Once upon a cranky olive python

[earl]

Hey everyone its been about 4wks now and my olive has really settled down. Every evening he literally taps the glass doors as if to say hey i'm ready to come out , he'll even follow me as i walk up and down his house. I only let him out when he's ready and wont upset him for visitors entertainment and since adopting this attitude with him he's so placid and gentle and laid back and lazy he can be pathetic. Every afternoon around 6 or 7 he's ready to come out and i take him out side put him down on the grass and let him do what he does , explore ( while i follow him )and be a snake for about 2hrs or so and he seems to be content with that and comes back up to me and hangs on my shoulders. I figure snakes are not silly they know whats going on and he certainly knows who i am and my scent and there probably more in touch with us than we can imagine , even when i speak he appears to be attentive to my voice. He's a real cool python.
Cheers

[cyclamen]

i agree 100% with you. my carpet is excactly the same. they are gorgeous arnt they.

[slim6y]

Hehe... they're fairly amazing creatures by any stretch of the imagination. I always think as humans we tend to put 'down' any remote intelligence (of any sort) of our animals. Even if my beautiful Peyote has the brain the size of ball point pen nib, she's still amazingly in tune with her surrounds and environment.

However, unlike your olive, she chooses to like to stay in her wee house. But when she comes out she's the most happy she can be. But again, unlike your olive... Put her on the ground and she goes into sniffing/tasting overload. She doesn't know where to go next.

She definitely knows me above others. If she's on someone and happy she will not go to someone else unless that someone else is me.

Sounds like you have a great snake there, very lucky and very cool!

[triptych_angel]

Speaking of cranky olive python, i had a dream last night that i was being eaten by one, and everytime i got away it would come after me...it could even open doors lol.

[Veredus]

I imagine they do develop a sense of familiarity with a persons voice but not through a sense of hearing, given that they have no ears. They do however have a great sense of vibrations and surely can distinguish different "sounds" using this. Perhaps someone a little more knowledgeable ca elaborate and tell us whether or not a snake is able to distinguish between different voices simply by the size of the vibrations that are made.

[popeye]

gotta love olives both mime were really narcy but all of a sudden they both just started to settle in and out of the enclosure my youngest female is amazing, she is areal green colour and is just the best. she is not two till after xmas and is well over 6ft .used to give me some great bites inside her enclosure and throw herself 3feet ta get ya, once apon a time i had cranky olive pythons, now i got a couple of beautful pythons that are a joy to own. just love em.

[slim6y]

Originally Posted by popeye

gotta love olives both mime were really narcy but all of a sudden they both just started to settle in and out of the enclosure my youngest female is amazing, she is areal green colour and is just the best. she is not two till after xmas and is well over 6ft .used to give me some great bites inside her enclosure and throw herself 3feet ta get ya, once apon a time i had cranky olive pythons, now i got a couple of beautful pythons that are a joy to own. just love em.

I can say the physics of a voice has very different frequencies and wavelengths. I can but assume a python with its body firmly attached to the ground can pick up several different frequencies (and thus wavelengths) through the ground... Sound travels by compressing particles together and moving the energy laterally. Through air it is slower because air is less dense than a metal or for example the ground. Sound would move much faster through the ground therefore the senses that a python must have would be so acute that they could probably distinguish between sounds travelling through the air at around 330 metres per second compared to the sounds trhough the ground travelling at around 3000 metres per second (both sound speeds would vary on composition of the air/ground/temperature etc).

Every human voice being different would create different frequencies that are felt by the snake... so I guess that if there was something that your snake could sense it is in fact the type of person speaking... However... I think they would be more in tuned to the taste of your breath, the speed of your heart and other things they tune into to wanr them of danger.

[Tatelina]

awesome! How big is your olive?

[earl]

He's almost 6ft and has an unbelievable appetite it's amazing what he can fit in his mouth , I'll try posting some pics when i figure it out.