08/31/2026
Sorry in advance that the video is long, Facebook won’t let me post pic & videos together 🙄 feel free to fast forward
🌈🐍 Meet Chuquy — our one-eyed Colombian rainbow boa.
Chuquy’s name is a little piece of her story, too. “Chuquy” (CHOO-KEY) comes from Muysccubun, the Indigenous language of the Muisca people of Colombia, and means “rainbow” — a nod to both her Colombian heritage and the incredible iridescence that gives rainbow boas their name.
She’s still just a little girl, but she has very quickly become a favorite around here. Chuquy came to us missing one eye, and while her vision obviously isn’t perfect, she certainly hasn’t let it slow her down. She eats like an absolute champ, is growing beautifully, and is doing great.
The other day, Chuquy got to do something pretty cool — she got to be a teacher. 🩻
We brought her along to the vet to give the veterinary team an opportunity to get more hands-on experience with an exotic species they don’t encounter every day. They’ve been working to expand their knowledge and skills with exotic animals, and there’s only so much you can learn from a book before getting the opportunity to actually see, handle, examine and image different species.
Chuquy also gave us the perfect little mystery to investigate.
Since she’s missing an eye, we’ve always wondered exactly what was underneath. Did she ever develop a normal eye socket? Was the surrounding bone there? Or was that entire part of her anatomy different?
So while we were there, we X-rayed her.
And sure enough — Chuquy has the bony orbit where her missing eye would normally sit. The surrounding structure is there; the eye itself simply isn’t.
Pretty freaking cool to finally be able to see what was going on underneath — and even cooler that figuring it out gave everyone in the room another opportunity to learn.
That’s one of our favorite things about these animals. Education doesn’t always mean standing in front of a crowd. Sometimes the animal on the exam table is the teacher. 💚
So, everyone officially meet Chuquy — our tiny, one-eyed rainbow who is already proving that being a little different doesn’t make you any less incredible. 🌈🐍
