snakes looking at us

so from a snakes point of view, how do they see the world outside there cage. if they are looking through say a glass side, can they still sense that my body temperature is higher than the chair i am sitting on. i know they can more than likely smell my body's scent and still feal any movement when i move. I am just a little in the dark about how they pick up heat sources.

I read that they kinda see in infrared, but really, we can't look through their eyes, so anything we might be able to determine is an educated guess at best.

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Originally Posted by new2BP

so from a snakes point of view, how do they see the world outside there cage.

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Poorly ... ball pythons have horrible vision compared to what you think of as "seeing" ... they can see movement, but everything else is a huge blur ... they use a combination of detecting movement visually and through vibrations, their sense of smell, and identifying the temperature differences of objects around them to "see" ... but the picture they see isn't anything like you or I can relate to.

-adam

I've often wondered (wierd how my mind works lol) if they just lay there curled up happy in their tubs thinking as I go by..."hmmmmm nice big warm blur...wonder if nice big warm blur has rat today...hmmmmmm"

:P


~~Jo~~

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

I've often wondered (wierd how my mind works lol) if they just lay there curled up happy in their tubs thinking as I go by..."hmmmmm nice big warm blur...wonder if nice big warm blur has rat today...hmmmmmm"

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Probably more like "nice big warm blur" ... "if I stay very still, hopefully it won't see me (because I can't see anything that isn't moving) and maybe I won't get eaten by that monster!!"

$ucks not being at the top of the food chain! :P

-adam

thanks for the info.....

adam...so can they still sense heat even though there is glass between them and the outside of the cage?

i saw on the discovery channel that all snakes heat pits are attached to the optical nerve in there brian. So they visualize the heat. Like the preditor movies. That tied in with smell gives them a very detailed outline. Its really not that blurry.

Blurry? Tell that to my Normal Bci. She is always dead on!

~Jim

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Originally Posted by jim020cricket

Blurry? Tell that to my Normal Bci. She is always dead on!

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Not sure about how boas see the world ... just ball pythons.

-adam

Ok, so here's my take. I tried to make it sound as simple as I could. Please forgive the length of my explination. I studied thermo physics my first year as an engineering student and we took a look at how insulators affect heat signatures. We were studying whether or not the movies were accurate with those infrared goggles that can magically see through walls. This is possible as long as the structure's walls are not effectively insulated. If you are asking whether or not snakes see our heat through the glass, that would depend on just how well the glass or plastic is insulating against heat transfer. That being said, if they can see the slight temp difference between your chair and you through the glass, then they should also be able to see that same temp difference through wood or thick plastic which both have about the same insulating value as glass. In the case of a ball python they base their "picture" of the outside world on many senses. So for them to get an accurate picture of our heat signature the glass would have to have nearly no insulating value whatsoever. This however is not true, so what a snake senses in the cage is a uniform temperature across the surface of the glass. This of course is not exactly uniform as there is a temperature gradient within the cage from right to left as well as top to bottom. When your snake follows you around the room with his head it may be based a little bit on your temp, but probably it's mostly based on movement. Even vibrations in the air will be a bit muddled as the glass will vibrate uniformly across its surface and the snake will not be able to pinpoint the origin of the sound.
Sorry if this sounds a bit like a university class, but its how I think things through.

pokey, i have no university degree but it makes sense to me. thanks

no problem. sorry again if i sounded teacher like, but sometimes i get carried away. i find all this stuff so interesting. its so cool how a ball python actually has a more accurate picture of the surrounding world than you and i. imagine being able to instantly tell if something was real or fake, to be able to pinpoint the location of someone's or something heart or brain. to actually be able to see their breath. thats amazing. we base our picture on one sense only... sight. we can loose our hearing and taste and the world still looks the same. imagine being able to draw that same picture and throw in vibrations, temperature, smell (we smell, but not nearly as accurately as they can), and on top of it movement. wow. its like looking at a line of statues and one of them is a real person just standing still, a bp can instantaneously tell what is alive and what is not. i would love to actually spend a day (or two) with that ability

pokey, yes it is very enteresting stuff. u mentioned a line of statues and onebeing real. well it reminded me of being in Florida last year at Epcot centre. there was this person, dressed all white. everything was white. at your first look u just passed him/her off as white stone statue. every so often he/she would change positions. now having a snakes senses, one would be know right away that it is was real....compared to most animal senses, i would consider the human as being very blind to our surroundings.

so pokey with out any insulation between them and us. they do see us like the preditor would. COOOOOL