i'm just curious...

can snakes see anything directly in front of their faces :confused:? i'd imagine not cuz there eyes are on the sides of their head. but i saw of a pic of a ball python that seemed to be looking directly at the camera smelling the air directly in front of it...
i mean i may be asking a hard question but does anyone know if anything's been proven exactly how a snake sees. i know they use scent for most of their navigation and prey searching but they've got eyes for a reason, ya know?
i dont know i was just curious so i had to ask. :oops:
thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mommanessy247

can snakes see anything directly in front of their faces :confused:? i'd imagine not cuz there eyes are on the sides of their head. but i saw of a pic of a ball python that seemed to be looking directly at the camera smelling the air directly in front of it...
i mean i may be asking a hard question but does anyone know if anything's been proven exactly how a snake sees. i know they use scent for most of their navigation and prey searching but they've got eyes for a reason, ya know?
i dont know i was just curious so i had to ask. :oops:
thanks.

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I'm not an expert or know the real answer, but this is very interesting and I thought I'd comment. IMO I would like to think they -can- see straight ahead or directly in front of their faces. When in a striking position they always face you head on...so why would they do this and how would they know when u are in striking range if they could not see you? It's probably this way with all snakes. Not all of them rely on the heat pits since they don't have them, so I would think they cud see stright ahead. True they can smell and have a good sense of smell, but again how would they know when to strike. Maybe if a smell got stronger suddenlt...but I find it hard to think they can't see you at ALL.

Also my ball pythons sometime make a point to look at me directly from the front if I am near a cage. My spider has TURNED his head towards me to see a number of times, not just sat looking at me from the side. I'm sure he could see me before hand, but why turn himself more towards me if he wouldn't be able to then see me? Possibly to get a better veiw and look with BOTH eyes is the reason they move. I'm not sure...but I'd probably say they can.

They can move their eye balls to face front, so I assume they can see. They might have a little blank spot in the middle but for the most part, they should be able to see what is in front of them.

They have pretty bad eye sight to begin with though.

They can see fairly well infront of them, Im not exactly sure how far their periferal vision goes thought, im not sure if they can see a full image infront of them without a split. (not sure if anyone knows this) but we do know that most snakes have horrible eye sight. Ball Pythons cant see much of anything past the 2-3 feet mark in detail, simply because as a species they dont need to. Almost all snakes are color blind as well. I cannot remember what species, but there recently was some studies done on this, (cannot find my source currently :[ but some species can see in color. I want to say I remember them being some of the faster snakes in the world.

I wish I bookmarked that study.... this post feels very vague, which I do not like :\