, are scattered from the Tehachapi to the San Jacinto Mountains.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

In Southern California, this uniformly tan to olive snake may only grow to 15 inches long, with a characteristically stout, blunt-ended body.