(Acrantophis dumerili)

Location: southwestern Madagascar

Habitat: dry, open, deciduous forests

Dumeril’s ground boas are greyish brown with black markings.  They have vertical pupils.  Their amazing coloration allows them to hide perfectly among the leaf litter of the forest floor.  Juveniles have a slight pinkish coloration in their scales.  The size of an average adult is 5 feet, but they can reach lengths of 8 feet.

Like all snakes, they are ectothermic.  This means they are cold blooded and must rely on external sources of heat, such as the sun.  All snakes have a Jacobson’s organ on the roof of their mouth.  When the tongue is pulled into the mouth, this organ detects the scent of the air particles on the tongue.  Dumeril’s ground boas seem to be a nocturnal hunter.  They hunt on the ground for rodents, lizards, amphibians and birds.  They all kill their prey by constriction, which stops the beating of the heart, or by suffocation, not by crushing the prey.  They will take shelter in existing mammal burrows, fallen logs and piles of debris.  They hibernate during the dry, cooler months which are normally May through July, in Madagascar. 

They have been listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) on the Appendix I as an endangered species since 1977.  Their numbers are declining due to habitat destruction, in order to create agricultural areas or grazing for livestock; they are killed due to fear and superstition; their skins are sold in the markets of Madagascar as well as other countries.  They are also exported to be sold in the pet trade.  There are no good estimates of exact numbers in the wild but there are over 200 in the SSP program (as of 1992).

While Dumeril’s have been breeding fairly well in North American Zoos since 1978, some genetic lines have become over-represented while others are not represented at all.  New pairings through the SSP have almost equalized the representation among the snakes currently in the program.  A new study comparing the genetic make-up of both captive bred and wild ground boas is currently underway.  It is hoped that the AAP program can be coordinated with a propagation program in Madagascar. 

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REFERENCES:

The Cyber Zoomobile.  “Family Boidae”.  http://home.globalcrossing.net/~brendel/boidae.html

Lincoln Park Zoo.  “Dumeril’s ground boa”.  http://www.lpzoo.com/tour/factsheets/herps/dumerills_boa.html

Sedgwick County Zoo.  “Dumeril’s Ground Boa: Acrantophis dumerili”.
 http://www.scz.org/animals/b/dgboa.html

Seneca Park Zoo.  “Dumeril’s Ground Boa: Acrantophis dumerili”.
 http://www.senecaparkzoo.org/resources/pdf/ground_boa.pdf