Can a snake make a cry for help?
Hello!
I had an incident a while ago where my BP got out of her enclosure and explored the room she was in. I couldn't find her that night, so I just closed the door and waited till the next morning for her to appear.
In the morning, I still couldn't see her anywhere, so I put on some television and started watching it.
Over the next couple hours, I would intermittently hear a loud hiss. A very loud hiss, such as she has never used before even when she's wanted me to go away.
I started looking around after the first of these hisses, but I couldn't find her. Eventually, it occurred to me that she might have gotten herself stuck behind a tank that rested against the wall. (It had never occurred to me before then that a snake could get itself stuck.) So, I pulled the tank a little bit away from the wall --- I couldn't lift it, but I figured if she was stuck, she wouldn't be anymore.
Sure enough, I spotted her crawling near it about 15 minutes later. I got her and let her back into her enclosure, which I made sure to keep entirely closed from then on.
My question is, was my ball python making a cry for help for me to come get her? Is the reptile brain capable of that concept? I mean, she couldn't have been hissing at some form of danger --- there are no other animals in the room, and even supposing there had been, she has never, ever hissed this loudly at anything. But it also seems very strange that a reptile would have an understanding that the human that feeds it and picks it up is some kind of ally or agent capable of affecting her positively.
[I know it was a careless and poor decision to let a ball python get out of its enclosure, but I have been much more careful since then.]
