Ive brought this up before when people talk ideal setups, rack vs. viv etc...and i live in a grey area so i tend to say: a rack is a very comfortable place for a ball python to live generally as it meets a lot of their hiding, humidity, temp and security needs easily. To meet their need to stretch out and use energy and be stimulated, have a play pen or safe free roam space, maybe with hides and logs and leaves scattered around. You can honestly make it work no matter what setup you have. Eventually it becomes saturated with the scent of other snakes, Many different textures and scents to interact with. After about an hour or 2 of that and they seem to settle down and rest peacefully for a few days before they are at the front of the tub again. Kind of like they got it out of their system. It also allows them to get that exercise and stimulation without consuming your time because its a closed secure space so you can leave them to it. You should try out a play pen.
Hi Acacia. Good to see you commenting. I agree with you that a snakes needs can be met with whatever "housing" arrangement we choose and they don't forget how to be a snake just because they are kept in tubs. I think a lot of the preconceptions about the need for stimulation are way off the mark. I do free roam my snakes and my snake room is their play pen. I actually like to watch them while they do this and I can continue to clean around them. They are actually very predictable and I can leave them alone continue other activities, knowing exactly what they are up to and where they are likely to go. I could set up a play pen and fill it with toys, but again I'm going to double down on this "interesting things, textures, stimulation, toys" concept and say again that the snake could care less. Stuff to crawl over to get somewhere else is about all a tree branch is to a snake. Which is exactly what we should be aiming for when we interact or handle our snakes. We are just something to crawl over to get somewhere else and are a background item of no interest. We just can't help ourselves in thinking that because we are interested in textures and pretty things and feeling what things are like when we touch them that all animals are. Watch a human child and they are constantly picking things up, feeling it, putting it in their mouths to taste it, but they don't really ever smell things. Watch a puppy and they smell things as much as they play with things. Watch a snake and they smell things, but they don't pick it up and play with it. Totally different sensory systems being employed, totally different stimulation and totally different behaviour. The real stimulation for a snake is scent. This is the part we don't see and never really think about because our sense of smell is so poor. Objects that other snakes have used, or dirty bedding from other tubs are a big attraction. This can be related to breeding and will change seasonally with hormonal cycles or it can be territorial and social networking/social distancing behaviour at other times. Do objects ever get "saturated" with scent and cease to be of interest? Categorically no. A snakes senses are so sensitive they can distinguish which snakes have been there and how recently. They can detect sex, health, receptiveness and a whole host of social networking "essentials" from this activity. Any animal that uses scent marking will do so on the same prominent feature and they deposit their calling cards on top of the calling cards of others of their kind that visited the day before or two days before or last week and it never gets saturated. Cats do it. Dogs do it. Snakes do it. So our play pen only really needs a prominent feature that all the snakes are drawn to and use as the "neighbourhood lampost". Any other toys are of no interest and are just an obstacle course to be crawled over to get to the scent. Yes, again I agree that they will finish doing what they need to do and often put themselves away. They settle down for days before showing a desire to do it again. They have left their calling card. Marked their presence and their territory. No need to do it every day. This of course changes seasonally with their breeding cycles and males especially will want to come out more often and mark territory or read the signs of a receptive female. This behaviour is separate and distinct from a snake "hunting" or following a rodent scent trail. Typically our play areas would not contain rodents and our captive snakes are generally so well fed that foraging behaviour is less likely. This scent marking behaviour is almost certainly instinctive or innate. They don't need to learn how to do it, nor do they forget how to do it if they are prevented from doing so. To a large extent, their breeding hormones control what they do at different times of the year. But they do display adaptive behaviour and will adapt to a none threatening roaming environment and relax, whilst a wild snake might never be able to relax when roaming due to the constant threat of predation. Our captive snakes still display an aversion to wide open spaces and prefer clutter that hides them from view. When moving from place to place they rarely cross open spaces, but move along edges or follow structure. This is positive thigmotaxis in action and the need for this is very strong in snakes. Free roaming should be an integral part of our husbandry. I don't think it matters if we use a play pen or just let them loose. I don't think it matters what toys we give them as long as there is a scent post they can use. They'll find one anyway. I don't think it matters whether we see the behaviour or not. I don't think it matters how we interpret our observations. What matters is that we allow our snakes out to free roam. They will do the rest.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls the playpen is just for safety. People do lose their snakes. I thought it was obvious but i suggest it because its an enclosed and secure space. And it give more room to roam than a table top.
Hi again Acacia. Yes, play pens are a great idea for security. It also means you can safely leave them to do their thing, which is exactly what they need. I feel handling fulfils a need we have, while free roaming fills a need the snake has. The area we do it in, play pen, a table top or the whole room as Bob Bledsoe does in Green Room Pythons needs to have stimulation the snakes are looking for (scent) and the actual space involved can be quite small. Once engaged in the scenting activity, I have found they become totally preoccupied and very predictable. They tend not to wander very far when they have found what they're looking for. Some behind the scenes stuff I don't show on camera, but which is actually quite telling, is that my snakes use the table top, they use the bin, they will climb down the legs of the table to get to the bin, but more usually its a semi controlled drop into the bin. Good climbers they are not! They also show an interest in the other tubs and racks and often will try to get there. Obviously I don't let them get under the other tubs in a rack because when they do it involves pulling tubs to get in and "rescue" them and involves a lot of sweating, grunting and cussing in my 30C snake room. My snakes rarely go far from the table top, even though they are free to do so to a limited extent. I believe this is because there is plenty of interesting scent for them to "use" right there on the table, so no need to go further. If they do get into a rack or under a tub, I can almost guarantee they will stay there until I'm ready to get them back. "Escapees" are always found there. The Ikea paper rack and the bin with dirty bedding is the main draw and they will usually head straight for it. No random search or finding it by accident. They smell it and head straight there. They will get in the bin and just bury themselves and stay there. I often leave them for several minutes and go make a cup of coffee, so predictable is this behaviour. So this is quite telling in terms of what they are actually doing. They hardly ever go wandering off or try to go somewhere else. I have even "forgotten" a snake that went into the bin and in an act of both carelessness and senility, I actually left it there for several hours and forgot about it. I left the room and only realised hours later. The snake was still in the bin when I rushed back into the room. A double het DG/Clown with a bunch of incomplete dominant genes as well. A priceless snake! My carelessness however provides us with more observations on what's actually going on and what our snakes are actually interested in. Now that I have observed them doing this scenting thing, their actions become totally predictable and I'm very comfortable letting them just get on with it. I think more people are doing this free roaming thing, but I still believe many are misinterpreting what their snakes are actually doing. Exploration is a commonly used term and this is exactly what this behaviour is not. It's structured. It's organised. It's predictable. It's repeatable. It has a specific and important purpose. Exploration would be random and this behaviour is anything but random.
Great video Rob, it’s difficult to separate our world view and how we “think” from the actual way that another creature perceives and processes the world around them. We can only use human logic. We can observe and hypotheses. I don’t think we will really ever know what a ball python is experiencing,”thinking” but I think your observations are accurate and help make educated decisions on what the best care is for these wonderful creatures
Hi mate. If my videos do nothing else, if they prompt keepers to observe and think about what they are seeing, our snakes will benefit from that alone.
Fascinating and well researched as always Rob. In the tubs vs. terrariums debate, I believe it’s simply the keeper’s preference (especially with Ball Pythons). As long as the snakes needs are taken care of, they can be "comfortable" in either. Even with Boa Constrictors (not the tree boas) that are considered semi-arboreal, I have some in tubs and some in terrariums and they both thrive.
Hi Erica. Much of what I talked about applies to all snakes, but I was referring specifically to Ball Pythons in detail. I think a lot of it applies to all snakes. Whatever we keep them in, it can be made to work and the animals thrive. Sensory deprivation in a tub is a common argument and its misleading because a snakes primary sense is smell and this sense still functions perfectly in a tub. In many ways a terrarium that is inadequately furnished deprives a snake of another important sensory stimulation and that would be thigmotaxis - the need to feel secure by touching the sides of what it's hiding in. It's common for snakes in terrariums without adequate hiding places to display stress. They rarely do in a tub. It's also common for stressed terrarium snakes to go up and look for a way out at the top of the enclosure by pushing and probing at edges and corners. This should not be mistaken for a desire to climb. It is stereotypical "pacing" behaviour caused by stress. The idea that a terrarium is better because its bigger and offers more space is total nonsense since neither tub nor terrarium is adequate considering what a snake does when it free roams and neither one is even close to approximating wild conditions. The bulk of the time our snakes are hidden away in tight dark spaces they can only just squeeze into. It matters little what the rest of the enclosure looks like or how big it is, as long as they can hide, its dark and they do not detect movement around them. For all those who believe Ball Pythons are semi arboreal and need to climb, decorating their terrariums accordingly, Bob Bledsoe did a very telling "test" on his snakes. Whilst most snakes can and do climb on and over things at times when there is a need to do so, a genuine semi arboreal snake can climb a rope. Boa Constrictors, juvenile Reticulated Pythons, Carpet Pythons have no trouble doing this. A Ball Python cannot climb a rope. True arboreal snakes like GTP's are another level again in climbing and perching ability. My terrarium climbing opportunities have been completely wasted on all the Ball Pythons I have tried, but the underground tunnel system has been a big hit with all of them. Despite views and opinions about Ball Pythons in the wild always being found underground or in termite mounds being biased and inaccurate, my terrarium snakes seem to prove the point quite nicely all by themselves. If we want to look for wild Ball Pythons, look for them underground. If we make our terrarium with trees to climb but also add an underground burrow system with tunnels and chambers completely hidden from view, guess where our Ball Python is going to go! They can and do make forays away from cover for specific reasons, but they always go back to the safety and comfort of a burrow.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Absolutely, it does apply to a lot of different snake species and Bob puts out tons of great info. He's a great guy. I live near him and have met him several times. Also, I think Dav Kaufman's Ball Python movie/video show exactly what you're saying and when he asked his guides if Ball Pythons climb, they stated that they only do in the rainy season to avoid floods.
Another fantastic video Rob! Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Slowing down and observing my snakes free roam is one of the best parts of my day. Watching them inspect every millimeter of a piece of drift wood and follow trails that we are blind to. With out you this very important part of keeping wouldn't have existed for me. ❤
Hi Barbara. I am seeing more and more people doing this with their snakes and more people getting more out of the enjoyment of just keeping these animals, never mind the breeding part. I like to think in some small way I have been part of this "trend", but the really important bit is that people are doing it! They really are fascinating animals with much more subtle complexity than initially is apparent. The more we observe, the more they reveal.
Hi mate. I do like to mix up my content a bit and certainly Ball Python behaviour is one of my fascinations with these animals. Glad you liked the video and thanks for commenting.
Hi Jason. Thanks for the comment and the subscription. Please take a look at the playlists I have available. There is a lot of "alternative" content here - behavioural stuff, genetics, breeding body language, feeding regimes, as well as a lot of the usual content of breeding snakes. One of my passions is observing and interpreting behaviour. I live in the tropics so my set-ups will be slightly different to most. I use ambient temperature throughout and have no need for heat mats in my snake racks and terrariums. I believe this has a significant impact on how our snakes behave in any particular set-up.
1. May I ask how do you determine or define its exploring/ free roaming? 2. Do 2 snakes exhibit similar behavior if they have their scent and can visually see each other through a terrarium wall? 3. Do they live in 1 burrow for as long as possible or would they move from burrow to burrow to meet their needs?
Hi Brady. The activity I show at the end is free roaming. A snake doing its own thing without restraint or guidance/interference from us. It is not exploring, at least not in the sense that we use the word. For us, exploration is going somewhere so we can discover with our eyes what's there. A snake has no need to "explore" to find out what's there. It already knows because it can smell it. Their world, unlike our visual world, is a chemical (smell or scent) map that extends far beyond its visual range. Think of it as remote sensing. Their remote sensing map is in many ways much more accurate than our visual map and its available to them without exposing themselves to danger. A snake in the open is a vulnerable snake. Very likely to be eaten by the first predator that spots it. So snakes tend not to explore. Their movements are much more purposeful and if they need to go somewhere, its for a reason. It's not random wandering around. Snakes do not need to see each other through a terrarium glass to detect each others presence. My terrarium is completely blanked off except at the front and yet the terrarium guy, the pastel pied who was in the terrarium before the current female, lived happily for about 6 months in the terrarium but as he reached sexual maturity he became very unsettled by what I suspected was the unseen presence of mature males in the tubs next door. Moving the whole terrarium to a new location further from other males saw an immediate change and he settled down very quickly. When snakes meet (it's rarely an accident when they do), the visuals are less important than the initial detection through scent and then the tactile feeling each other out through actual bodily contact. I don't think sight plays too much of a role in snake combat and displays of dominance. Its all tactile. I have shown in this video series what a combative male looks like and what snake combat looks like. Two males will engage in a physical shoving match with the dominant or aggressive male shrugging and bucking off the other snake and dominating it by pinning it down until the weaker snake leaves. No one gets injured, but dominance is quickly established and the looser moves away. A breeder male will even shrug off our hand if we touch it while its in peak aggressive breeding mode. Again my videos show this. My experience with tropical snakes is they do take up residence in a certain hollow tree, burrow or termite mound. As long as there is food, security and mating opportunities, they won't move. If any of these are in short supply, they will move to a new location. Reticulated Pythons in more remote areas often take up residence outside a village and they will make nightly excursions to hunt chickens, rats, dogs and other animals typically found near human settlement. Ball Pythons are more inclined to ambush from a waiting position than to make forays to hunt, but they too seem to be moving closer to human settlement in todays natural diminishing world. Where there are people, there are rats. Snakes will take advantage of this, so they move into the vicinity. One reason a snake might be forced to move is disturbance. Either by humans or very often by a larger more dominant snake taking the prime spot away from its occupant. I think this is more common than we realise. Snakes are territorial. Males will move to find females they have detected through scent, but its driven by a desire to breed and is usually done as discretely as possible under cover and in the dark. They know where they're going when they do this. It's not a random search. A snake that explores in the open isn't going to last very long, so they don't do it. Our captive snakes do adapt to a less threatening environment and will be more relaxed but the bulk of their behaviour is still driven by instinct and hormones.
Really good to see the terrarium girl again mate. There has been countless arguments containing Rack vs Viv.. but i think most people base the argument on their own preference rather than the snakes needs. I love the nicely decorated terrariums, with the lovely lights etc... thats why i also keep lizards 😂. Ball pythons are secretive animals, and they like their own little hiding holes. If the snake is roaming around the tank in full display of humans (predators) theres something not quite right... and theres a need not being met.
Hi Hamlin. I would hazard a guess in this whole racks vs terrarium thing that most people keep their snakes one way or the other and if we haven't done both, at the same time (thus eliminating a lot of the variables between keepers and between seasons, etc, etc) and paid close attention to the behavioural aspects, that most people are just spreading second hand information with no real comparative observations to back it up. I find these experiments fascinating and try to present it in a neutral way (which is impossible), but the important part is to get keepers to stop and observe, slow down and let the snakes teach us.
I am with you when you talk about letting the snake free roam. I also think that is very important for the snake. I also think it is very important to not handle the snake too much and give her enough time to rest and relax. The part where you describe scenting is very interesting and I havent thought about it. Maybe I should enrich the space of my snake with more scents. Thank you for this. Also I agree that the visual aspect of the "toy" is of no interest to my snake. She only likes Toys if she can climb on or through them. I guess the visual aspect is mostly for me :). Have you taken a closer look at the average temperatures in a West African country like Ghana? Temperatures there reach 32 degrees only sometimes in the middle of the day during the hottest time, the time you said a snake would never be out. At night it reaches Temperature of around 22 to 25 degrees, the time you would expect a royal python to be active. This data is available online if you want to check.The difference between day and night temperatures can be over 10 degrees Celsius. The reason why you always find these pythons in rodent burrows and termite mounds is because they are easiest to find there and that's where the people look.There are enough scientific studies that describe the stomach contents of wild ball pythons and also show their behavior. They feed partly (juveniles and males mostly) on birds and bats and travel long distances in their territory to find good feeding sites where they have found food in the past. If you feed the snake always at the same place, the snake will think only at thi splace is food. This is not the case in the wild where prey can be anywhere. My snake loves to climb, makes extensive tours through its terrarium and also leaves the terrarium of its own free will (I only open the door). She also returns to the terrarium on her own and regularly changes hiding spots and lying positions. She may lie in one place for a week and then lie in another place the next week. For the first few months, however, my snake did not use its terrarium and only hid. Only after a while did she start to make full use of the space. Regarding your terrarium: I personally find it too sparsely furnished. Try to include more natural hiding Spots like hollow barks, foliage, grass and Hides at the top of the terrarium. Also my snkae is mostly active between 21:00 and 03:00 in the morning. When are you active and look into the terrarium? Did you install a camera? How do you know they dont move when you dont look? Regarding the study: even though royal pythons do not need UV light for D3 or to survive like a bearded dragon, this does not mean that they do not benefit from light. Like all reptiles, snakes can utilize the sun's energy for their bodies and metabolism, including infrared light, visible light and UV light. Light does more than synthesize vitamin D3. There are plenty of examples of snakes in the wild and in captivity that sunbathe maybe not in the middle of the day but in the evening and morning. I do not refute that a snake - like most animals - will try to avoid midday heat. But our installed Lights are way dimmer and weaker then full sunlight. A dog will also stay out of the midsommer heat and direct sun, does that mean the dog does not need sunlight? Or the dog lives better without sunlight? I wish you and the snakes all the best.
Hi Mate. Thanks for this comment and the time and trouble you put into it. It deserves a detailed answer and gives me a good opportunity to discuss one of my favourite subjects, Ball Python physiology and behaviour. I'll do this offline as it's easier to edit it and finalise a response that I can just paste here. It's important because the comment covers a wide range of topics frequently discussed on forums and there's a lot of anacdotal, misinterpreted, out of context and just plain misinformation on many of these social media platforms. This is again a pet peeve but favourite subject of mine. Thanks for the well wishes. I'll try to get a full response out later today so watch this space!
Let’s deal with temperatures first. Ball Pythons originate from tropical regions of West Africa, but their range extends a bit beyond pure tropical. Tropical environments offer some of the most stable environments on the planet with very little seasonal variation and very little day/night temperature variations. There is abundant information online and yes, I have researched this data. I also have a slight advantage as I live in Malaysia, which has a climate almost identical to tropical West Africa. It’s very easy to take this published data and make assumptions about the temperatures a Ball Python would experience. “Temperatures reach 32 degrees only sometimes in the middle of the day during the hottest time. At night it drops to around 22 to 25 degrees, the time you would expect a royal python to be active. The difference between day and night temperatures can be over 10 degrees Celsius.” www.climatestotravel.com/temperatures/ghana At face value it appears that temperatures vary quite a bit between day and night when looking at simple maximums and minimums. Firstly, these are ambient or air temperatures and ground temperatures remain warm throughout the night, so caution here on what a Ball Python underground in a rodent burrow or in a termite mound would be experiencing. What is missing from this data is the diurnal temperature variation which show that minimum ambient temperatures are reached for a very short period in the pre dawn for only a couple of hours. Soon after dawn, temperatures rise very quickly to close to daily maximums and remain at this temperature until well after midnight. Here is a typical day in Malaysia. Dawn is 7am and it’s 26C. At 9.00am its already 27C. By 10am it’s 29C and by midday its 33C. Temperature peaks at 34C at 3.00pm and at 7.00pm (dusk) it’s still 30C. At 10.00pm temperatures have dropped to 27C and remained at 27C until 3.00am when temperatures dropped briefly to 26C in the predawn hours. Remember these temperatures are air temperatures and ground temperatures remain quite a bit higher than this. So, by simply being in contact with the ground, any tropical snake is not going to experience temperatures anywhere near the air temperature minimums even in the coolest part of the night. Ghana, just like Malaysia, experiences mild seasonal variation and 32C maximum and 22C minimum temperatures only occur for a couple of months during the wet season. This would be July through August. For the remaining 10 months of the year, maximums reach as high as 36C and minimums are around 25C. These are again ambient or air temperatures, not ground temperatures and minimum temps are only reached briefly for a couple of hours in the pre dawn with the bulk of the 24 hour period being much closer to daily maximums. So I’m going to repeat my observation here. Tropical snakes spend the bulk of their time trying to stay cool. They never need to seek heat to warm up because they never get cold.
Next, let’s look at Ball Python habits, behaviour and diet and where Ball Pythons are typically found when people look for them. “The reason why you always find these pythons in rodent burrows and termite mounds is because they are easiest to find there and that's where the people look.” The reason why people look for them underground is because that’s where they live the bulk of their lives. Several videos on Wild Ball Pythons have been made. There are two notable videos both titled Ball Pythons in the Wild. The first video is on Dāv Kaufman's Reptile Adventures channel and is a documentary made by him. Dav Kaufman Ball Pythons in the wild video th-cam.com/video/iwHbJ2nibYs/w-d-xo.html Dav found no Ball Python’s in trees and only one Ball Python above ground. He specifically asked his guides about tree climbing Ball Pythons and they were dumbfounded by the question. Yes, they had seen them in trees after heavy rain when presumably their burrows were flooded out. The second video is also very illuminating. It’s the original Ball Pythons in the wild video. I have used both to frame the behavior of my snakes. These two videos were shot more than 25 years apart but show almost identical settings and behavior. Ball Pythons in the Wild: The Original Film 1997 Dr Steve Gorzula. th-cam.com/video/TbuerOmAtm0/w-d-xo.html 0.24 206 Ball Pythons were captured. 180 miles of transects. About 1 Ball Python per acre. 13.14 This was the only Ball Python we found in a tree. 0.48% of the 206 samples studied. 15.52 This was the only other Ball Python found outside a burrow or termite mound during the day. 0.96% of the 206 samples studied. I also note the lack of trees in the area. If there is 1 Ball Python per acre, a significant number are living in an acre where there are no trees. For a semiarboreal snake that would REQUIRE there to be trees to spend some of its life in a tree, I find this a little odd. Surely a snake that is even the slightest bit arboreal would choose different terrain? There are also no nesting birds in these areas, so I also speculate that the snakes featured in these videos are not nest robbing and not eating hatchling birds. Young ones and males as well as females all found in burrows. So certainly not just nesting females. 1.03.27 the first Ball Python on eggs. 1.05.53, 1 female and 2 males in the burrow with 15 eggs!! Was the big one really a male? Is this 2 clutches in one burrow? 1.08.40, 2nd clutch of eggs. 8 eggs. 1.08.51, 3rd clutch. 6 eggs. 1.11.19 Ball Python # 174, 4th clutch of eggs. 1.13.53, 5th clutch. 2 Ball Pythons 1 gravid, so are these two females sharing a nest? Forest Cobra (or Black Cobra) predators of Ball Pythons? These snakes are very agile climbers and frequently found raiding nests in trees but they are considered a terrestrial species. Found in a burrow, sitting on eggs. 1.16.51 an incubating female pushing all the substrate to the front of the tub to block the light coming in. Ticks leave the females and attach to the eggs! 1.25.26. Incubation at 30C or 86F. Incubation over 31C or 88F they start getting deformed. Snakes in burrows were at 28C or 82F. “There are enough scientific studies that describe the stomach contents of wild ball pythons and show their behaviour. They feed partly (juveniles and males mostly) on birds and bats.” Actually papers specific to Ball Pythons are not common. This one is the most used and misquoted one; Sexual size dimorphism and natural history traits are correlated with intersexual dietary divergence in royal pythons (Python regius) from the rainforests of southeastern Nigeria LUCA LUISELLI via Olona 7, 1-00198 Roma (Italy) FRANCESCO MARIA ANGELICI via Cleonia 30, 1-00152 Roma (Italy) I did a review of this very paper on my channel, hopefully to correct the misconceptions and misquotes surrounding this publication. You can see that here. th-cam.com/video/1zl0mETEsvY/w-d-xo.html Here is an exact transcript from the paper. “There was an apparent ontogenetic change in the diet of both sexes: specimens shorter than 70 cm total length preyed almost exclusively upon small sized birds (nestlings and immature), whereas the longer specimens (> 100 cm total length) preyed almost entirely upon small mammals. With regard to the prey eaten by royal pythons, it may be noted that all the mammalian species, except Galagoides demidoff, are widespread and relatively abundant in the forest ecosystems of the studied region (Angelici, unpublished data). Thus, it is likely that opportunism represents an intrinsic trait of the predatory behaviour of these snakes.” Here are my takeaways from reading the exact same paper many times over. The paper studied a limited number of animals for 3 months of the year. Juvenile snakes less than 70cm in length, with a heavy bias towards the males, contained arboreal species in the stomach contents. Adult snakes of both sexes over 100cm were almost exclusively rodent eaters. So only a subset of the data suggested Ball Pythons eat anything other than rodents. No surprise there. Juveniles of many species have different lifestyles to the adults. Juvenile reticulated pythons are arboreal. Adults are ground dwellers. Juvenile Komodo Dragons are arboreal. Adults are ground dwellers. What surprised me is that the juvenile females don’t seem to do it. Only the juvenile males. So measure Ball Pythons in our own collections. 70cm is just over 2ft in English money. Over 2ft, they don't climb. Even in the wild. This is what the paper says. How in the hell did we get from juvenile males under 70cm eating birds to all Ball Pythons are arboreal and we are keeping them wrong?? If the breeder females are nesting underground, the males in the trees are not going to be passing on many genes. Another cautionary note the authors make themselves. All snakes can climb. Doesn't make them arboreal. All snakes can swim. Doesn't make them aquatic. Humans eat birds and fish and we're certainly not arboreal or aquatic. Here is what the authors of the paper cautioned. “It is however worth noting that arboreality and bird-eating are not always correlated events in snakes” (Shine, 1983; Luiselli & Rugiero, 1993; Angelici & Luiselli, 1998). I also include a few other notable references to dispel the misconceptions about Ball Python behaviour. Why do males and females of Python regius differ in ectoparasite load? LUCA LUISELLI brill.com/view/journals/amre/27/3/article-p469_22.xml Sex Differences in Body Size and Ectoparasite Load in the Ball Python, Python regius Fabien Aubret, Xavier Bonnet, Mathews Harris, Stéphanie Maumelat bioone.org/journals/journal-of-herpetology/volume-39/issue-2/111-02N/Sex-Differences-in-Body-Size-and-Ectoparasite-Load-in-the/10.1670/111-02N.short Searching for snakes: ball python hunting in southern Togo, West Africa Neil D’Cruze, Lauren A. Harrington, Délagnon Assou, Delphine Ronfot, David W. Macdonald, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Mark Auliya natureconservation.pensoft.net/article/47864/ www.researchgate.net/publication/339918500_Searching_for_snakes_ball_python_hunting_in_southern_Togo_West_Africa “Ball Pythons travel long distances in their territory to find good feeding sites where they have found food in the past. If you feed the snake always at the same place, the snake will think only at this place is food. This is not the case in the wild where prey can be anywhere” I have never seen any scientific papers or references for this “long distance behaviour”. The only papers I can find are on sonic tracking of tagged Ball Pythons and only the abstract is available. This shows the exact opposite, that Ball Pythons spend the bulk of their time underground and that they do not travel long distances in search of prey. They are ambush predators that wait for prey to come to them and are terribly vulnerable to predation themselves if caught exposed in the open. In captivity they do set up an ambush position where they have been successful before. This mimics wild behaviour where they will do the same, but not usually with the same success rate of our well-fed captive snakes. This behaviour is instinctive. All Ball Pythons do it.
“My snake loves to climb, makes extensive tours through its terrarium and also leaves the terrarium of its own free will (I only open the door). She also returns to the terrarium on her own and regularly changes hiding spots and lying positions. She may lie in one place for a week and then lie in another place the next week. For the first few months, however, my snake did not use its terrarium and only hid. Only after a while did she start to make full use of the space. Regarding your terrarium: I personally find it too sparsely furnished. Try to include more natural hiding Spots like hollow barks, foliage, grass and Hides at the top of the terrarium.” I am assuming here that the described behaviour is from a snake kept at temperate ambient temperature and using heat mats, CHE’s or other artificial heating and lighting elements in the set-up. My contention here is that this artificial heating factor alone affects Ball Python behaviour more than any other single factor and is the biggest driver for Ball Pythons moving around and climbing in terrariums. Sky hides seem to have become a thing only after CHE’s were in more common use. It’s the heat source the snake is trying to get closer to, especially if the room in which the terrarium is kept has temperatures dropping below 26C. There is nothing natural about a tropical snake in a temperate climate living in a set-up requiring artificial heating. They will adapt and thrive in these set-ups, but we really can’t expect natural behaviour under these circumstances. My terrarium has very little floor space left when the décor is in and ample opportunity for the snake to remain hidden. I have kept several different Ball Pythons in the set-up and had none of the usual “settling in” problems or refusals to eat. I also have not seen stereotypical pacing or escape behaviour from any snake in the terrarium, other than hormonal changes during the breeding season. The main difference I made in my current set-up is the underground tunnel system made up of tubes and chambers underground that every single Ball Python used in these studies has shown a very strong preference for. More terrariums should be set up this way and I think we’d see significantly different behavioural patterns from our Ball Pythons. The only caveat is that it’s very difficult to provide optimum temperatures in such a set-up unless the whole system is run at ambient tropical temperatures or if, like me, one lives in the tropics anyway.
“Also my snake is mostly active between 21:00 and 03:00 in the morning. When are you active and look into the terrarium? Did you install a camera? How do you know they dont move when you dont look?” Yes, I have done a whole series of behavioural videos on Ball Pythons, including maternal incubation using a TAPO motion sensitive night vision capable camera. So I know Ball Pythons are not nocturnal, they are crepuscular and only active for a few hours at dusk and dawn. This is a repeatable predictable pattern in all my Ball Pythons. The only time the camera picked up activity during the night was the male snake that I speculate was in the middle of a hormonal breeding cycle and was unsettled by the nearby presence of other breeder males. He spend hours every nigh exhibiting stereotypical escape behaviour, not to be confused with climbing for the sake of climbing. You can see a whole series of behavioural videos here in the these playlists using the WAPO night vision camera. studio.th-cam.com/users/playlistPLi6jXpAD14C91FyLwAtiptmI4_8j3MH0j/videos studio.th-cam.com/users/playlistPLi6jXpAD14C9EEeVAjSpYgYToIWiqFNHx/edit studio.th-cam.com/users/playlistPLi6jXpAD14C9qTiJWDiXawQtJg40McifG/edit I know there are many of you out there who like these behaviour style videos so you're going to love these. I was staggered when I put the camera into some tubs at night. I knew roughly what I expected to see, but once again my snakes gave me a demonstration way better than I could have hoped for. We're going to bust some more myths, expose some misconceptions and challenge some legacy ideas. I would stress that this is not just a simple case of putting a camera into a tub and drawing conclusions based on what we see. This is framed by years of practical experience keeping and breeding these animals and observing them and their behaviour in a captive setting. It’s also based on years or research and reading science papers that put my observations into context. I will also add that to gain the maximum insight into my observations and interpretations, I recommend you spend time to watch these two awesome videos that puts Ball Python behaviour into the context of their wild counterparts. As far as climbing ability in Ball Pythons, all snakes can and will climb, but some are much better at it than others. On a scale of 1-10 a Ball Python ranks close to the bottom on the snake spectrum of climbing ability. They are physiologically and anatomically not designed to climb and their preferred rectilinear method of propulsion is not good for climbing. I have done videos on relative climbing ability of Ball Pythons and to put it mildly, they are not great climbers compared to most snakes. th-cam.com/video/TqGgfIfc5IA/w-d-xo.html A comparison of climbing ability in snakes done by Green Room Pythons Snake Test: Will They Climb It? th-cam.com/video/kRtECPCiLjc/w-d-xo.html
No they really dont. Hidden away is safe and also cool. They would stay there forever if they didnt get hungry, didnt need to find a mate to breed or didn't get driven out by competing snakes. Our captive environments usually control all of that. Snakes rarely do anything unless they have to. Many animals adopt this lifestyle as a survival strategy. We fail to recognise this and provide them with love and toys when their basic need is actually to be left alone. We as humans just cannot comprehend this and end up loving them to ill health. Well intentioned but misinformed.
Ive brought this up before when people talk ideal setups, rack vs. viv etc...and i live in a grey area so i tend to say: a rack is a very comfortable place for a ball python to live generally as it meets a lot of their hiding, humidity, temp and security needs easily. To meet their need to stretch out and use energy and be stimulated, have a play pen or safe free roam space, maybe with hides and logs and leaves scattered around. You can honestly make it work no matter what setup you have.
Eventually it becomes saturated with the scent of other snakes, Many different textures and scents to interact with. After about an hour or 2 of that and they seem to settle down and rest peacefully for a few days before they are at the front of the tub again. Kind of like they got it out of their system. It also allows them to get that exercise and stimulation without consuming your time because its a closed secure space so you can leave them to it. You should try out a play pen.
Hi Acacia. Good to see you commenting. I agree with you that a snakes needs can be met with whatever "housing" arrangement we choose and they don't forget how to be a snake just because they are kept in tubs. I think a lot of the preconceptions about the need for stimulation are way off the mark.
I do free roam my snakes and my snake room is their play pen. I actually like to watch them while they do this and I can continue to clean around them. They are actually very predictable and I can leave them alone continue other activities, knowing exactly what they are up to and where they are likely to go. I could set up a play pen and fill it with toys, but again I'm going to double down on this "interesting things, textures, stimulation, toys" concept and say again that the snake could care less. Stuff to crawl over to get somewhere else is about all a tree branch is to a snake. Which is exactly what we should be aiming for when we interact or handle our snakes. We are just something to crawl over to get somewhere else and are a background item of no interest.
We just can't help ourselves in thinking that because we are interested in textures and pretty things and feeling what things are like when we touch them that all animals are. Watch a human child and they are constantly picking things up, feeling it, putting it in their mouths to taste it, but they don't really ever smell things. Watch a puppy and they smell things as much as they play with things. Watch a snake and they smell things, but they don't pick it up and play with it. Totally different sensory systems being employed, totally different stimulation and totally different behaviour.
The real stimulation for a snake is scent. This is the part we don't see and never really think about because our sense of smell is so poor. Objects that other snakes have used, or dirty bedding from other tubs are a big attraction. This can be related to breeding and will change seasonally with hormonal cycles or it can be territorial and social networking/social distancing behaviour at other times.
Do objects ever get "saturated" with scent and cease to be of interest? Categorically no. A snakes senses are so sensitive they can distinguish which snakes have been there and how recently. They can detect sex, health, receptiveness and a whole host of social networking "essentials" from this activity. Any animal that uses scent marking will do so on the same prominent feature and they deposit their calling cards on top of the calling cards of others of their kind that visited the day before or two days before or last week and it never gets saturated. Cats do it. Dogs do it. Snakes do it.
So our play pen only really needs a prominent feature that all the snakes are drawn to and use as the "neighbourhood lampost". Any other toys are of no interest and are just an obstacle course to be crawled over to get to the scent.
Yes, again I agree that they will finish doing what they need to do and often put themselves away. They settle down for days before showing a desire to do it again. They have left their calling card. Marked their presence and their territory. No need to do it every day. This of course changes seasonally with their breeding cycles and males especially will want to come out more often and mark territory or read the signs of a receptive female.
This behaviour is separate and distinct from a snake "hunting" or following a rodent scent trail. Typically our play areas would not contain rodents and our captive snakes are generally so well fed that foraging behaviour is less likely.
This scent marking behaviour is almost certainly instinctive or innate. They don't need to learn how to do it, nor do they forget how to do it if they are prevented from doing so. To a large extent, their breeding hormones control what they do at different times of the year. But they do display adaptive behaviour and will adapt to a none threatening roaming environment and relax, whilst a wild snake might never be able to relax when roaming due to the constant threat of predation. Our captive snakes still display an aversion to wide open spaces and prefer clutter that hides them from view. When moving from place to place they rarely cross open spaces, but move along edges or follow structure. This is positive thigmotaxis in action and the need for this is very strong in snakes.
Free roaming should be an integral part of our husbandry. I don't think it matters if we use a play pen or just let them loose. I don't think it matters what toys we give them as long as there is a scent post they can use. They'll find one anyway. I don't think it matters whether we see the behaviour or not. I don't think it matters how we interpret our observations. What matters is that we allow our snakes out to free roam. They will do the rest.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls the playpen is just for safety. People do lose their snakes. I thought it was obvious but i suggest it because its an enclosed and secure space. And it give more room to roam than a table top.
Hi again Acacia. Yes, play pens are a great idea for security. It also means you can safely leave them to do their thing, which is exactly what they need. I feel handling fulfils a need we have, while free roaming fills a need the snake has.
The area we do it in, play pen, a table top or the whole room as Bob Bledsoe does in Green Room Pythons needs to have stimulation the snakes are looking for (scent) and the actual space involved can be quite small. Once engaged in the scenting activity, I have found they become totally preoccupied and very predictable. They tend not to wander very far when they have found what they're looking for.
Some behind the scenes stuff I don't show on camera, but which is actually quite telling, is that my snakes use the table top, they use the bin, they will climb down the legs of the table to get to the bin, but more usually its a semi controlled drop into the bin. Good climbers they are not! They also show an interest in the other tubs and racks and often will try to get there. Obviously I don't let them get under the other tubs in a rack because when they do it involves pulling tubs to get in and "rescue" them and involves a lot of sweating, grunting and cussing in my 30C snake room.
My snakes rarely go far from the table top, even though they are free to do so to a limited extent. I believe this is because there is plenty of interesting scent for them to "use" right there on the table, so no need to go further. If they do get into a rack or under a tub, I can almost guarantee they will stay there until I'm ready to get them back. "Escapees" are always found there.
The Ikea paper rack and the bin with dirty bedding is the main draw and they will usually head straight for it. No random search or finding it by accident. They smell it and head straight there. They will get in the bin and just bury themselves and stay there. I often leave them for several minutes and go make a cup of coffee, so predictable is this behaviour.
So this is quite telling in terms of what they are actually doing. They hardly ever go wandering off or try to go somewhere else. I have even "forgotten" a snake that went into the bin and in an act of both carelessness and senility, I actually left it there for several hours and forgot about it. I left the room and only realised hours later. The snake was still in the bin when I rushed back into the room. A double het DG/Clown with a bunch of incomplete dominant genes as well. A priceless snake! My carelessness however provides us with more observations on what's actually going on and what our snakes are actually interested in. Now that I have observed them doing this scenting thing, their actions become totally predictable and I'm very comfortable letting them just get on with it.
I think more people are doing this free roaming thing, but I still believe many are misinterpreting what their snakes are actually doing. Exploration is a commonly used term and this is exactly what this behaviour is not. It's structured. It's organised. It's predictable. It's repeatable. It has a specific and important purpose. Exploration would be random and this behaviour is anything but random.
Great video Rob, it’s difficult to separate our world view and how we “think” from the actual way that another creature perceives and processes the world around them. We can only use human logic. We can observe and hypotheses. I don’t think we will really ever know what a ball python is experiencing,”thinking” but I think your observations are accurate and help make educated decisions on what the best care is for these wonderful creatures
Hi mate. If my videos do nothing else, if they prompt keepers to observe and think about what they are seeing, our snakes will benefit from that alone.
Fascinating and well researched as always Rob. In the tubs vs. terrariums debate, I believe it’s simply the keeper’s preference (especially with Ball Pythons). As long as the snakes needs are taken care of, they can be "comfortable" in either. Even with Boa Constrictors (not the tree boas) that are considered semi-arboreal, I have some in tubs and some in terrariums and they both thrive.
Hi Erica. Much of what I talked about applies to all snakes, but I was referring specifically to Ball Pythons in detail. I think a lot of it applies to all snakes. Whatever we keep them in, it can be made to work and the animals thrive.
Sensory deprivation in a tub is a common argument and its misleading because a snakes primary sense is smell and this sense still functions perfectly in a tub. In many ways a terrarium that is inadequately furnished deprives a snake of another important sensory stimulation and that would be thigmotaxis - the need to feel secure by touching the sides of what it's hiding in. It's common for snakes in terrariums without adequate hiding places to display stress. They rarely do in a tub.
It's also common for stressed terrarium snakes to go up and look for a way out at the top of the enclosure by pushing and probing at edges and corners. This should not be mistaken for a desire to climb. It is stereotypical "pacing" behaviour caused by stress. The idea that a terrarium is better because its bigger and offers more space is total nonsense since neither tub nor terrarium is adequate considering what a snake does when it free roams and neither one is even close to approximating wild conditions.
The bulk of the time our snakes are hidden away in tight dark spaces they can only just squeeze into. It matters little what the rest of the enclosure looks like or how big it is, as long as they can hide, its dark and they do not detect movement around them.
For all those who believe Ball Pythons are semi arboreal and need to climb, decorating their terrariums accordingly, Bob Bledsoe did a very telling "test" on his snakes. Whilst most snakes can and do climb on and over things at times when there is a need to do so, a genuine semi arboreal snake can climb a rope. Boa Constrictors, juvenile Reticulated Pythons, Carpet Pythons have no trouble doing this. A Ball Python cannot climb a rope. True arboreal snakes like GTP's are another level again in climbing and perching ability.
My terrarium climbing opportunities have been completely wasted on all the Ball Pythons I have tried, but the underground tunnel system has been a big hit with all of them. Despite views and opinions about Ball Pythons in the wild always being found underground or in termite mounds being biased and inaccurate, my terrarium snakes seem to prove the point quite nicely all by themselves. If we want to look for wild Ball Pythons, look for them underground. If we make our terrarium with trees to climb but also add an underground burrow system with tunnels and chambers completely hidden from view, guess where our Ball Python is going to go! They can and do make forays away from cover for specific reasons, but they always go back to the safety and comfort of a burrow.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Absolutely, it does apply to a lot of different snake species and Bob puts out tons of great info. He's a great guy. I live near him and have met him several times. Also, I think Dav Kaufman's Ball Python movie/video show exactly what you're saying and when he asked his guides if Ball Pythons climb, they stated that they only do in the rainy season to avoid floods.
Another fantastic video Rob! Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Slowing down and observing my snakes free roam is one of the best parts of my day. Watching them inspect every millimeter of a piece of drift wood and follow trails that we are blind to. With out you this very important part of keeping wouldn't have existed for me. ❤
Hi Barbara. I am seeing more and more people doing this with their snakes and more people getting more out of the enjoyment of just keeping these animals, never mind the breeding part. I like to think in some small way I have been part of this "trend", but the really important bit is that people are doing it! They really are fascinating animals with much more subtle complexity than initially is apparent. The more we observe, the more they reveal.
Awesome video, Rob! Very very different and fresh information! Love the experimentations!
Hi mate. I do like to mix up my content a bit and certainly Ball Python behaviour is one of my fascinations with these animals. Glad you liked the video and thanks for commenting.
Very informational! I am always looking for more information about ball pythons and I can happily say I learned a thing or two from your video thanks!
Hi mate. Glad you enjoyed the video and you found some parts of it new or useful. And thank you for taking the time to comment. It motivates me!
Hello Rob....great video...appreciate the experiment info...and your experience...have a good day my friend
HI Charley. Hope you are well my friend.
Wow, what a great deal of information you're passing along. Very informative. I subscribed.
Hi Jason. Thanks for the comment and the subscription.
Please take a look at the playlists I have available. There is a lot of "alternative" content here - behavioural stuff, genetics, breeding body language, feeding regimes, as well as a lot of the usual content of breeding snakes.
One of my passions is observing and interpreting behaviour. I live in the tropics so my set-ups will be slightly different to most. I use ambient temperature throughout and have no need for heat mats in my snake racks and terrariums. I believe this has a significant impact on how our snakes behave in any particular set-up.
1. May I ask how do you determine or define its exploring/ free roaming?
2. Do 2 snakes exhibit similar behavior if they have their scent and can visually see each other through a terrarium wall?
3. Do they live in 1 burrow for as long as possible or would they move from burrow to burrow to meet their needs?
Hi Brady. The activity I show at the end is free roaming. A snake doing its own thing without restraint or guidance/interference from us. It is not exploring, at least not in the sense that we use the word. For us, exploration is going somewhere so we can discover with our eyes what's there. A snake has no need to "explore" to find out what's there. It already knows because it can smell it. Their world, unlike our visual world, is a chemical (smell or scent) map that extends far beyond its visual range. Think of it as remote sensing. Their remote sensing map is in many ways much more accurate than our visual map and its available to them without exposing themselves to danger. A snake in the open is a vulnerable snake. Very likely to be eaten by the first predator that spots it. So snakes tend not to explore. Their movements are much more purposeful and if they need to go somewhere, its for a reason. It's not random wandering around.
Snakes do not need to see each other through a terrarium glass to detect each others presence. My terrarium is completely blanked off except at the front and yet the terrarium guy, the pastel pied who was in the terrarium before the current female, lived happily for about 6 months in the terrarium but as he reached sexual maturity he became very unsettled by what I suspected was the unseen presence of mature males in the tubs next door. Moving the whole terrarium to a new location further from other males saw an immediate change and he settled down very quickly.
When snakes meet (it's rarely an accident when they do), the visuals are less important than the initial detection through scent and then the tactile feeling each other out through actual bodily contact. I don't think sight plays too much of a role in snake combat and displays of dominance. Its all tactile. I have shown in this video series what a combative male looks like and what snake combat looks like. Two males will engage in a physical shoving match with the dominant or aggressive male shrugging and bucking off the other snake and dominating it by pinning it down until the weaker snake leaves. No one gets injured, but dominance is quickly established and the looser moves away. A breeder male will even shrug off our hand if we touch it while its in peak aggressive breeding mode. Again my videos show this.
My experience with tropical snakes is they do take up residence in a certain hollow tree, burrow or termite mound. As long as there is food, security and mating opportunities, they won't move. If any of these are in short supply, they will move to a new location. Reticulated Pythons in more remote areas often take up residence outside a village and they will make nightly excursions to hunt chickens, rats, dogs and other animals typically found near human settlement. Ball Pythons are more inclined to ambush from a waiting position than to make forays to hunt, but they too seem to be moving closer to human settlement in todays natural diminishing world. Where there are people, there are rats. Snakes will take advantage of this, so they move into the vicinity.
One reason a snake might be forced to move is disturbance. Either by humans or very often by a larger more dominant snake taking the prime spot away from its occupant. I think this is more common than we realise. Snakes are territorial.
Males will move to find females they have detected through scent, but its driven by a desire to breed and is usually done as discretely as possible under cover and in the dark. They know where they're going when they do this. It's not a random search. A snake that explores in the open isn't going to last very long, so they don't do it. Our captive snakes do adapt to a less threatening environment and will be more relaxed but the bulk of their behaviour is still driven by instinct and hormones.
Really good to see the terrarium girl again mate. There has been countless arguments containing Rack vs Viv.. but i think most people base the argument on their own preference rather than the snakes needs. I love the nicely decorated terrariums, with the lovely lights etc... thats why i also keep lizards 😂.
Ball pythons are secretive animals, and they like their own little hiding holes. If the snake is roaming around the tank in full display of humans (predators) theres something not quite right... and theres a need not being met.
Hi Hamlin. I would hazard a guess in this whole racks vs terrarium thing that most people keep their snakes one way or the other and if we haven't done both, at the same time (thus eliminating a lot of the variables between keepers and between seasons, etc, etc) and paid close attention to the behavioural aspects, that most people are just spreading second hand information with no real comparative observations to back it up.
I find these experiments fascinating and try to present it in a neutral way (which is impossible), but the important part is to get keepers to stop and observe, slow down and let the snakes teach us.
Another great vudeo
Hi Samantha. I hope its provocative enough to get people thinking.
I am with you when you talk about letting the snake free roam. I also think that is very important for the snake. I also think it is very important to not handle the snake too much and give her enough time to rest and relax. The part where you describe scenting is very interesting and I havent thought about it. Maybe I should enrich the space of my snake with more scents. Thank you for this. Also I agree that the visual aspect of the "toy" is of no interest to my snake. She only likes Toys if she can climb on or through them. I guess the visual aspect is mostly for me :).
Have you taken a closer look at the average temperatures in a West African country like Ghana? Temperatures there reach 32 degrees only sometimes in the middle of the day during the hottest time, the time you said a snake would never be out. At night it reaches Temperature of around 22 to 25 degrees, the time you would expect a royal python to be active. This data is available online if you want to check.The difference between day and night temperatures can be over 10 degrees Celsius.
The reason why you always find these pythons in rodent burrows and termite mounds is because they are easiest to find there and that's where the people look.There are enough scientific studies that describe the stomach contents of wild ball pythons and also show their behavior. They feed partly (juveniles and males mostly) on birds and bats and travel long distances in their territory to find good feeding sites where they have found food in the past. If you feed the snake always at the same place, the snake will think only at thi splace is food. This is not the case in the wild where prey can be anywhere.
My snake loves to climb, makes extensive tours through its terrarium and also leaves the terrarium of its own free will (I only open the door). She also returns to the terrarium on her own and regularly changes hiding spots and lying positions. She may lie in one place for a week and then lie in another place the next week. For the first few months, however, my snake did not use its terrarium and only hid. Only after a while did she start to make full use of the space. Regarding your terrarium: I personally find it too sparsely furnished. Try to include more natural hiding Spots like hollow barks, foliage, grass and Hides at the top of the terrarium.
Also my snkae is mostly active between 21:00 and 03:00 in the morning. When are you active and look into the terrarium? Did you install a camera? How do you know they dont move when you dont look?
Regarding the study: even though royal pythons do not need UV light for D3 or to survive like a bearded dragon, this does not mean that they do not benefit from light. Like all reptiles, snakes can utilize the sun's energy for their bodies and metabolism, including infrared light, visible light and UV light. Light does more than synthesize vitamin D3. There are plenty of examples of snakes in the wild and in captivity that sunbathe maybe not in the middle of the day but in the evening and morning. I do not refute that a snake - like most animals - will try to avoid midday heat. But our installed Lights are way dimmer and weaker then full sunlight. A dog will also stay out of the midsommer heat and direct sun, does that mean the dog does not need sunlight? Or the dog lives better without sunlight?
I wish you and the snakes all the best.
Hi Mate. Thanks for this comment and the time and trouble you put into it. It deserves a detailed answer and gives me a good opportunity to discuss one of my favourite subjects, Ball Python physiology and behaviour.
I'll do this offline as it's easier to edit it and finalise a response that I can just paste here.
It's important because the comment covers a wide range of topics frequently discussed on forums and there's a lot of anacdotal, misinterpreted, out of context and just plain misinformation on many of these social media platforms. This is again a pet peeve but favourite subject of mine.
Thanks for the well wishes.
I'll try to get a full response out later today so watch this space!
Let’s deal with temperatures first.
Ball Pythons originate from tropical regions of West Africa, but their range extends a bit beyond pure tropical. Tropical environments offer some of the most stable environments on the planet with very little seasonal variation and very little day/night temperature variations.
There is abundant information online and yes, I have researched this data. I also have a slight advantage as I live in Malaysia, which has a climate almost identical to tropical West Africa. It’s very easy to take this published data and make assumptions about the temperatures a Ball Python would experience.
“Temperatures reach 32 degrees only sometimes in the middle of the day during the hottest time. At night it drops to around 22 to 25 degrees, the time you would expect a royal python to be active. The difference between day and night temperatures can be over 10 degrees Celsius.”
www.climatestotravel.com/temperatures/ghana
At face value it appears that temperatures vary quite a bit between day and night when looking at simple maximums and minimums. Firstly, these are ambient or air temperatures and ground temperatures remain warm throughout the night, so caution here on what a Ball Python underground in a rodent burrow or in a termite mound would be experiencing.
What is missing from this data is the diurnal temperature variation which show that minimum ambient temperatures are reached for a very short period in the pre dawn for only a couple of hours. Soon after dawn, temperatures rise very quickly to close to daily maximums and remain at this temperature until well after midnight.
Here is a typical day in Malaysia. Dawn is 7am and it’s 26C. At 9.00am its already 27C. By 10am it’s 29C and by midday its 33C. Temperature peaks at 34C at 3.00pm and at 7.00pm (dusk) it’s still 30C. At 10.00pm temperatures have dropped to 27C and remained at 27C until 3.00am when temperatures dropped briefly to 26C in the predawn hours. Remember these temperatures are air temperatures and ground temperatures remain quite a bit higher than this. So, by simply being in contact with the ground, any tropical snake is not going to experience temperatures anywhere near the air temperature minimums even in the coolest part of the night.
Ghana, just like Malaysia, experiences mild seasonal variation and 32C maximum and 22C minimum temperatures only occur for a couple of months during the wet season. This would be July through August. For the remaining 10 months of the year, maximums reach as high as 36C and minimums are around 25C. These are again ambient or air temperatures, not ground temperatures and minimum temps are only reached briefly for a couple of hours in the pre dawn with the bulk of the 24 hour period being much closer to daily maximums.
So I’m going to repeat my observation here. Tropical snakes spend the bulk of their time trying to stay cool. They never need to seek heat to warm up because they never get cold.
Next, let’s look at Ball Python habits, behaviour and diet and where Ball Pythons are typically found when people look for them.
“The reason why you always find these pythons in rodent burrows and termite mounds is because they are easiest to find there and that's where the people look.”
The reason why people look for them underground is because that’s where they live the bulk of their lives. Several videos on Wild Ball Pythons have been made. There are two notable videos both titled Ball Pythons in the Wild.
The first video is on Dāv Kaufman's Reptile Adventures channel and is a documentary made by him.
Dav Kaufman Ball Pythons in the wild video
th-cam.com/video/iwHbJ2nibYs/w-d-xo.html
Dav found no Ball Python’s in trees and only one Ball Python above ground. He specifically asked his guides about tree climbing Ball Pythons and they were dumbfounded by the question. Yes, they had seen them in trees after heavy rain when presumably their burrows were flooded out.
The second video is also very illuminating. It’s the original Ball Pythons in the wild video. I have used both to frame the behavior of my snakes. These two videos were shot more than 25 years apart but show almost identical settings and behavior.
Ball Pythons in the Wild: The Original Film 1997
Dr Steve Gorzula.
th-cam.com/video/TbuerOmAtm0/w-d-xo.html
0.24 206 Ball Pythons were captured. 180 miles of transects. About 1 Ball Python per acre.
13.14 This was the only Ball Python we found in a tree. 0.48% of the 206 samples studied.
15.52 This was the only other Ball Python found outside a burrow or termite mound during the day.
0.96% of the 206 samples studied.
I also note the lack of trees in the area. If there is 1 Ball Python per acre, a significant number are living in an acre where there are no trees. For a semiarboreal snake that would REQUIRE there to be trees to spend some of its life in a tree, I find this a little odd. Surely a snake that is even the slightest bit arboreal would choose different terrain? There are also no nesting birds in these areas, so I also speculate that the snakes featured in these videos are not nest robbing and not eating hatchling birds.
Young ones and males as well as females all found in burrows. So certainly not just nesting females.
1.03.27 the first Ball Python on eggs.
1.05.53, 1 female and 2 males in the burrow with 15 eggs!! Was the big one really a male? Is this 2 clutches in one burrow?
1.08.40, 2nd clutch of eggs. 8 eggs.
1.08.51, 3rd clutch. 6 eggs.
1.11.19 Ball Python # 174, 4th clutch of eggs.
1.13.53, 5th clutch. 2 Ball Pythons 1 gravid, so are these two females sharing a nest?
Forest Cobra (or Black Cobra) predators of Ball Pythons? These snakes are very agile climbers and frequently found raiding nests in trees but they are considered a terrestrial species. Found in a burrow, sitting on eggs.
1.16.51 an incubating female pushing all the substrate to the front of the tub to block the light coming in.
Ticks leave the females and attach to the eggs!
1.25.26. Incubation at 30C or 86F. Incubation over 31C or 88F they start getting deformed. Snakes in burrows were at 28C or 82F.
“There are enough scientific studies that describe the stomach contents of wild ball pythons and show their behaviour. They feed partly (juveniles and males mostly) on birds and bats.”
Actually papers specific to Ball Pythons are not common. This one is the most used and misquoted one;
Sexual size dimorphism and natural history traits are correlated with intersexual dietary divergence in royal pythons (Python regius) from the rainforests of southeastern Nigeria
LUCA LUISELLI via Olona 7, 1-00198 Roma (Italy)
FRANCESCO MARIA ANGELICI via Cleonia 30, 1-00152 Roma (Italy)
I did a review of this very paper on my channel, hopefully to correct the misconceptions and misquotes surrounding this publication.
You can see that here.
th-cam.com/video/1zl0mETEsvY/w-d-xo.html
Here is an exact transcript from the paper.
“There was an apparent ontogenetic change in the diet of both sexes: specimens shorter than 70 cm total length preyed almost exclusively upon small sized birds (nestlings and immature), whereas the longer specimens (> 100 cm total length) preyed almost entirely upon small mammals.
With regard to the prey eaten by royal pythons, it may be noted that all the mammalian species, except Galagoides demidoff, are widespread and relatively abundant in the forest ecosystems of the studied region (Angelici, unpublished data). Thus, it is likely that opportunism represents an intrinsic trait of the predatory behaviour of these snakes.”
Here are my takeaways from reading the exact same paper many times over. The paper studied a limited number of animals for 3 months of the year. Juvenile snakes less than 70cm in length, with a heavy bias towards the males, contained arboreal species in the stomach contents. Adult snakes of both sexes over 100cm were almost exclusively rodent eaters. So only a subset of the data suggested Ball Pythons eat anything other than rodents. No surprise there. Juveniles of many species have different lifestyles to the adults. Juvenile reticulated pythons are arboreal. Adults are ground dwellers. Juvenile Komodo Dragons are arboreal. Adults are ground dwellers. What surprised me is that the juvenile females don’t seem to do it. Only the juvenile males.
So measure Ball Pythons in our own collections. 70cm is just over 2ft in English money. Over 2ft, they don't climb. Even in the wild. This is what the paper says. How in the hell did we get from juvenile males under 70cm eating birds to all Ball Pythons are arboreal and we are keeping them wrong?? If the breeder females are nesting underground, the males in the trees are not going to be passing on many genes.
Another cautionary note the authors make themselves. All snakes can climb. Doesn't make them arboreal. All snakes can swim. Doesn't make them aquatic. Humans eat birds and fish and we're certainly not arboreal or aquatic.
Here is what the authors of the paper cautioned.
“It is however worth noting that arboreality and bird-eating are not always correlated events in snakes” (Shine, 1983; Luiselli & Rugiero, 1993; Angelici & Luiselli, 1998).
I also include a few other notable references to dispel the misconceptions about Ball Python behaviour.
Why do males and females of Python regius differ in ectoparasite load?
LUCA LUISELLI
brill.com/view/journals/amre/27/3/article-p469_22.xml Sex
Differences in Body Size and Ectoparasite Load in the Ball Python, Python regius
Fabien Aubret, Xavier Bonnet, Mathews Harris, Stéphanie Maumelat
bioone.org/journals/journal-of-herpetology/volume-39/issue-2/111-02N/Sex-Differences-in-Body-Size-and-Ectoparasite-Load-in-the/10.1670/111-02N.short
Searching for snakes: ball python hunting in southern Togo, West Africa
Neil D’Cruze, Lauren A. Harrington, Délagnon Assou, Delphine Ronfot, David W. Macdonald, Gabriel H. Segniagbeto, Mark Auliya
natureconservation.pensoft.net/article/47864/
www.researchgate.net/publication/339918500_Searching_for_snakes_ball_python_hunting_in_southern_Togo_West_Africa
“Ball Pythons travel long distances in their territory to find good feeding sites where they have found food in the past. If you feed the snake always at the same place, the snake will think only at this place is food. This is not the case in the wild where prey can be anywhere”
I have never seen any scientific papers or references for this “long distance behaviour”. The only papers I can find are on sonic tracking of tagged Ball Pythons and only the abstract is available. This shows the exact opposite, that Ball Pythons spend the bulk of their time underground and that they do not travel long distances in search of prey. They are ambush predators that wait for prey to come to them and are terribly vulnerable to predation themselves if caught exposed in the open.
In captivity they do set up an ambush position where they have been successful before. This mimics wild behaviour where they will do the same, but not usually with the same success rate of our well-fed captive snakes. This behaviour is instinctive. All Ball Pythons do it.
“My snake loves to climb, makes extensive tours through its terrarium and also leaves the terrarium of its own free will (I only open the door). She also returns to the terrarium on her own and regularly changes hiding spots and lying positions. She may lie in one place for a week and then lie in another place the next week. For the first few months, however, my snake did not use its terrarium and only hid. Only after a while did she start to make full use of the space. Regarding your terrarium: I personally find it too sparsely furnished. Try to include more natural hiding Spots like hollow barks, foliage, grass and Hides at the top of the terrarium.”
I am assuming here that the described behaviour is from a snake kept at temperate ambient temperature and using heat mats, CHE’s or other artificial heating and lighting elements in the set-up. My contention here is that this artificial heating factor alone affects Ball Python behaviour more than any other single factor and is the biggest driver for Ball Pythons moving around and climbing in terrariums. Sky hides seem to have become a thing only after CHE’s were in more common use. It’s the heat source the snake is trying to get closer to, especially if the room in which the terrarium is kept has temperatures dropping below 26C. There is nothing natural about a tropical snake in a temperate climate living in a set-up requiring artificial heating. They will adapt and thrive in these set-ups, but we really can’t expect natural behaviour under these circumstances.
My terrarium has very little floor space left when the décor is in and ample opportunity for the snake to remain hidden. I have kept several different Ball Pythons in the set-up and had none of the usual “settling in” problems or refusals to eat. I also have not seen stereotypical pacing or escape behaviour from any snake in the terrarium, other than hormonal changes during the breeding season.
The main difference I made in my current set-up is the underground tunnel system made up of tubes and chambers underground that every single Ball Python used in these studies has shown a very strong preference for. More terrariums should be set up this way and I think we’d see significantly different behavioural patterns from our Ball Pythons. The only caveat is that it’s very difficult to provide optimum temperatures in such a set-up unless the whole system is run at ambient tropical temperatures or if, like me, one lives in the tropics anyway.
“Also my snake is mostly active between 21:00 and 03:00 in the morning. When are you active and look into the terrarium? Did you install a camera? How do you know they dont move when you dont look?”
Yes, I have done a whole series of behavioural videos on Ball Pythons, including maternal incubation using a TAPO motion sensitive night vision capable camera. So I know Ball Pythons are not nocturnal, they are crepuscular and only active for a few hours at dusk and dawn. This is a repeatable predictable pattern in all my Ball Pythons. The only time the camera picked up activity during the night was the male snake that I speculate was in the middle of a hormonal breeding cycle and was unsettled by the nearby presence of other breeder males. He spend hours every nigh exhibiting stereotypical escape behaviour, not to be confused with climbing for the sake of climbing.
You can see a whole series of behavioural videos here in the these playlists using the WAPO night vision camera.
studio.th-cam.com/users/playlistPLi6jXpAD14C91FyLwAtiptmI4_8j3MH0j/videos
studio.th-cam.com/users/playlistPLi6jXpAD14C9EEeVAjSpYgYToIWiqFNHx/edit
studio.th-cam.com/users/playlistPLi6jXpAD14C9qTiJWDiXawQtJg40McifG/edit
I know there are many of you out there who like these behaviour style videos so you're going to love these. I was staggered when I put the camera into some tubs at night. I knew roughly what I expected to see, but once again my snakes gave me a demonstration way better than I could have hoped for. We're going to bust some more myths, expose some misconceptions and challenge some legacy ideas.
I would stress that this is not just a simple case of putting a camera into a tub and drawing conclusions based on what we see. This is framed by years of practical experience keeping and breeding these animals and observing them and their behaviour in a captive setting. It’s also based on years or research and reading science papers that put my observations into context.
I will also add that to gain the maximum insight into my observations and interpretations, I recommend you spend time to watch these two awesome videos that puts Ball Python behaviour into the context of their wild counterparts.
As far as climbing ability in Ball Pythons, all snakes can and will climb, but some are much better at it than others. On a scale of 1-10 a Ball Python ranks close to the bottom on the snake spectrum of climbing ability. They are physiologically and anatomically not designed to climb and their preferred rectilinear method of propulsion is not good for climbing.
I have done videos on relative climbing ability of Ball Pythons and to put it mildly, they are not great climbers compared to most snakes.
th-cam.com/video/TqGgfIfc5IA/w-d-xo.html
A comparison of climbing ability in snakes done by Green Room Pythons
Snake Test: Will They Climb It?
th-cam.com/video/kRtECPCiLjc/w-d-xo.html
They don't seem to like the great outdoors 😂
No they really dont. Hidden away is safe and also cool. They would stay there forever if they didnt get hungry, didnt need to find a mate to breed or didn't get driven out by competing snakes. Our captive environments usually control all of that. Snakes rarely do anything unless they have to. Many animals adopt this lifestyle as a survival strategy. We fail to recognise this and provide them with love and toys when their basic need is actually to be left alone. We as humans just cannot comprehend this and end up loving them to ill health. Well intentioned but misinformed.