This gorgeous little snake is a mature male KENYAN SAND BOA.  This is one of the world's smallest species of boa, with males growing to only 40-45 cm in length whilst females can reach 60-80cm.  I have named him Zuri which is the Swahili word for 'cute' or 'attractive'.  This seems appropriate as he is certainly both of these things, but especially as these snakes originate from the East African nations such as Kenya and Tanzania, where the language of Swahili is spoken!

Sand boas are excellent burrowers and spend much of their time lying just below the surface of the sand, waiting for the vibrations of prey animals walking across the sand before striking out at them.  You can see from the picture below that the lower jaw does not protrude as far forward as the upper jaw, meaning that they do not get a mouthful of sand when they burrow into it!

The scales on Zuri's head and front end of his body are very smooth, but as they get closer to the tail they begin to feel a bit keeled or ridged until eventually the tail scales are very ridged indeed as you can see below.  This enables a sand boa to burrow or dig more efficiently, as they provide extra traction for travelling through soft sand.

Like all snakes, when a Kenyan sand boa is preparing to shed its skin the colour of its skin becomes very drab indeed.  This is because a lubricating fluid is secreted between the old and new skins to enable it to slide off more easily when the time comes, and the pictures below show Zuri's 'before' and 'after' skin shedding colours very well!

During December 2009 I acquired a baby Kenyan sand boa from friends of mine who successfully bred this species in large numbers during the year.  As you can see below she is equally as beautiful as Zuri, but her pattern is different as every individual has a unique pattern a bit like our fingerprints! 

She is also much smaller than Zuri as you can see below, fitting very comfortably in the palm of my hand with plenty of room to spare!