New Boa Questions...

[tHeGiNo]

I never said that. Now either read what I write or stay out of the debate, ok?

Relax bro! I accidentally used the wrong term, but whatever the case I have not seen proof of anything.

And no snakes are not mentioned, but if you knew anything about evolution, you'd know they came AFTER iguanas, and their mind maps are identical. But whatever. You're gonna believe whatever the hell you want to believe, so as I said, I'm through.

So your trying to tell me a snake is the same thing as a bearded dragon. Dude if your such a genious, why don't you stop yelling and being eratic, and explain yourself.

[Invictus]

Been there done that. Explained myself a million times in this thread alone. Getting a headache. Moving along with my research.

[tHeGiNo]

LOL, ok man.

[Scales Zoo]

Holy Cow! I just read the whole thread, my eyes are sore.

Thanks again to Invictus and Jeff for the open debate. These really make a person think, and are a bit entertaining as well.

Jeff, debating with you sucks. I feel sorry for poor Kenny. You know how to “get someone’s goat”, something I know how to do to you, and have enjoyed myself doing so. You know enough not to say a lot, and you know how to make your words count, you have a talent – too bad you couldn’t type better because I’d like to see you able to debate fairly, and offer more good information.

Anyways….I too have some input about the whole thing. Since I started this hobby, I’ve kept 600 snakes from 75 or so species. I fully believe that some snakes do in fact “like” people, some people more than others.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years, are the really special snakes tend to be captive bred for many generations.

I do know someone who breeds Burmese pythons based on temperament (Vern Ruml). In fact, Elvira and the Triplets come from Ally, the “friendliest” snake in Canada. Elvira is on of those very rare “special snakes” that I referred to above. We’ve documented, on video and from eyewitnesses – that she will come towards Sheila and myself, and in a very doglike fashion, seems to me to recognize people that she has been around before.

I am not trying to turn the issue anthropical (uncommon words seem to work well in these threads), but I do believe there is something going on there. We’ve speculated that she associates our smells with a “safe feeling” – but, really, any conclusion drawn from the behaviour is purely that, speculation.

There are a handful of snakes that we own, or have owned – that I would really like to have studied for this, however that would be done. You see, doing the educational displays we have, we have gotten a lot of reptiles from other reptile educators. Some of the animals we have gotten are truly amazing in the way they act around people. Many of these truly great snakes came from the same few people. Like I said, I know in my heart that there is something going on there – whatever that is.

My gut feeling tells me that it is likely related to the consistant good experiences they may have had from other people, as well as being selectively bred from the “tamest” of babies from a “tame” founder stock. Some of my long term snakes, that we use for education, I believe are the way they are because they’ve always been treated very well by us.

I personally could care less about what science already has written on the subject. To limit our knowledge to what has already been learned by others is “GARBAGE”.

As I’ve said before, usually in a Jeff / Ken thread is “you don’t learn nuthin, if you never ask nuthin”.

Ryan

[djc3674]

I meant, I will believe your snakes come to you when you open their cage, and come to you after you put them on the floor

gino..I can kinda see your point on this, because in most cases a snake would retreat from you and try to find the nearest hiding place. However, I know what Invictus is saying about a snake coming to you. I have also put my male bci on the floor (after handling him for a while) while I sit on the couch...he has come back over to me and climb up and over my leg wrapping his tail around me. I dont think they do this because they "like" their owner and need to be close to them. I think its more of a security feeling (especially sprawled out on an open floor with nothing much around it). I think snakes recognize their owners to an extent and will feel a certain sense of security when they are being handled.

[Invictus]

Thanks for the input Ryan and djc.

Ryan - Interesting point you bring up about the really special reptiles being bred for their dispositions. I had a conversation with Henry Piorun about his blood pythons one day. He said that the parents of his bloods are totally tame, and NOT coincidentally, every baby they have ever spawned has been the same in disposition. In talking with many other breeders, there seems to be a great deal of agreement that disposition most certainly is "inherited".

[Herpocrite]

That's awesome! Do you guys know of any breeders of BCIs in New England that breed for disposition? If you read the thread I just posted you'll see why I'm interested.

Thanks,

Herpocrite.

[Linds]

Well, if you had paid attention to what I say, I handle my snakes whenever I clean, or if they are at all nervous animals, with some exceptions of animals that just showed no signs of improvement over time. I like to acclimate my animals to me so that all future dealings, be it just general maintenance or vet trips and tests, are less of an ordeal for both of us. I don't like getting bit and crapped on, and I don't like having my snakes so threatened that they will bite or musk. Once they acheive a level of calmness I just handle them for cleaning or when taking pictures. Years ago I DID handle my snakes for the pleasure of it, and I still have those animals today, so if you feel you want to compare your handling schedule with mine, I have been there and done that too. Just because I don't pester my animals on a daily basis, does not invalidate my arguement. Handling is just conditioning, not to be confused with snakes actually enjoying us.

[M_surinamensis]

Now I see why I was told not to go here again...

But now here is here rather than there... So I'll jump in.

I think that there are two very big points which are frequently missed by both camps in these arguments, with a few associated smaller matters which may be of interest.

It's impossible to observe something without altering it and it's impossible to observe something without a certain bias towards the slant an individual will apply to the results.

By this I mean that trying to test instinctive responses experiments with captive animals are inherently fawled to start, this is a greater problem when the individual making the observations is predisposed towards obtaining a certain set of results. I had an argument for about a week with Melissa Kaplan (I really shouldn't have bothered, she's... not... good people) about a contention which she made about her burmese python. She stated two things... that it would sit on the microwave when it was hungry, because that's how she heated her rats (She keeps a free roaming burm and microwaves rats, this should indicate how worthwhile this conversation was), so when it sat on the microwave, it was communicating to her that it was hungry. When presented with an alternate explaination of "Burms are instinctive predators, they don't eat just because they are hungry, they eat because food is avaliable" she refused to acknowledge it. She has also continued to make an absurd claim that the inner timpanum allows snakes to hear, despite being disconnected from the rest of the nervous system and not connected to the animal's brain and that further, her burm knew it's name and would come when called "If it felt like it." Essentially she admitted that she would yell at it for an hour and a half and if I finally looked in her direction, it was responding to it's name.

While the situation with the boa crawling towards someone when placed on the floor isn't anywhere near as extreme, it's also nowhere near conclusive when it comes to determining what, if any attachment the animal might have. Heck, the floor is cold, instincts say that sunlight is up and you might have just coincidentally been the nearest thing to climb on.

When observing other species, ANY other species, it is important to try and avoid ascribing human reasons and emotions to an action unless these are directly communicated.

On the other side though, I believe that there is frequently too much of a tendency to ascribe "Simple" with "Instinctive" instincts may be predictable when an exactly identical stimulus is applied but the near impossibility of applying an identical stimulus makes it difficult to test in any reliable fashion. There are far too many variables when it comes to replicating a situation to make it something which can be tested, especially when dealing with an animal which is outside of it's natural environment and confronted with things that it may not have evolved an instinctive response to. While I believe behavioral deviations in the wild to be the result of differing applied stimulus and genetic drift, in captivity we can see the development of a rather unusual situation... The application of an instinctive response to a situation that it did not evolve to meet.

Humans are a great example of this and the macklotts pythons were a good way to express it... Humans don't behave like predators in most instances, the movements are all wrong, the approach is wrong... they don't behave like prey too often either. This creates a situation where the responses generated would be almost random in how they are applied... Some snakes will be inclined towards agression, others will remain docile as there is no obvious threat. If the stimulus is changed slightly, it becomes much easier to predict the response. Ever try to tease feed when you're not holding a prey item? Jerk your hand around like food and you can cause a bite. The same goes for picking an animal up... a smooth, even movement won't generally cause much response from many species. Dart in and squeeze with your fingertips and see if the results are the same. Different species and different populations have evolved to meet different conditions and the ingrained responses will show a vast array of deviation.

If one wants to see more uniformity in the responses of a given species, it's best to work in the field with wild populations. When in an environment where the stimulus match the instincts which have evolved, the responses are much closer to being identical. For instance, I KNOW if I grab a broad headed skink out of a pile of leaves in the field, I'm going to be bitten if it can reach me. In captivity, instincts can be perverted and the prediction becomes more difficult.

I obviously take the instinctive side of the argument as being as true as can be determined, I've arrived at these conclusions based on personal observation and, admittedly, through learning about the opinions of others... I am also willing to change any views that I hold IF given sufficient evidence to overwhelm the evidence I previously had.

Incidentally, the study which has been mentioned with the iguanas response to handling and light... Heartrates go up when an animal is stressed too and the entire metabolism of the animal changes depending on temperature- where Iguanas are very much heat powered, amphibians and fish, while also dependant on external temperatures, generally have less control over the ranges which their body is able to cope with and use (when the change happens rapidly). Saying that iguanas will seek out a warm area and that their heart rate goes up when they've found one doesn't act as proof that they feel pleasure.

Of course, I think that most of the emotions people experience are instinctive too- there to control our behavior and prevent us from being eaten. We just have bigger words to describe the sensations.

[tHeGiNo]

M_surinamensis, that was an awesome post! Very well said.

[Jeff_Favelle]

That was a DYNAMITE post, for sure. And I think SteeveB was totally talking about the same thing you were in this monitor thread. Certain species are encoded to watch out for certain movement patterns that would indicate an enemy or predator. Like a deep-sea fish isn't going to be wary of bird-like movement, but a shallow carp-like fish might be. It makes perfect sense. Why do baby Ball Pythons love hopper mice? Because they look and act JUST like the native rodents that their hard-wired to gobble up in Western Africa.

Monitor thread

[M_surinamensis]

The monitor post is an excellent one, no question. It expressed what I was trying to in a much more accurate and specific manner as it relates to a few species.

The manner of approach is something I think most herpers realize fairly quickly after entering the hobby but they don't realize that they realize it... The knowledge becomes somewhat intrinsic to their approach when handling or interacting with their animals but they don't put it into words ot think about it much. Everyone knows you don't stick your hand in an ETB enclosure after dark when you're warmer than the air temperature and approach it from above and the front... but most people don't take that and really apply it to other species as much as they should perhaps.

When you deal with more than a certain volume of animals, bites are inevitable but... You generally know when they're coming if you're paying attention and it's fairly easy to take any individual animal and get it under your control without bleeding if there's a bit of thought put into the approach.

Similar to the thread about varanids, Robyn at P.E. has a great article about the best way to handle blood pythons, a species generally thought of as extremely agressive.

It's human nature to want to apply some measure of humanity to other objects, we define everything by our own standards, constantly. Heck, even when dealing with people who "know better" we'll all resort to a certain degree of anthropomorphizing in casual comversation ("My GTP was really pissy today." "My bearded dragon thinks he's a tough guy")... There are a lot of old informational sources that reccomend daily handling to "get an animal used to it" or calm them down, these all imply that the change is inherent in the animal's behavior. I personally tend to think that most of the change is in the keeper's approach. The animal's responses don't change, the stimulus we apply when dealing with them does. I know that many of you have to have observed someone who's new to reptiles touch their first one, right? That hesitant motion, sometimes even with a slightly shakey hand, the two fingertips to the side of the body from above, ready to rip their arm back if it shifts position... These are the same people who have stories about how their california kingsnake was super agressive when they first got it but they managed to "tame it" through regular handling. I think they tamed their jittery nerves in most cases.

Instincts can be tough but there's a certain predictability if a good amount is known about the species that's being dealt with. The ball pythons quick responses to hopper mice is a perfect example. If you have a problem feeder, you change the prey to match what they should reccognize as food. Scent, color, size, behavior, these all form a kind of round hole in the snake's brain... cramming a square peg into it won't always work.

The important thing though... instincts don't have to be simple. The "active" instincts are constantly changing depending on the situation... a male won't always respond in the same was as a female, neonates have their own set for surviving while bite sized, the time of day, the temperature, the length of light cycles, the avaliability of food, the humidity, the barometric pressure all play a role in which instincts will be active and displayed for any given stimulus.

I also think it's something of a mistake to identify "instinctive" with an automatic "unfeeling" There are certain emotions which can be easily demonstrated to be active in herps (even snakes, as sedimentary as most of them are). Fear and pain are easy ones, although pain may or may not be a pure physical sensation. "Desire" perhaps... the single minded purposefulness of an animal in breeding condition is difficult to describe any other way, as are the strong feeding responses of some species. That burm WANTS that rat and that Sulcatta WANTS any object with good leverage that can't get out of the way quick enough... While I think ascribing human emotions to animal behavior is inherently somewhat flawed (note that I say this immediately after doing so), there seems to be a lot of validity in associating animal behaviors with human emotions. There's a reason we get pleasure from certain activities... it's a throwback to a time when humans weren't smart enough to use symbols and understand the concept of "future". We eat because it's satisfying to have a solid meal... taste is there so we know what's good for us (or used to be, the daily caloric intake would need to be higher for a species that was regularly chased up trees by predators than one that invented desk jobs) there's a reason that fatty foods taste good... it's so we'd eat them. Without taking it to a crass level... there are reasons that sex is a pleasureable activity. If it wasn't, who'd take the time to bother producing the next generation?

We, as a species, tend to place a lot of importance in the acchievements of being human. We seperate ourselves from all other living things and insist that we're above the rules which govern "lower species" I'll agree that much of what we are is an evolutionary high point but I disagree that we're completely different. We're just able to describe the results of the instinctive responses in a way that other species can't.

Which is meandering a bit off topic... so... I believe that reptiles can feel, to a degree... I don't believe that they can really think. This means that they can't have feelings related to abstract concepts. A reptile can never feel nervous about the future or remorse about it's past. I don't believe that they are capable of being self aware in that they can't control actions independant of instinct (If we try hard enough, we can. As can certain other species.) and as such they aren't capable of ideas like "trust" or "hate" or "love" It's awfully cocky of us to assume that their brain can't release endorphins (spelling?) as a reward for performing an action which instinct dictates though.

The seeming inability to feel pain from heat is a bit of a puzzler though. They can obviously feel pain from other sources (Clip a quick in a nail sometime or touch an injured area to assess the damage and you'll know what I mean) but they will allow themselves to smolder and fry. Even if the temperature can't be directly felt as being the source of the damage, the physical injury which results wouldn't seem to be different.

[Derrick]

Originally posted by M_surinamensis

Dart in and squeeze with your fingertips and see if the results are the same.

hehe my 6 year old learned this leason pretty quick while holding our calm JCP baby in one hand and scratching her nose with the other...hehe.

[tHeGiNo]

Holy moly M_surinamensis! That was yet another magnificent post. I haven't seen you around prior to this, and I hope you plan on staying here in the community. Your apparant knowledge and experience is well welcome here!

[JDouglas]

Earlier the lymbic system was mentioned and thought it had some validity to it. I would just like to add that this system is wired directly to sense of smell and memory. Both are very important factors in snake behaviour. Although I don't think my snakes love me or even like me I know they are capable of feeling one basic feeling, FEAR. Fear is a feeling and I have seen it many times in my snakes and in snakes I have captured in the wild. If you quickly uncover a snake and watch closely it will show you fear. Bloods breathe faster and flatten out and ball pythons ball up. Other snakes try to flee. In the wild snakes are crazy with fear when first captured but after just a few minutes they calm down and realize they will not be harmed. Fight or flight is strong in snakes thanks to their limbic system.

On another note, when I place one of my boas in the middle of the floor and walk a few steps away she does come to me. I think she sees me as something to climb or hide behind. Now if I put her along the wall and walk a few steps back to the middle of the room she doesn't approach me. She stays along the wall where she feels more comfortable. Then she heads for furniture.