sleeping snake...

Is there any way to tell when a snake is sleeping??

Hmm.. good question. I don't know for sure, but I'd say that if they aren't moving, and their tongue isn't flicking out, they probably are sleeping. I'm not sure that snakes sleep in the same sense that we do. Of course they rest.. but animals like fish who also can't close their eyes don't really sleep per se.. though they do have their inactive times. Other animals like dolphins have one half of their brain sleep at a time.

Who knows.

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Originally Posted by Shelby

Other animals like dolphins have one half of their brain sleep at a time.

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Wow are you serious! That is amazing, i never knew that could even be possible.

I can sometimes tell when Pelota is sleeping. When she's in her hide and her little head is poking out and she's not moving or anything, no matter what movements I make in the room, I'm guessing she's sleeping. It's cute, sometimes I go in her cage to do something like changing the water, and you can tell if I wake her up because she'll suddenly move her head fast as if I shocked her.

And if it's true that they're probably sleeping if they're not moving or flicking their tongue, then Pelota must find me boring, cuz she does that all the time when I hold her, lol.

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And if it's true that they're probably sleeping if they're not moving or flicking their tongue, then Pelota must find me boring, cuz she does that all the time when I hold her, lol.

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I don't mean to scare you, and this might not be the case, but normally a healthy snake flicks its tongue readily while being held. But maybe she already has your smell?

P.S. This doesn't really have anything to do with this, but I got some pictures of all my reptiles, and i'll be posting them shortly. Now back on the subject.

Actually not a lot of animals do that, but yeah, dolphins are the best example. When they sleep, half of their brain shuts doen, so they operate with one half of their brain and only one eye works. Its pretty cool! Now that I think about it, I am not sure of any other animals do that, if so could you remind me. I wish we humans could do that, but i figured only doplhins could becasue their brain is move developed then ours.

So when a dolphin is asleep and only half their brain is working and only one eye works do they swim in circles?? I'm just kidding of course :D

LOL

Dolphins actually sleep for very short periods of time(1-2 minutes at a time), because if they slept longer, they would forget to breathe. They don't involuntarily breathe like we do(safety mechanism, like while we sleep), they have to consciously think about it. It kind of goes like this: swim swim swim, surface and breathe, swim swim swim :) This is how the Sea World people explained it anyway, and I would at least hope they would be correct about their own dolphins :)

If you're holding a snake, and it's not flicking it's tongue, it's probably resting. Typically they will flick their tongue at first to see what's going on, then they may stop.

The purpose for a dolphin to only have one half of the brain sleep at once, is because of the fact they need to regularly breathe. The one half is awake for the purpose of rising to the surface to breathe, while the other half rests. Dolphins are in fact in this state approximately 8 hours a day.. like we do. (sort of)