Can they recognize us?

My roomate and i were having this discussion last night. We think they recognize us because of the look on their faces. She says that apparently snakes dont recognize their owners but disagrees.

what do you think?

They can and do recognize us but its not based on seeing us its based on smell, most snakes have really bad vision.

i don't have any concrete evidence but i can say some of my snakes react different to me vs my wife! it might be the scent, heat signal or they way we handle them. btw my wife sweet talks them by name and i kind of just grab them.


vaughn

I can say without a doubt that my snakes react totally different to different visual stimuli I can walk in the snake room empty handed and it barely gets a reaction at all.. but if I come in and grab the feeding tongs off the wall its a whole different ball game

Double Post !!!!

I can guarentee that if I open up Issa's tank and start putting newspaper (and I can often smell the print :( )in it, he will react completely differently. Newspaper = feeding time.

Mine can tell the difference between me and my kids or wife. As far visual stimuli goes Jay knows when I open his cage and have a paper bag it's dinner time. When I open it and don't have anything in my hands he just looks at me and waits for me to pick him up.

I dont know if my snakes really recoizze me but when i hold them they are very relaxed and they explore around, but when other people are holding them they seem more tense and they just kinda sit there.I think after time they reconize my smell and they know im not going to hurt them so they trust me, but with somebody else....they are tottally new and they dont really know what to think

so i think its mainly based on smell

i think mine probably recognizes the back of my head more than the front.... i'm always sittin at the computer, turn around & there Trigger is.... peekin out of his hide starin me down... HAH! :D

MOnty curls up when anyone else except me picks him up with me hes always searching for a way into my shirt

Snakes can differentiate between different people...they obviously aren't thinking to themselves "hey, that's mom!" but they can tell the difference between someone who handles them on a regular basis as opposed to a stranger, IMO.

Thanks guys
I thought it was just me being a nut
I know my bp can tell the difference between me and my son
And my old one that Adam has really knew when it was me or someone else by her body reaction.
I think it's the whole smell thing
those that handle all the time, they know your smell and knows it means no threat. Thats about as deep as it goes w/ them I would think.

I once had a very wise old school breeder tell me that he thought that snakes could recognize you before you even came into the room by the unique pattern of vibrations that your footsteps make.

At the time I thought he was just some weirdo hippie that took the whole Zen thing way overboard, but after keeping these animals for a lot of years now, I think that they are indeed way more in tune to the world around them than people give them credit for.

-adam

You know adam i was thinking the same thing and i agree that snakes are made out to be less aware then they really are. when i talk to most people about snakes none of them ever even think that snakes can hear. But like you said its a different kind of hearing then most of us think. There was an old post on the site about thta one day and there was a great link that explained how snakes hear. Its really amazing, but since i read that i wonder if like playing music or playing video games in the same room would be distracting and annoying to them. After all they do here virations more or less so i wonder if the bass from songs or just the music from video games wold actually stress them. LoL sorry you guys go me thinking aloud heh. I wish there was solid evidence on this topic.