Ball Python keeps staring blankly!!

[Sadiru]

This is probably my third post now and Im really sorry but Im very paranoid over my bp. So a lot of the times he tends to just freeze and stare up. It doesnt seem like stargazing but he likes to just be fixated on one spot without moving or anything. Should I be concerned

[Jeanne]

Leave it alone.. quit stressing urself out. If you read caresheets as you shld and husbandry is correct... just stop stressing.

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[decensored]

Snakes are awesome. I love them, I think they are really cool and I enjoy keeping them and taking care of them, but they are not intelligent animals. If you're expecting them to do anything other than be spacey you're going to be very disappointed . Lol

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[JodanOrNoDan]

^^^ this. They are pretty dumb. Out of all the snakes I have only two that ever display anything that remotely resembles something other than instinct and even with these two it is very rare.

[Kcl]

I have to disagree on snakes all being dumb. As humans, we have just been historically bad at recognizing and testing intelligence in reptiles. Only recently have researchers started using more appropriate tests instead of just applying ones for mammals that tend to doom the reptiles to failure even based on things like the room simply being too cold.

There's a video of a woma python solving a puzzle box for her food. It took two hours the first time. The next week, it only took her one hour. This is pretty impressive for an animal with no limbs to open things that everyone thinks is dumb! Lots of snakes in zoos have also been successfully target trained - it's basic, but it's certainly not just instinct. I'm working on target training my garter snakes and they started understanding it pretty quickly, although getting it down solidly is still a work in progress because they get overexcited about food. The ball python I've worked on and off with on getting food out of a cardboard box, which requires him to actually stick part of his body into the box which he is pretty wary of, so I can eventually step it up to something more complex - the garters were easier options for the target training just because they eat much more often.

A lot of our assumptions about reptiles are wrong. There's evidence for far more sociality in some snake species than was believed, there's evidence for maternal care in some snake species, and there's starting to be evidence for significantly more intelligence than was believed. We're just bad at recognizing it because it's different than us. Also, if you don't give them any problems to solve in captivity, there's no reason for them to display any intelligence. If you sat there and directly handed a human baby basically everything it ever needed and never taught it anything or gave it any problems to solve, it would probably be a pretty dumb adult.

That being said - to the original problem - ball pythons do things on a slower time scale than us generally. Between that and the not having eyelids, sitting and staring at a thing for a while is totally normal.

[The_Godfather]

^^^ this. They are pretty dumb. Out of all the snakes I have only two that ever display anything that remotely resembles something other than instinct and even with these two it is very rare.

I've seen them display a large capacity for curiosity. And they learned fast. At one point I was fixing their cage so there was a very small high escape area. It took them a week to find it and exploit it for escape. After recapture the first thing they did was blatantly escape again in front of me.

I don't delude myself with anthropomorphic ideas but each is certainly unique and has personality.

[Polemarchus]

I gotta say, when I read the subject of this post, I couldn't help but laugh. In fact, I can't stop laughing. When mine is out and about, cruising at night, he will see me and pause for 5 seconds before moving along. Half the time, I will look in his cage in the early evening and he's got his head propped up in the opening in his hide. I can't tell if he's awake or sleeping. They can't be very intelligent, because if they were, I'm sure they'd go crazy with how much they just sit there or sleep.

The other day (Btw, this happens often), he was cruising around and came to his water bowl, tongued it, seemed surprised it was water, drank for 30 seconds and started cruising again. The next two times that he got back to his water bowl on his route, he did the same thing! So surprised that there was water there! Amazing creatures.....

[Sauzo]

Snakes see dead people!!! Probably looking at a ghost!!

[redshepherd]

I also laughed at the thread title LOL

I have to say, they're not dumb as rocks though, just a slow and calm species and less active. I've observed inquisitiveness outside of feeding/hiding response in all my BP's, some more and some less.

[SludgePuppy]

It's cool, my pal does this sometimes, my bf and I always go, "Ooooh he's doing a peek" or something like that. When he sees cartoons come on or something catches his eye he'll stare at it with the classic ??? face.


I have to agree tho, Balls aren't as dumb as people put them as.