Characteristics: Medium-size species of serpent measuring some 1.5m in length. It has shallow lip pits and a slightly triangular head. At the top of its head, it has longitudinal stripes, a median, a pair behind the post-oculars on each side, for a total of five, very visible stripes. The belly is white or ivory-colored. Its predominant color is reddish-brown in the background, with a series of dorsal eye spots that are light brown in the middle, with white round or elongated marginal patches on each side of the body. When exposed to the sun or light, it has a different colorful, iridescent and metallic blue, which also gave it its “jibóia-arco-íris” (rainbow python) name. It has aglyphous teeth (no fangs that inoculate venom).

Distribution: It is widely distributed and can be found in Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil. In Brazil, it is found in the Cerrado regions, in Rondônia, Bahia, Pará, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Rio Grande do Sul.

Habitat: Open and dry environments, such as scrublands, salt marshes, secondary forests, savannas and fields, but they are also found in forest edges.

Habits: These are animals of terrestrial habits, preferably crepuscular and nocturnal, but can also be found active during the day.

Diet: They feed mainly on rodents and marsupials, lizards, and birds killed by constriction (asphyxiation).

Breeding: Viviparous, it has 6-17 offspring measuring about 40-45cm long.

UFRA: Species seen only once, among the Drainage Ditch and Organic Sugarcane Fields.