the.com/boa
a muscular hug that ends careers, dispensed by something with no venom and no chill
means A boa is a large, non-venomous snake that kills prey by constriction, squeezing until it can no longer breathe — or, more fashionably, a long fluffy scarf of feathers or fur named for its coiling resemblance.
from Straight from Latin boa, the name Roman naturalists gave to a kind of large snake — Pliny the Elder mentions it, though what exactly the ancients meant by the word is murky. One charming folk explanation tied it to bos, 'ox,' imagining the serpent grew fat by suckling cattle, but that's a tale, not a verified root. The feathery fashion 'boa' is a 19th-century borrowing of the same word, the scarf draping around the neck like its namesake snake.
- kill method
- squeezes until blood pressure crashes, not suffocation
- live birth
- skips eggs, delivers up to 60 babies
- heat vision
- facial pits sense prey by body warmth
- size range
- emerald species stays small, anacondas balloon enormous
- feather echo
- the fashion scarf borrowed its name and grip
green anaconda — world's heaviest snake, found in amazon rainforest, weighs up to 550 lbs
emerald tree boa — bright green arboreal species native to central and south america rainforests
rainbow boa — central american species with iridescent scales that display rainbow colors