National Reptile Awareness Day

The calendar year is littered with unofficial holidays here in the U.S. of A. Some of these include national vanilla cupcake day, national parents act as teachers day, or national clean out your fridge day. As well as gems like national middle child day, which just so happens to be on my sister's (who is the middle child) birthday and my favorite national lazy day (MY birthday). Well today happens to be National Reptile Awareness Day.

No, not THAT reptile.

So let's pay tribute to a day dedicated to our scaly friends. This post will be about my future pet Corallus Caninus, or better known as the Emerald Tree Boa.


First let's start off by defining what a reptile is. A reptile is defined as a land vertebrate who is cold blooded, has scaly skin and lays eggs. The dinosaurs are considered reptiles as well and some ancient reptiles that survive today are the crocodiles, turtle, and most lizards and snakes.

There is a vast amount of snakes in existence, but we're gonna focus on one in particular for this post, the Emerald Tree Boa. Like most boas, this is a non-venomous constrictor. This means they catch and squeeze their prey, not bite them to inject venom. Although they have larger fangs than most other boas, which they use to help hold their prey. This boa is known for it's vibrant emerald (who knew right?) color.

THIS is the right reptile

They get up to about 6 feet long and live mostly in trees. They are found in several countries in South America and feed primarily on small mammals. Although they have been known to also eat small lizards, birds and frogs. Due to their slow metabolism their meals are sometime months apart!

I know snakes aren't the most popular creatures in the animal kingdom, but I hope you can at least appreciate how beautiful these snakes are, even if they aren't exactly your cup of tea. 

I will one day own one of these beautiful snakes and I'll make sure to post it on here when I do, along with accompanying pictures of course.