Do your snakes remember you?

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Originally Posted by mr. s

Now is this for all snakes? Do they all have equal mental capacity? I know that with fish there are some which can recognize a person across a room from a tank, whether it is due to better eyes or bigger brain I don't know, (or maybe it is just the ideas of those hopefully fish owners thinking their animals are the smartest things in the world!). On the other hand, there are lots of fish that are just mindless zombies and don't seem to grasp anything.

Do we know of differences in intelligence with snakes? Might some know who you are eventually?

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K so the brain of a snake has 4 parts. The brain stem, the basal ganglia, the reticular activation system and the Midbrain.

The brain stem connects the rest of the body to the brain.

The Midbrain is connected directly to the brain and controls movement/visionsmell and all of those things.

The Basal Ganglia controls action selection, I.E. the decision of which of several possible ways to handle a situation.

The Reticular Activation System handles Breeding and sleeping/waking up transitions.

This is considered the basic primal brain or the R-complex (reptilian-complex), it runs purely on instinctual behavior patterns associated with self- preservation. It is considered by many scientists to be the basics of all brain development.

So in answer to your question. No I do not think any snake has the ability to recognize a person as you asked. While a snakes mental capacity will definably fluctuate based on its brain mass (the bigger the better :P). All of the snakes brains have this same basic setup and there for know snake has the ability to do what your asking. :P

I would say my snakes definitely recognize me. I know they do because when I take them out, they are completely relaxed. But when I hand them to a new person they are very apprehensive.

Now this isn't recognition like they know what I look like or who I am or anything. They simple don't register me as a threat because they are used to me.

This only applied to my older snakes who I have had for couple years.

In some ways I think they do. Not the way we do, like hey I like you, but enough that they understand you're not a threat.

I know my balls don't mind my handling them, and don't shy away if they see me walk by...however, if someone else walks by they go back to being stressed.

Their brain function is not anything like a cat or dog, but I think it's a little more than people give credit for.

I tend to think they pretty much identify scents as threat, food, non-threat. Once they identify your scent as non-threat, then they are more relaxed around you. But they also pick-up on the chemicals we release when stressed as well. So if you are trying to handle a new or aggressive snake and are stressed about it, your established collection will pick-up on this and possibly be uneasy as well...