South American Boa Constrictor
Boa constrictor
Linnaeus, 1758
BOE-uh — konn-STRIK-tor
SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
The standard English name changed from Boa Constrictor. Native to South America from Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago, south and east to central Argentina, central Paraguay, and southern Brazil. It was introduced to 13 states and is established in Florida and Puerto Rico (López-González, 1991, Estudio prospectivo de los vertebrados terrestres del corredor turístico Cancún-Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Tesis de Licenciatura, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico; Dalrymple, 1994, Pages 72–86 in D. C. Schmitz and T. C. Brown. (Editors). An assessment of invasive non-indigenous species in Florida's public land. Technical Report No. TSs-94–100. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee, Florida; Martínez-Morales and Cuaron, 1999, Biodiversity and Conservation 8: 957–963; Snow et al., 2007, Introduced Populations of Boa constrictor (Boidae) and Python molurus bivittatus (Pythonidae) in Southern Florida. Pp. 417–438 in Henderson and Powell (Editors). The Biology of Boas and Pythons. Eagle Mountain Publishing, Eagle Mountain, Utah; Reynolds et al., 2014, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 71: 201–213). Range-wide molecular data (Hynková et al., 2009, Zoological Science 26: 623–631; Reynolds et al., 2014, op. cit.; Suarez-Atilano et al., 2014, Journal of Biogeography 41: 2371–2384; Card et al., 2016, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 102(2016): 104–116; Gonzalez et al. 2024, PLoS ONE 19:e0298159; K. L. Krysko, personal communication) illustrate that this is a species complex and suggest the taxonomic recognition and distribution of four species: South American Boa Constrictor (Boa constrictor) from Argentina northward to Colombia and Venezuela in South America, Atlantic Boa Constrictor (Boa atlantica) along the coastal Atlantic Forest along eastern Brazil from Caico´ in Rio Grande do Norte State to Ilha Grande in Rio de Janeiro State, Central American Boa Constrictor (Boa imperator) on the western side of the Andes Mountains from Colombia in South America northward through central America to Yucatán in southeastern Mexico of North America, and Mexican West Coast Boa Constrictor (Boa sigma) from the Pacific coast of Mexico eastward to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in North America. The introduced population in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, was represented by a single haplotype corresponding to B. c. constrictor from South America (Reynolds et al., 2013, op. cit.). Although boas have been introduced throughout Florida, it is known to be established only at the Charles Deering Estate in Miami, Miami-Dade County, since at least the 1970s (Dalrymple, 1994, op. cit.; Snow et al., 2007, op. cit.; Smith et al., 2019, Boa constrictor. Pages 452–454 in Krysko et al. (Editors) Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; Meshaka, et al., 2022, Exotic Amphibians and Reptiles of the United States. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida). The established population at the Charles Deering Estate consist of multiple and divergent haplotypes most closely related to samples from the native range of Peru and Guyana, hence they are recognized as B. constrictor. The established population in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, shares the same haplotype with boas from multiple introduced areas in Miami-Dade County, Florida, including The Charles Deering Estate, Homestead, and The Everglades along US 41 in western Miami (K. L. Krysko, personal communication).
Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2025.02.08.11.48.54)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.52 MB