12/30/2023 0 Comments Yellow boa constrictor brazil![]() Observations and analysis of gut and waste contents from regularly flooded areas in the Pantanal region of southwestern Brazil indicate that they are generalist feeders that employ both ambush predation and wide-foraging strategies. Most predation occurs from June to November, when flooding has somewhat subsided and wading birds are the most common prey. The yellow anaconda forages predominantly in shallow water in wetland habitats. The species appears to have been introduced in Florida, although it is unknown whether the small population (thought to derive from escaped pets) is reproductive. It prefers mostly aquatic habitats, including swamps, marshes, and brush-covered banks of slow-moving rivers and streams. The range of the yellow anaconda encompasses the drainage of the Paraguay River and its tributaries, from the Pantanal region in Bolivia, Paraguay, and western Brazil to northeastern Argentina and northern Uruguay. The color pattern consists of a yellow, golden-tan or greenish-yellow ground color overlaid with a series of black or dark brown saddles, blotches, spots and streaks. They commonly weigh 25 to 35 kg (55 to 77 lb), but specimens weighing more than 55 kg (121 lb) have been observed. Females are generally larger than males, and have been reported up to 4.6 m (15 ft 1 in) in length. The handling of these species is regulated by Brazil's environmental authority, IBAMA.In the Ohrada Zoo, Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech RepublicĪdults grow to an average of 3.3 and 4.4 m (10 ft 10 in and 14 ft 5 in) in total length. She then uses a smaller boa constrictor to work the muscles around his mouth. Ribeiro wraps his face with a thick snake, whose weight and cold temperature help reactivate Santos's swallowing reflex, she says. Reptilian massageĪnother patient, 34-year-old Paulo Palacio Santos, suffered severe brain damage in an accident that left him paralyzed and speechless. "He's always happy when we come," she says. Pinheiro's mother, Cristina, credits four years of this therapy with helping improve his listening, communication and motor skills. He and Ribeiro then sing a song about the jacare to practice auditory memory skills. The alligator's scales are "hard," its belly "soft," he says, as the therapist helps him work on opposites. "It's wet," he says, his eyes fixated on the creature from behind his glasses. Ten-year-old Gabriel Pinheiro is petting a small alligator, trying to imitate Ribeiro's syllables by opening his mouth wide three times: "Ja-ca-re." "They don't seek attention the way some mammals do." The reptiles, for their part, "are indifferent," she says. It's a class of animals that makes many people squirm.īut people with autism tend to approach them "without prejudice," she says: The animals spark their curiosity without making them uncomfortable. The reptiles used in therapist Andrea Ribeiro's sessions are raised on site and are accustomed to human contact © Nelson ALMEIDA / AFPīut she found their constant attempts to play and interact made some patients uneasy, especially those with autism. Ribeiro used to use dogs in her treatment sessions. The reptiles "enable us to achieve better, faster results," she told AFP. "That makes (patients) feel good and want to learn." ![]() The treatment is not scientifically proven.īut "it's been medically demonstrated that when people come in contact with animals, it releases neurotransmitters such as serotonin and beta-endorphins that give a sense of pleasure and well-being," says Ribeiro. Ribeiro has pioneered this method over the past decade at the treatment center, which features an open-air space where patients interact with lizards, turtles and a "jacare" - a kind of alligator native to Latin America that is common in Brazil, including in the Amazon rainforest. "He's working on speech and memory formation," the 51-year-old language-speech therapist says of Gomes, sitting at a table with him and the large snake. She specializes in treating people with disabilities, autism or anxiety, using an unusual method: reptile therapy, which she says helps patients relax and improve their communication, motor skills and other abilities. ![]() That is exactly the kind of sentence his therapist, Andrea Ribeiro, is trying to elicit. ![]() He eats mice," Gomes tells his therapist at a treatment center in Sao Paulo, gently holding the large snake as it slithers around him. ![]()
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