He's a biter!

[chz]

Thor has attempted to bite me a few times in the past, but he never succeeded. Rather, he managed to open his jaw and sort of nudge it up against the area he was attempting to bite before I was able to pull him off. Well today, while watching tv, I was letting him crawl around me on the couch, and into my shirt (which he does all the time btw). He got around to my left side and I felt a pin prick type of pain almost like the pain when getting your ears pierced or getting poked by a needle. It wasn't bad, but when I went to pull him off he was really latched on, and it made a popping noise when I pulled him off.

What triggers them to want to bite like this? He's calm and seems to enjoy sitting in my hand and crawling around my fingers 99% of the time.

I guess the good thing is I can tell when he's feeling feisty because he'll start nudging his nose into my palm or my arm at a 90 degree angle, which is very different than the normal nudges these snakes tend to give when being handled.

It's just weird because I remain so friggen calm when I'm handling him, and he hasn't bitten me for a few weeks. The first time it happened I freaked out and didn't handle him for like 5 days. Now I kinda think it's cool when he bites, as it adds a little personality. He seems to have mood swings similar to my cats lol....

Today he definately woke up on the wrong side of the coconut husk..

[bonheki]

Thor has attempted to bite me a few times in the past, but he never succeeded. Rather, he managed to open his jaw and sort of nudge it up against the area he was attempting to bite before I was able to pull him off. Well today, while watching tv, I was letting him crawl around me on the couch, and into my shirt (which he does all the time btw). He got around to my left side and I felt a pin prick type of pain almost like the pain when getting your ears pierced or getting poked by a needle. It wasn't bad, but when I went to pull him off he was really latched on, and it made a popping noise when I pulled him off.

What triggers them to want to bite like this? He's calm and seems to enjoy sitting in my hand and crawling around my fingers 99% of the time.

I guess the good thing is I can tell when he's feeling feisty because he'll start nudging his nose into my palm or my arm at a 90 degree angle, which is very different than the normal nudges these snakes tend to give when being handled.

It's just weird because I remain so friggen calm when I'm handling him, and he hasn't bitten me for a few weeks. The first time it happened I freaked out and didn't handle him for like 5 days. Now I kinda think it's cool when he bites, as it adds a little personality. He seems to have mood swings similar to my cats lol....

Today he definately woke up on the wrong side of the coconut husk..

lol when i first got my carpet he was like really bitty lol and now hes all calm he bit me like 9 sucesfull times XD

[jwarriner]

Ours has never even made an attempt at biting. But yet at the same time he strikes at his prey the millisecond it hits the floor. It's startling and I'm glad I don't put them in with my hands. I'm just glad he is able to tell the difference between a hand that wants to pick him up and a rodent. I'm waiting for the day when he gets confused.

I'd think that there'd be two main reasons a BP would bite, a false feeding response and threat response. When you're snake was crawling around maybe you did something you didn't notice and it triggered some sort of threat response.

I'd like to believe these snakes have personalities, and some might just be jerks, but more than likely any moodiness or personality we perceive is just the minute differences in how each snake reacts to various stimulus. Some of it I'm sure is "learned", meaning that if a snake did something enough times and got a certain result it would be imprinted in their instinctive memory. Even the behavior of higher species, like cats, works this way. You can't teach a cat anything but if you can repeat a scenario with them that has a consistent result you can train them to do or not to do something. Being a higher species with more going on the brain cats end up with much more varied "personalities" but I still think the same can be observed in snakes on a smaller scale.