I dunno. Different individuals show different behaviors.

Having kept birds, I don't compare snakes to birds; they are in two different worlds of intelligence and capabilities. Spectrum, totally. Just not terribly close. Even lizards seem to have a different style of cognition than BPs. Garter snakes do for sure. For being ball pythons, ball pythons are brilliant. There's stuff they're great at, there's stuff they're terrible at. Though, I have to admit, I'm curious how well they, and other snakes, would do at cognitive tests that really cater to them.

I don't really handle other most of them other than for maintenance or taking photos. Even with that little interaction, they don't all react to handling the same. Some show less stress, some show more interest. With several of the babies, I've seen a set "personality" from day one . . . They're more or less stressed by me from the get-go. Then I have an adult female albino BP who shows the most interest and the least amount of obvious stress when I take her out. Because the baseline of their behavior seems genetic, I've honestly toyed around with the idea of breeding for it.

The Angolans seem the most sensitive to whether or not I'm handling them enough to keep them habituated to it. My JPC has distinct moods, for lack of a better way to word that, and is very readable. She's between the Angolans and the BPs as far as handling frequently to keep her used to it goes. (Although I do take her out just for the heck of it more often, because she's more interesting to have out, and seemed to benefit from the exercise.)

So . . . I dunno.