You know, that is not the first time I heard a story like that. A friend of mine used to keep a breeding pair of Burmese pythons, and the female was much older then the male. When she passed away, the male would seem to be searching for her, and literally rubbed it's nose around the enclosure so much it became very scabbed and infected. He bought another female, and he calmed down a little bit, but never bred with her or ever stopped searching, he just searched less intensely.