Study finds you can train pythons

http://link.springer.com/article/10....071-014-0797-1

"Large pythons and boas comprise a group of animals whose anatomy and physiology are very different from traditional mammalian, avian and other reptilian models typically used in operant conditioning. In the current study, investigators used a modified shaping procedure involving successive approximations to train wild Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivitattus) to approach and depress an illuminated push button in order to gain access to a food reward. Results show that these large, wild snakes can be trained to accept extremely small food items, associate a stimulus with such rewards via operant conditioning and perform a contingent operant response to gain access to a food reward. The shaping procedure produced robust responses and provides a mechanism for investigating complex behavioral phenomena in massive snakes that are rarely studied in learning research."

Interesting seeing they've proved it.

I wish I could train mine to stop flipping her hides over every night.

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

I don't know if that kind of animal cognition is actually 100% true, but who knows...

My snakes have trained me to clean poop and feed them.

I'm not surprised, since you can hook train most pythons to associate "tapping with hook = not feeding time"... Just no ones ever tried the old button pushing for food trick until now. :P

I'm not as surprised as I could have been since I have found that my bp thinks poking me in the ear when heating the food is a good idea.

This shouldn't be that surprising. Wild pythons and boas have been shown to re-use ambush sites that were previously successful, for example; some snakes that hibernate are known to return to previous den sites; I don't think we should be surprised that any vertebrate is able to learn from previous experiences, or even invertebrates. It's a pretty basic survival skill for any animal with a brain.

Plenty of animals turn out to be more trainable than you might think; I've heard of people teaching their bettas to swim through hoops or touch targets for food. The real difficulty with training snakes the same way is that it's hard to give food rewards to an animal that naturally eats large infrequent meals, and operant conditioning hinges on being able to reward the animal with something it really wants. So training a snake is hard because it's hard to tell what it wants in the moment if it's not food, and it's hard to give multiple food rewards to an animal that naturally eats one gigantic item and then doesn't eat again for a long time. But that is not the same as them not being smart enough to learn things.

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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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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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?

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

I taught a goldfish to swim through a hoop on command. I was bored. It was cool.

I think ANY scientific study in the reptile world is worth something.

While there may be more information needed for solid conclusions about various subjects, the fact that there is funding and a group of interested people to continue this is exciting.

I have always put the biology and natural habits of my snakes first, and I picked the animals that were most interesting to me to be my pets.

If you LOVE your snake, you should search every corner to find something new and real about it. Breeding for colors and patterns is certainly fun, but actually knowing where your snake comes from and it's natural habits are what's truly amazing IMO.

I have a relatively diverse collection and was convinced the royal I bought my son, our first snake, was dull and boring. After some years of research and studying I'm not convinced the royal/ball we have here is any less intelligent than the retic I just added.

A smart ball python hides and stays somewhat inactive waiting for its next chance to eat. To me that is rather smart or at the very least an instinctually intelligent process, being they are the smallest pythons on the African continent. Stay hidden, stay alive.

I side tracked a bit there but these studies are interesting and if you look at them in depth, you may unlock some answers to questions you have about your own captive pet.

I read a lot about snakes. I can't do field research, but I can certainly read about quality studies in the field or in a captive study situation..

There is a similar but inconclusive study about carpet pythons here: http://www.eaglemountainpublishing.c...e&product_id=1


I value new findings from herpetologists and I also value information from very passionate and experienced keepers/breeders, as many, many things change in captivity. With research and understanding a seemingly boring snake may become rather complex and interesting.

OP, thank you for putting this post up! Thinking about why we all became interested in these animals in the first place starts with their secret, stealthy habits. They are unique compared to most other animals, and continual research is interesting and necessary to help us understand them better.

I love seeing stuff like this!

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Originally Posted by bcr229

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

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Thanks for the link; that's a fascinating read! I'm so glad Nova made it through okay.

My hunch is that snakes have a sensory world that we only vaguely imagine. I’ve heard somewhere that wolves can smell animals with pus - a weak one to target. For example I bet snakes can smell our different emotional states; maybe they can learn to associate that with our behavior - like picking them up.

As Glo mentioned ball pythons have the intelligence for their niche. From a ball python point of view, rolling Learning about these things helps me avoid reducing snakes to mere scaly robots but also helps to keep anthropomorphism at bay.