This beautiful little snake is a young male KENYAN SAND BOA (Gongylophis colubrinus loveridgei), which in the wild is found in several East African countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Somalia. This one was bred in captivity in Bristol in the UK and hatched on September 27th 2023.

At the end of 2024 I ran a competition to find a name for this snake, as I couldn’t think of a good one myself! The winnin name of Kamba was suggested by Becky Wing-King, from my home town of Swindon. Kamba is the name of the fifth largest tribe in Kenya by population and the traditional dress of Kamba women looks quite similar to the colours of this beautiful snake, so it was a great name suggestion! 

Kenyan sand boas are small snakes, with males like Kamba growing to no longer than 40-45cm in length. Females can reach closer to 75cm, but this is still very small compared to other species in the boa family.

Kenyan sand boas are excellent burrowers and spend most of their lives lurking just beneath the surface of sand or loose soil in deserts and other dry habitats, with just their head at the surface so they can breathe and also detect the vibrations of prey animals walking across the sand before striking out at them. This is how much I usually see of Kamba when I look into his vivarium! 

You can see from the picture below that the lower jaw of a sand boa 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 a sand boa’s head and front end of the body are quite 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.