As we all know, ball pythons use heat sensing pits to help them find warm blooded prey, usually in addition to their keen sense of smell. Well, I seem to have a snake that relies on her heat seeking ability almost entirely to find and attack prey, and doesn't seem to be able to identify prey by scent alone.
My blackbee mojave orange ghost female, Amora, will attack anything warm that enters her cage, or even near her cage. Tong feeding is tricky, as she often goes past the tongs and goes for my hand, as it is bigger and warmer than the rat on the tongs. In order to get her to successfully feed, I need to both wear a leather glove to reduce the perceived heat from my hand, and heat up her rat to much higher temps than is needed for most other ball pythons. She doesn't seem to recognize the scent of rats or mice as food and if the food is left sitting in her cage, even hot, she won't eat it, it has to both be moving and very very warm.
Anyone else ever seen a snake that was so particular? I have snakes that will not eat off of tongs, I have snakes that will even eat room temp rodents, but never one so dependent on such heat and movement like that. She is not aggressive when removed from the tank, but when she is in there, she goes for anything warm and doesn't seem to notice cooler objects under a certain temp.
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