Booidea

Many snake biologists choose to recognize at least Calabaria as a member of a separate family (Calabariidae). The taxonomy of boas, pythons, and other henophidian snakes has long been debated, and ultimately the decision whether to assign a particular clade to a particular Linnaean rank (such as a superfamily, family, or subfamily) is arbitrary. The clade name Booidea emphasizes the relatively close evolutionary relationship among these 61 species, which last shared a common ancestor about 68 [CI:49–73] million years ago, in contrast to the more distant relationship between booids and their next closest relatives, pythonoids and uropeltoids (the most recent common ancestor between booids and these other snakes lived ~79 [CI:65–93] million years ago).