This attractively colored strangler, which grows to a length of 150-180 cm as an adult, lives in treetops where it hunts birds, marsupials and other small animals. It likes to rest on a branch with its head in the middle loop of its body. Its natural environment is the dense rainforests and tropical forests of the islands of Papua New Guinea, in the Aru Archipelago, the Solomon Islands or the Australian Cape York Peninsula. It spends most of its time in the crowns of trees, it climbs to the ground exceptionally. It has perfectly adapted dark vision and is most active at dusk and at night. Through the thermoreceptors located on the head, it perceives infrared radiation very sensitively and can thus record the prey very precisely. The female lays 20-25 eggs, which she warms with the muscle contractions of her own body. Juveniles are yellow or dark red and begin to change color after the first year of life.