Quote Originally Posted by Bogertophis View Post
Tongue flicking is normal...they don't rely on vision to identify things the way we do. Yes, they can see, but for them, motion gets their interest & heat gets their
attention (with heat-sensing pits on face), but to narrow it down (food or foe?) they use scent. A snake's tongue is forked to pick up double the number of mole-
cules from the air...when the tongue retracts, it goes to the Jacobsen's organ in the roof of their mouth for accurate assessment. If a snake could talk, they'd say
"I have to smell it to believe it." Snakes have extremely good sense of smell...they can smell the tiniest bit of rodent on your hands, even after you wash them in
many cases, & they trust what they smell more than what they see. To avoid confusing them & getting accidental bites, always keep this in mind. Their tongue
is like our eyes...their best sense.
I would say their heat pits are better than their eyes too.
I was feeding a F/T rat, but I didn't warm up the rat after it had thawed this time, so when I put it in the snake smelled the rat and sensed the heat on my hand and I got mauled, she had to let go after a few seconds as I was too big a meal for her.