It's like magic

One of my snakes, Misty the pacific tree boa (Candoia carinata), is a color changer.

Not as dramatic as something like a chameleon or octopus, but she can change how dark/light her patterns are. This isn't with each shed, but daily.

She's usually pretty dark, but this evening I found her wearing the most drop dead gorgeous shades. She's not washed out from the flash, this is actually how she looks.


Here is how she usually looks, for comparison:
She started out as such a problem snake (wrong species, got wrong feeding info from the company, didn't eat for 8 months, then only sporadically on treefrogs for a year, finally eating pinkies and gaining weight the past couple years, now is healthy, robust, and an eating machine) but she's a total pleasure now. Full grown at around 22" long.

She's hanging out around my left hand now, making it difficult to type. Getting a little darker now, but beautiful as always.

Here is a paper on the subject! Physiological color change in snakes