Demonstrating that snakes experience emotions

[Bogertophis]

I don't know about emotions, but they don't form emotional attachments, at least not with their keepers. I'm as nice and can be to my Children's python and he tried to eat me.

I get the anthropomorphism. It helps us bond with out pets and I do it too. But, one of the things that drew me to keeping snakes is how different they are from us. I remember a presentation I attended as a young man where the keeper, showing off a cobra, told us that, despite the fact that he had raised it from an egg, it would not hesitate to kill him. To me, that's indicative of a creature whose emotional make up, if any, is totally alien to mine, and I find that fascinating.

But keep in mind that you have only one snake, & if I recall, only had one before that? So your experience with snakes is limited to a very minimal number. From the many (both kinds & numbers) that I've known, I think the personality & intelligence varies widely. (Come to think of it, isn't that also true of people, dogs & so on?) Anyway, I'm not sure I'd use the term "emotional attachment" but some I've known definitely retained a "friend" status, even with minimal handling. Also I've worked with a number of wild snakes that clearly accepted that I was no threat to them- enough to make me wonder & want to keep an open mind.

I do agree that snakes are "different" & that has always fascinated me too. But I'm still in the camp that says "We don't understand as much as we think we do as yet"- & "we humans tend to jump to conclusions" (yes, even scientists- fyi, my late best friend was a scientist); in fact, when you consider just how "useful" animals are to us (think agriculture & economy) I'm not sure there's any big rush to give animals more credit than they already have- when our society generally devalues animal intelligence, it makes it "easier" (on our conscience) to use or abuse them as society sees fit- some for work (like horses), some as food (cows, chickens, sheep, etc), some for companions or entertainment (dogs, cats, birds, etc) & some as "vermin" to be exterminated (snakes, rodents).

Part of me has always tried to stand up for the "underdog" & snakes are surely that in the eyes of most people. We also have to remember that when it comes to research interest & funding, snakes are roughly the last priority. I do remember years back reading about a study done with snakes & mazes that concluded that when the mazes were designed with snakes in mind (not relying on visual cues, as is normally done with other animals, but on cues snakes can relate to for survival) snakes showed more ability than rats in mazes. Which if you'll pardon the pun, is fairly a-mazing.

Do reptiles have emotions: https://youtu.be/-CzKh8bBjkY?si=j6F4c0II7NMtm8vY

Snake intelligence: https://youtu.be/LlUBSbOOCGI?si=3XR0OvFWvTCXx9sJ

@ BeansTheDerp: By the way, I like these videos that you shared- much more than the original one that I started this thread with.