Constriction - Are BP's More Efficient or Just Lazy?

[gmcclurelssu]

I wonder if it's a function of how they live and hunt in the tight quarters of rodent burrows. There wouldn't be a whole lot of room to toss coils around in there maybe?

i'd say that has a lot to do with it. possibly because they have such thick bodies, the may not need as many coils to generate the same amount of force as other species.

[Seneschal]

i'd say that has a lot to do with it. possibly because they have such thick bodies, the may not need as many coils to generate the same amount of force as other species.

I think that's the case, in combination with their natural hunting grounds being small burrows. My pastel male when I first got him used to use every single inch of his body to constrict his little mice every time he got them (might have also been my very enthusiastic "zombie mouse dance" too) but has been slowly growing out of it. He's been reducing his constriction by a coil or two every few months and is now like my adults, wrapping once or twice and that's it...I think he was building up the strength to be able to do so.

And if you ever happen to give an older snake a bigger prey item than they're used to, they'll wrap a LOT more than usual, even if it's a size they'd have no problem constricting normally; so it might also be psychological. A sort of, "Oh look, there's the same teeny mouse I get every week, I'll just loop once and wait a minute and ahah, there we go..! Nummers!" versus "ZOMG IT LOOKS BIG, I GOTTA WRAP LOTS! LOTS OF WRAP CONSTRICTCONSTRICTCONSTRICT!!! DDDD8"

...Or maybe that's just my interpretation. XD

[Schlyne]

A long time ago I fed one of my carpet pythons a smaller item than normal. Instead of wrapping or even a hard strike he just opened up and started swallowing it off the tongs. It was weird, I almost felt like I was doing an assisted feed.