Study finds you can train pythons

A thing to note is that this study only applies to Burmese pythons and, while it can give some insight into whether other pythons can be trained, it does not mean that other pythons can be trained.

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Originally Posted by Nellasaur

Anyone else curious what "extremely small food items" they used in training their subjects? I'd love to give training Yigg a try :D

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Well when my retic was recovering from colon surgery she was started on f/t jumbo mice for her post-op meals. She would take 8-10 every few days and gobble them up like popcorn chicken.

There was a video posted here awhile back of a professor talking about his research into snakes' heat sensing capabilities. For that study, they trained burms (wild-caught ones from the Everglades no less) to press a button for a food reward - and the food was mice. But since the purpose was to test their IR sensitivity, they would present the snake with two choices, and the snake had to select which one was warmer.
The other cool thing was that they ran up against the limits of their equipment's ability to distinguish very tiny temperature differences before they found the limits of the snakes' abilities.

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Originally Posted by paulrobert

swwweeeetttt!! I wonder what else we'd be able to train them to do? Photo-shoot poses?

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spazhime already has with Leliana, she's got some amazing pictures of that snake.

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Since they're wild burmese pythons, I assume anything like an adult rat or smaller would be considered "extremely small" LOL

For ball pythons, probably anything around fuzzy mice or smaller, assuming it's for an adult ball?

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Not quite an adult yet, but that makes sense! I was wondering if it was meat...chunks of some sort, for lack of a better word, but just a super small prey item makes sense.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Well when my retic was recovering from colon surgery she was started on f/t jumbo mice for her post-op meals. She would take 8-10 every few days and gobble them up like popcorn chicken.

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Colon surgery??? DANG. I bet she was, though!

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Originally Posted by Seven-Thirty

A thing to note is that this study only applies to Burmese pythons and, while it can give some insight into whether other pythons can be trained, it does not mean that other pythons can be trained.

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Given how basic the behavior that they conditioned is and how straightforward classical operant shaping is, I would be really surprised if you couldn't replicate these results with other snakes. If anything, I think the biggest obstacle would be the temperament of the animal; i.e., someone trying to shape behavior in a reclusive ball python that is picky about routine and what food it eats might not see great results. I could see BPs being hard to train because they are too stressed to respond to the food reward reliably; you'd probably have to pick a handling-resilient individual or spend a long time setting up an experimental array that won't stress the animal out.

And again, all of this would be to replicate the result in the experiment: training the snake to perform a simple action to earn a food reward.

Can snakes be trained to perform complex behaviors on command, like you would train a cat or dog? Well, now that's the question, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Nellasaur

Can snakes be trained to perform complex behaviors on command, like you would train a cat or dog? Well, now that's the question, isn't it?

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Well when I was younger I figured trying classical operant conditioning on my corn snake and Mediterranean spur thigh tortoises would be interesting. From what I saw it takes a lot of patience for snakes to be taught complex behaviours and it can be used to create interesting reactions I had the most luck with conditioning a modification of the usual behaviours. I eventually managed to get a specific pattern of behaviour involving the active nature of corns and a specific place on the chair guests would sit on. Quite entertaining seeing the shock of visitors and the how did you do that. As for Bp - have conditioned mine to know that if I do a specific set of actions she is getting fed, much easier in the long term than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Vipera Berus

Well when I was younger I figured trying classical operant conditioning on my corn snake and Mediterranean spur thigh tortoises would be interesting. From what I saw it takes a lot of patience for snakes to be taught complex behaviours and it can be used to create interesting reactions I had the most luck with conditioning a modification of the usual behaviours. I eventually managed to get a specific pattern of behaviour involving the active nature of corns and a specific place on the chair guests would sit on. Quite entertaining seeing the shock of visitors and the how did you do that. As for Bp - have conditioned mine to know that if I do a specific set of actions she is getting fed, much easier in the long term than anything else.

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Ha, ain't that something! I don't suppose you have any video? :D

Mine might starting to pick up on his feeding routine too. I weigh him and then feed out of enclosure every week (I know, I know), and I noticed this week when I put him in the weighing bowl that he immediately went into hunting mode. Dinner was still defrosting in another room so it wasn't rat smell, I think he just recognized the sequence of events. Conditioning in action!

so you're telling me not everyone's Ball Python comes when called and lays down/rolls over on command ???

:)

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Originally Posted by Nellasaur

Colon surgery??? DANG. I bet she was, though!

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https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...Nova-s-Surgery