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Atlas / Library / Boidae / Rubber Boa
CITES II
Boidae

Rubber Boa

Charina bottae

Photograph: Parsa Fard · CC BY

Photographed by an observer on iNaturalist and published under a Creative Commons licence; the photographer and the licence are named under the image. It is not an animal of ours, and no animal was handled by us to produce it.

CITES II is a global listing and holds in every country. National law is not global, and we hold no national wildlife law for any country, Thailand included. Check your own authority before buying or selling.

Check your setup against this sheet I keep one 123 plants usable with this species
Back to the globe My keep

https://keepr.pet/husbandry/en/charina-bottae

‹ All husbandry guides
warm end24–29 °C
cool end18–21 °C
Humidity50–60 %

The numbers

Thermal gradient

152025303540 °C
18–21°Cool side
24–29°Warm side

A real gradient, 24–29°C warm against 18–21°C cool, so the animal chooses. The sheet states no separate night figure.

Why

Same scale on every sheet here, so two species compare by eye.

The sheet stateswarm 24-29 °C / cool 18-21 °C

Humidity

50–60%Target RH

The sheet states50-60 %

UVB

Not needed for this species

Stated in the sheet, not inferred.

The sheet statesThey have no UVB requirement and will do well with a general 12-hour light cycle (12 hours with light, 12 hours without)

Enclosure
A 40-gallon tank (for a full-grown adult rubber boa)
Diet
a diet of rats and mice; Four mice/rats a month for juvenile rubber boas, two for adults

Identity

Origin

Enclosure and conditions

Temperature
warm 24–29 °C / cool 18–21 °C
Humidity
50-60 %

What your climate adds

This sheet states a range to hold. Your local climate decides how much work holding it is. Pick the nearest city: nothing is sent anywhere, the choice stays in this browser.

Common questions

Can it cope with the heat here?

This is the problem with this species. It comes from cool mountain country and does badly in constant warmth, so you would need a cooled room or unit.

Is it docile?

Famously so. It is one of the gentlest snakes there is and almost never bites, preferring to hide its head and curl up.

Why does it have a tail that looks like a head?

It uses the blunt tail as a decoy to protect the real head while it burrows away. It is a defence trick, not a deformity.

Is it easy to find?

No, they are uncommon in the trade and rarely offered, so availability is the main limitation rather than the price.

What it needs

A heat sourcebecause temp — warm 24-29 °C / cool 18-21 °C
A thermostat to regulate itbecause temp — warm 24-29 °C / cool 18-21 °C
A thermometerbecause temp — warm 24-29 °C / cool 18-21 °C
A hygrometerbecause humidity — 50-60 %
No UVB: the sheet states none is neededbecause uvb — They have no UVB requirement and will do well with a general 12-hour light cycle (12 hours with light, 12 hours without)
Not stated: The size of the enclosurethis sheet describes the enclosure without a figure: « A 40-gallon tank (for a full-grown adult rubber boa) »

Every line above is deduced from a value this sheet states, and names which one. Nothing here is a general recommendation. What the sheet does not state is listed too, rather than left out: a kit that looks complete is worse than one that names its gap.

Sources

reptile.guide — lu le 2026-08-04speciesplus.net — lu le 2026-08-08reptile-database.reptarium.cz — lu le 2026-08-08

Others in this group

Boa ConstrictorBoa imperatorKenyan Sand BoaGongylophis colubrinusBrazilian Rainbow BoaEpicrates cenchriaRed-tailed BoaBoa constrictor constrictorColombian Rainbow BoaEpicrates maurusRosy BoaLichanura trivirgataAmazon Tree BoaCorallus hortulanusEmerald Tree BoaCorallus caninus

What this sheet states

77%
TemperatureHumidityEnclosure sizeActivityOriginDietSourcesUVB

This sheet states 5 of 7 of the fields this product runs on. What is missing turns something off: day/night engine and awake count on the globe, the diet section. We show the gap rather than fill it with a plausible number.

UVB is measured but does not count: it is absent from 421 of 678 sheets, and on most of them that is not a gap, since a nocturnal snake's sheet has no reason to state a UV index. Counting it would call the library incomplete without cause.