Are ball pythons even [I]slightly[/I] arboreal?

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

Your question has already been answered but I like seeing myself type today:D

Just make sure it is not too tall because they will fall. I have one that tried to lay on the lip of his water bowl and it is funny to watch him fall off, sometimes a dry fall and sometimes a splash:rofl::rofl::rofl: He looks around like "What the hell??" and then climes back on the bowl:O

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LOL! That's too funny. xD No, I don't think there's any place in his tank too high for him to injure himself from. He's in a 20L tank, so it's long and low.

I would love to see a vid of your ball doing that. xD

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Originally Posted by Anya

Yeeeah...That did occur to me. haha, I have since edited my post, as I realized *I* was the one being defensive.

Thanks for the great answers, guys. I feel a little more educated. :D

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Sorry if my post seamed over the top. The the reason for my "intensity" is that you yourself have read threads that seam conflicted. I wanted to reply in no uncertain terms. The words we use are really important because whether we know it or not people may build on what we say. Case in point, people talk about how their BP like to climb and you wonder if the jury is out. I certainly didn't mean my post as an attack on you. You did the right thing. You asked in no uncertain terms for an answer. I wanted to make my answer as clear as possible. I felt that if I had said "no they are not arboreal" then the next person who says "Well mine likes to climb" would be on equal footing. So I wanted to shoot down any posts like that preemptively. My problem is that people put too much weight on the facets of husbandry. Your job is to provide hides, heat gradient and humidity (in that order or importance in my opinion). Branches and vines and all that can be a great decorative element and can help to provide a sense of security but they should be afterthoughts compared to hides, heat and humidity. I have heard many times on this forum, people who don't want to use tubs, talk about how they love their tank because of the space for cool climbing branches and then in another post talk about how they can't keep the humidity right, they had a bad shed, snakes not eating, or worst of all "my snake escaped". I don't mean to bash people who use tanks. Tanks can work great as long as you have your priorities straight. I have a branch in my enclosure. Its something for my BP to rub his nose against to help shed. Its nice to look at and it clutters up the enclosure.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_c...0/IMG_0296.JPG

Thanks so much for the clarity, Egapal. :oops:

Funny thing, I actually started out in a tub, but switched over to a tank for the health of my ball. I live in a really humid area, and it always stays right around 55-70. When I used a tub, it shot right up to 80-100. I completely agree, the husbandry and safety of the animal should come first.

I like the part of your setup I can see, very pretty! :D

here is a link to a thread along these same lines. on page 2, there is a post with cited references of people doing research on bps in the wild

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...gestions/page2

i found it useful and refreshing to have documented, cited evidence to support a claim...I do think the term arboreal is reserved for snakes that live almost exclusively in trees, but the post in the aforementioned thread indicates that they have been found in trees and some were found to feed almost exclusively on birds
Hope you find it helpful!

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Originally Posted by gardenfiend138

here is a link to a thread along these same lines. on page 2, there is a post with cited references of people doing research on bps in the wild

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...gestions/page2

i found it useful and refreshing to have documented, cited evidence to support a claim...I do think the term arboreal is reserved for snakes that live almost exclusively in trees, but the post in the aforementioned thread indicates that they have been found in trees and some were found to feed almost exclusively on birds
Hope you find it helpful!

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Thank you so much!! :bow: Very helpful, I really appreciate it!!

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Originally Posted by gardenfiend138

here is a link to a thread along these same lines. on page 2, there is a post with cited references of people doing research on bps in the wild

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...gestions/page2

i found it useful and refreshing to have documented, cited evidence to support a claim...I do think the term arboreal is reserved for snakes that live almost exclusively in trees, but the post in the aforementioned thread indicates that they have been found in trees and some were found to feed almost exclusively on birds
Hope you find it helpful!

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Ok this is what I am taking about. Where are the documented cited evidences that you mention. I read the whole thread and saw one person claiming they read something. That's not evidence. As a culture we set the bar far far to low for what we will consider evidence. I fail to see any in that thread. I am certainly not arguing the benefits of exercise for a BP, I would not argue that there are shrubs and trees in their natural habitat. I would not be surprised to see a BP in a shrub or a tree, just like I would not be surprised to see a person in the ocean. Further I would not debate that wild BP and captive BP for that matter will regularly eat birds. There are a large number of ground dwelling birds by the way. Snakes are also ambush predators. Here is a youtube clip of a crocodile eating a bird http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLf7VQ5fYDk. Are crocodiles likewise arboreal? I could be wrong, BP could climb more than I believe they do based on my research. I would be shocked though, to find an expert in the field stating that BP are even semi-arboreal.

climbing over driftwood is like climbing over a downed log in the wild. Most terrestrial snakes are actually pretty good about living in and around downed logs, and getting over them.

So I'm going to have to say no, they aren't arboreal, not even a little, not even as hatchlings.

I posted that purely to give the op some additional information. I never said bps would be considered arboreal, but I maid an unfair assumption when reading this thread that the real question was "do bp's climb", but I don't think the person who posted the information in the thread I linked would like it cited in a way that claims to say that bps are arboreal, so I apologize to that person if it seems that way.
And at least he cites the information he posted; no one would have anything to gain on this forum by purposefully falsifying information or citations. And that is an excellent point about the ground dwelling birds.

I have a 52 gal enclosure for mine. I put drift wood (its been cured) in just so it looked a little nicer. My bp like to crawl under it. Its a sure sign for him that he's hungry and ready to eat when he's chilling under it waiting on me. He'll crawl over it but only moving from point A to point B. Not a climber- not even to look around or try to get out.

Your post more than been answered but like PitOnTheProwl said today seems to be the day to type. :D

Here's the video if you want to buy it and check it out.

http://www.stevegorzulapresents.com/

They're not actually studying them in the same sense that a professionally-produced nature documentary would be studying them, however--they're just counting animals for the CITES survey. So the "territories of an acre each" is really just based on density.

In order to make the counting easier, they do the surveys during the middle of the day, when the pythons are asleep in their burrows. The scientest are not out filming the snakes' behavior at night, when they're more likely to be awake and moving around. Nothing like that, unfortunately.

So there's no video clips of them actively hunting or climbing trees. So my assertion that ball pythons climb in the wild is solely based on the fact that there ARE trees and low bushes in the daytime shots, and on the fact that MY snakes would sure as heck be climbing and falling out of those things on a regular basis, if their behavior during handling time and escape attempts is anything to judge by....