Silly question about glass tank backing

[Kippykins]

Does it make any difference to the animal what the privacy backing/siding of a glass tank looks like? I assume that the answer is no since you can use colorful fish tank backing/cork/all kinds of stuff, but I was considering painting a "mural" as my BP's tank backing and wanted to make sure I'm not about to put in 30+ hours of work just to stress her out more!

My BP is named Ouroboros, so she obviously deserves an alchemy mural if possible

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[cayley]

This is an interesting question as I've been reading a bit about the way that snakes sense things, and this would be more a question about the visual cortex of snakes than the actual action of the eye itself. Ball pythons in particular don't have the best eyesight, they rely a lot on heat signatures, vibrations and scents... but some have experienced them reacting to reflections in the way they would react to another snake. This signals that perhaps their visual cortex is more complex than I would expect... BUT this could be related to movement and recognizing the distinct way that another snake 'moves' and not so much the actual flat image of the snake.

I really feel that a flat image, especially a handmade one, would NOT affect the snake in any way whatsoever because it wouldn't connect the symbols to a specific thing. A photograph might be more likely to have any effect but even then I don't believe it would have any.

[Kippykins]

This is an interesting question as I've been reading a bit about the way that snakes sense things, and this would be more a question about the visual cortex of snakes than the actual action of the eye itself. Ball pythons in particular don't have the best eyesight, they rely a lot on heat signatures, vibrations and scents... but some have experienced them reacting to reflections in the way they would react to another snake. This signals that perhaps their visual cortex is more complex than I would expect... BUT this could be related to movement and recognizing the distinct way that another snake 'moves' and not so much the actual flat image of the snake.

I really feel that a flat image, especially a handmade one, would NOT affect the snake in any way whatsoever because it wouldn't connect the symbols to a specific thing. A photograph might be more likely to have any effect but even then I don't believe it would have any.

That actually sounds like a really interesting line of research! I wouldn't personally be that surprised about reflective surfaces- I took a picture of me with my BP in selfie mode, she appeared to see her reflection and jerked her head way back and then attempted to hide. I'm convinced that she was scared of "the other snake" because she's typically very hard to phase. I'd be interested in hearing more as you learn!

And heck yesss, time to bust out my paints when I get home in that case!

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