Discussion time - Boredom and "enrichment" in snakes

[Pythonfriend]

Through the advancement of people we find the solution to the question posed here.

We started off as hunter/gatherers and we as people fulfilled the three basic human needs ; nourishment, clothing, shelter. It was not until we began to domesticate things ( plants and animals ) for our benefit that we had more time and energy to focus on non instinctual things such as a complex language system, knowledge, social structure and the like. This is how we evolved into what we are today. Snakes in the wild do not receive food on a consistent basis, in captivity where the next meal is guaranteed perhaps the conservation of energy is no longer important and they can (as nature suggests) afford to use energy on things other than their basic needs. Perhaps what you are seeing is the first step of many to come for ball pythons, they could eventually become as domesticated as dogs or cats. Science once proved monitor lizards and big reptiles to be non thinking creatures, now we have a crocodile that can swim with a man in Colombia and science explaining that monitor lizards could be the most intelligent reptile. Everything changes and as generations of python evolve adapting to their new environment (captivity) they could be focusing their energy on less instinctual things.

Evolution doesnt work that way, and not so fast. the problem is that you have no natural selection going on in captivity (apart from the occasional BP with a weak immune system dieing from RI or something). its all artificial selection. and breeders select mainly for optics, clutch size/fertility, feeding response and to a lesser degree for a tame character. unless breeders start working hard on producing more intelligent BPs, its not going to happen. and in nature, evolution by natural selection works over tens of thousands of years, you do not get the changes you suggest in 50 years or 100 years, as you seem to imply with the crocodile example.

BPs wont evolve the ability to herd rats and to cook them before eating anytime soon. what can be done with artificial selection rather quickly is to get them tame. getting them smarter is a whole different beast.