BP intelligence/emotion?

[KingWheatley]

Establishing prey items is a far cry from imprinting. Considering the lack of maternal instinct once hatched and the rate at which neonates disperse out into the wild coupled with the lone mentality of ball pythons. There is no reason for nor benefit to imprinting nor affection. It has no reason to exist. They do however possess a level of curiosity otherwise they never would leave the nest but even that could be attributed to instinctual drive to eat or be alone. You are attempting to place human emotional explanation to behavior that is nothing more that instinctual or learned response. Not trying to bust your bubble but what you think you are experiencing simply is not what you think it is. At least in the way I understand your description.

they do imprint. It's not a maternal instinct, it's recognition. It recognizes a certain smell to mean a certain thing. I may be wrong in thinking that's what imprinting is, though.

I don't consider love to be an emotion, however. Bonding is a social animal thing, though. So I suppose I am mistaking a preference to be a bond.

even still. its hard to say for sure, to be honest. no matter which side you look at, neither of us know for sure because we are simply going off logic and observations. It's only natural for us to attribute something familiar to ourselves to other people/animals.

And it's our instinct to do so.

[cchardwick]

It's one sided, she does not love you, does not cuddle, she seeks heat that has nothing to do with love or bonding but has to do with basic needs.

Wait, are you talking about my snake or my wife?



Seriously though, I think all my snakes love me!

[pixiepup]

Hmm, I have to say that my mom and I's BP, Cooper has shown great intelligence and some emotion.

He was in his cold(er) side hide, my mom was worried about him, for some reason thought he was dead....I went in, poked around, and he poked his head out and said "Hi moms!"
She was crying and sniffly, idk why still, but she was INCREDIBLY worried.

From that day on, whenever someone comes into his room, he pokes his head out if to say "Hey, I'm okay!" He never did that before. He also will touch the top of his enclosure rather frantically if I do say so myself when he wants to come out and be held.

When he had a traumatic experience with f/t, he wouldn't show my parents he was hungry because they were the ones who gave it to him regularly. I had never fed him and he would come out and try to get my attention despite me never doing anything with/for him previously. Why? Because I wouldn't give it to him. I hadn't been the one who gave it to him and he thought I might give him something else.

I understand why some people might think that snakes have no emotions, no personalities, but...can you really say that's true? I just recently started giving a hoot about snakes, before that I didn't care at ALL. I still thought that he was amazingly smart and oddly emotional for a snake. Now I truly believe that he is a caring creature despite being a solitary animal.

He also really likes to climb onto my pikachu snapback....it has the ears and he loves to climb onto it, wrapping around the ears, about crushing my poor neck from his weight

[enginee837]

Wait, are you talking about my snake or my wife?



Seriously though, I think all my snakes love me!

Although it is believed both are cold blooded I believe their attitude is more in line with a wild caught mangrove snake.