:shock: Hello everybody,
Well, I have gained fresh insight into the true nature of snakes while watching my Ball Pythons feed yesterday. I can truly say at this point that snakes are kind of like robots - when I commence a feeding session for my snakes they seem to automatically switch into a search/kill mode - as soon as I walk into my snake room with the feeder mice they apparently pick up the scent immediately and begin looking around and searching for the source. I have seen my BPs start lashing out at thin air in their eagerness to feed. I myself have no problems at all in getting my Ball Pythons to feed - quite the contrary, I have to use caution to avoid getting nailed myself by one of them - they are so hyped up. Then after they have fed and I am removing the BPs from the feeding box and placing them back in their enclosure I have to be careful as they are still in KILL mode and will try to get my hand if I am careless.

This reinforces my opinion that although we often think of our snakes as pets ( And I myself am guilty of this as well ) the truth is that our beloved snakes are very much like machines with different modes. They can just as easily strike out at us as they would a rat or mouse. I seriously doubt that we mean anything to our snakes :roll:

I do believe that our snakes can recognize our scent and that they can "learn" simple behavioral responses ( such as recognizing that it is feeding time when put in their feed box ) but by and large these are very simple brained animals. I have heard that some species of snakes seem to demonstrate a markedly higher intelligence level ( King Cobras and Reticulated Pythons come to mind ) but the majority of the snakes are pretty much robotic in my estimation.

EyeLashViper