A non-venomous snake — the Pacific Tree Boa or Candoia bibroni was found close to the Colo-i-Suva Village, outside Suva on Tuesday.
The snake, which is native to Fiji, was discovered by two friends, Sakenasa Aca and Nimilote Ratudina from Colo-i-Suva Village.
Mr Aca said it was his friend Mr Ratudina who discovered the snake first after their short excursion to find native frangipani flowers on Nakobolevu Hill — a hill located beside the village.
“We made sure not to make a lot of movements as the snake was watching our every move when we discovered it. We were able to catch it without any harm.”
Nature Fiji-Mareqeti Viti (NFMV) director Nunia Thomas-Moko said the snake being native to Fiji also had a distribution ranging from Bismark Archipelago to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. She said the snake was found on almost every island in Fiji.
Marine Ecology consultant to NFMV, Dr Helen Sykes said the boa constrictors were not poisonous, but kill their prey by sitting still, grabbing the animal, and wrapping their body around it tightly until the animal can no longer breathe.
According to Dr Sykes, the Fiji boas were quite small as females reached a maximum of two metres in length with a thickness of a woman’s wrist, while the males were a metre long and as thick as a man’s thumb.
