This absolutely spectacular looking snake is a female BRAZILIAN RAINBOW BOA named Mrs Noah!  Brazilian rainbow boas are arguably the most beautiful snakes in the world and a species that I have always greatly admired.  Mrs Noah was born in 2006 and she would have been born live, as boas of all species do not lay eggs but give birth to live young!

Rainbow boas get their common name from their amazing skin, which sometimes seems to shine with all the colours of the rainbow depending on the angle  of the light which shines onto their bodies.  This occurs because there are tiny ridges on their scales which act like prisms, refracting the light and creating this amazing rainbow-coloured effect which I personally find astonishing!  This effect can clearly be seen in the pictures below which were taken in the lovely sunshine in my garden on the day I bought her, April 20th 2009.

I especially like the picture directly above as it seems like she is glowing purple, blue, pink and green all over!  Even though she looks amazing in these photographs they really do not do her beauty any justice, she is even better in real life!  She also has a lovely head as you can see here:

On collection she was just a little over five and a half feet or 1.65 metres in length, and weighed in at just over 1.5kg.  She seemed to really enjoy the sunshine during the photo shoot and I have to say again that these photographs do not do her any justice at all, she really does need to be seen to be believed!

As with all snakes, Mrs Noah's appearance changes enormously in the days prior to shedding her skin.  When any snake is preparing to shed its skin, its natural colour fades and the skin often takes on a very dull appearance compared to its normal colouration.  This is caused by a build-up of fluid between the old outer skin and the new inner skin.  This fluid helps the snake to shed its skin when the time is right, by allowing it to slide off more easily. 

In the case of Mrs Noah you can still see some of the rainbow colouration but it is definitely much paler and subdued compared to her normal, amazingly vibrant colours!

To ensure that all of my snakes are able to shed their skin without any difficulty I always provide a tub of moist sphagnum moss in their enclosures when they are preparing to shed their skin, as this helps to raise the humidity level which prevents the skin from being too dry to shed.  Anyone who has met Mrs Noah at their school, party or any other event will also know that I keep a large moss-filled tub in both her permanent and travelling enclosures the whole time anyway as a hide box, as she likes the dampness it provides due to her natural habitat being a nice moist rainforest!

Below are 'before' and 'after' pictures of her sitting in her hide box, which clearly demonstrate the significant change which her skin colour goes through during the skin shedding cycle, with 'before' on the left and 'after' on the right!:

As  you can see, the change once she has shed her skin is quite amazing!  In the case of Mrs Noah, her newly shed skin is especially beautiful because of the 'rainbow' sheen which it has when viewed in good light, as seen below: