On The Relative Intelligence of Snakes* (Ramón is Dumb)

*Please take most of this information with a grain of salt. I did a fair amount of research, but I am in no way an expert. If I'm wrong on anything, don't hesitate to comment and let me know.

Johno and I once had a discussion on the intelligence of snakes (i.e, pattern recognition, memories, feelings). I hadn't done much of my own research on the matter but to me (at least, at first), they seemed like quite conscious creatures. Observing your surrounding and understanding how to react to them is also a part of it. Snakes, by their natures, are generally shy but observant. A case of the watched watching the watchers. I mean, surely with all their advantageous senses they would be somewhat intelligent?

Looking right into your soul.

However...

After some research I realised that snakes were not the cunning thinkers I thought they were. Rather, they apparently turned out to be not much more intelligent than goldfish. They are opportunistic feeders, and won't really take much stead in feed patterns. Though they might realise, over time, that a certain movement equates to feeding - much like how fish will eventually learn that opening of the fishtank lid means food - I think it would take much longer for a snake to learn the same principle as they are fed much, much less often than fish. Whether that means it's "learned" anything is questionable, though. 

It's a lot cuter if you imagine a big question mark above his head.

They also actively ignore food in preparation for a shed. Instinct? Surely. Intelligence? Probably not. Though they are actively making a decision that would affect them later, I'm relatively certain that not much thought goes into it. 

 It was like watching a fat woman walk straight past a buffet table without even looking.

Also on the topic of their extra senses - it doesn't really make them any more intelligent. They have a tiny brain to begin with (in comparison to their body, unlike us fathead humans) and most likely, a lot of their thought process is taken up by other functions. Monitoring body temperature would be one, and also processing information coming in from their Jacobson's organ. In exchange they have extremely poor eyesight. 

They can see relative movement - some people say they can see shape at 1m, and movement at 5m. Most people say if you stay still enough that a snake can't distinguish you from the background - which I say is fair, I mean their eyes are meant to detect 360° danger [movement], but positioning of their eyes just wouldn't allow for 3D perception as easily as ours.

Unless you were right in front of it.

It's probably why they always line up their head before they strike - it's the only point in their vision where their peripherals overlap and allow them to perceive depth.

There's also a heap of anecdotal evidence that people have offered to argue the case of snake intelligence. But, anecdotal evidence is really no evidence at all without scientific backing. That's not to say that I disagree with people have an ephemeral connection to their pets. I just don't know what to say if they expect the snake to have reciprocal feelings.

Either way, snakes are good at what they do. They are wonderfully adaptive hunters and overall beautiful creatures. It doesn't matter to me that I basically own an elongated, terrestrial, fin-less goldfish.

..well, most of the time.

 ANYWAY HE'S MUCH MORE BADASS THAN ANY FISH SO SHUT UP.

Macro Maculosa

Just some pretty photos of Ramón.

Droop~

My favourite photo of him so far.

I like the way his scales look in this one :3

Feeding~

Om nom nom

Observing us observing him

Posing for his [surrogate] dad.

Mister Underhill (Or Mister Undermat, as it were)

Ramón is a terrestrial snake. Though he does seem to appreciate his vivarium branches, more often than not he'll be on the ground if he doesn't want to be disturbed. Usually right in the back corner behind the larger bamboo hide (not in it, squeezed in behind  it).

Popping out from behind aforementioned hide

So it doesn't particularly worry me if I can't see him if I pop over to check on him. Right now he'll be either behind the bamboo hide, or in his other rock one (they're both on the warm side).

Sliding in

Then there were 3 consecutive days where he was just.. not around. Two days I could understand, but three started to worry me. I grabbed the torch and had a peep into his hides, expecting him to be hiding in his rock.. but all I could see was substrate.

I checked behind the bamboo hide. No, not there either. Maybe he's on the cool end. Not in the Batcave. Not under the bridge. My heart starts fluttering.

I'm trying to stay calm. There's no way he could have gotten out. He must just be hiding under the substrate somewhere. I poke around, hoping to disturb him wherever he may be.

Still nothing. I'm freaking out. How the hell did he get out? Where would he be now? Maybe he crawled into the spare substrate under the viv? I carefully start pulling out substrate from the vivarium, though my heart is starting to break a little.

Eventually I've taken all the substrate out and he's not there. I'm devastated. I'm trying to remember the last time I saw him. And then I look at the wooden mat that we taped down over the heat cord and I think, "He used to have this habit of crawling under paper towel in his click clack [plastic enclosure we got him in]... oh wait on, no fucking way."

This is how we had initally proposed to stop Ramón from getting under the mat in the first place:

Lots of masking tape.

I ripped up the tape - lo and behold, there he was, snuggled right up to the heat cord. He had circumvented the tape by digging through the substrate that we had tightly packed around the base of the leftmost tree branch ["He won't get through that."]. Little bastard.

Needless to say I was extremely relieved. It took a little coaxing to get him out from under there - I put him back into his old click clack and  took the opportunity to clean down the vivarium. I also taped the mat down again - this time, including around the branch.

Ain't no snake getting under this time.

I wasn't going to take any chances.

Since my retaping he hasn't disappeared again. If, by some power, he ends up under there again - and dies from dehydration or whatever - I'm probably going to be really upset, but frankly, the Darwin files deserve that one.

Home Sweet Home (Part 2)

So now that we had the vivarium built, it seemed to us that it was looking a little.. plain. It needed a little pizzazz. A little je ne sais quoi. 

Le boring.

We collaborated on the background - I found a nice jungley photo (the one in the background of this blog) and trimmed it to spec, which Johno had printed at his work. Took him about an hour (or less) to put it on, even going over the vents to cover them. It came out beautifully!

Ooooooooh!

The current hides, we realised, were going to be too small for Ramón when he reached adulthood, but looking around (in pet stores and online) it seemed as though there weren't really many cost-effective ones that we liked. So off we went to Kmart to see if we could find something a little more suitable. A turned-over pot would have done nicely, but it wouldn't really have fit with the aesthetic we wanted for the vivarium. We did, however, find a very ingenious cold-hide :3

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

The eye-holes were open when we bought it, so Johno popped the lenses out of an old pair of sunnies and hot-glued them in. It is now dubbed the Batcave. We also found a nice bamboo utensil-holder (made for holding ladles and other stuff) in the kitchen section which we thought could serve nicely as a larger hide for him. Unfortunately, it looked really out of place next to the rough branches and dark brown substrate. So I took to it with some paint and muddy water after we both had a go at it with saw, file and knife. 

We also cut off a part of it so that it would sit flat. 

In the picture it looks really obviously done, but..

It looks heaps good next to everything else!

His larger (he has two) water dish is just a granite feeding dish for reptiles. The substrate is Kritter's Crumble. He also has a verandah, which is basically a wooden placemat over the top of the heat cord, to stop him from coming into too much contact with the actual cord. 

The final result!

The thermometer to the right of the cage takes the temp for the cold side, as well as having a node just on the  basking spot on a knot in the leftmost branch. The heat cord is on a separate thermostat, so it keeps it well warm on the ground. It does tend to dry out quite a bit with the open front, so regular spritzing is a necessity (at least in winter) to keep the humidity above 60%.

Basking temperature node

Much easier to spritz directly through the grill. 

That was pretty much it. A few days later we put Ramón in - he was a bit wary at first but he'd fully settled in  48 hours later. 

We let him explore on his own, but it took him a while [i.e, FOREVER] to slither out.

And then of course he stayed in the toilet roll for a good half hour.

Orientation Week

The first week after we brought him home was a tad anxious for the both of us (moreso for me, really). As expected, he was fairly cranky. It made cleaning a bit difficult, I will admit.

This is one of the calmer shots.

But after a while he'd settled in and was happy to take in the sights and smells of his new home.

Ramón at 400mm (or thereabouts)

Thankfully he fed pretty much the night after he'd come home - the breeder had informed us that he hadn't eaten for 10 days when we picked him up. He was noticably less cranky the day after.

Food baby!

 Two days after his feed we deemed him settled enough to start handling. It was nerve-wracking, picking him up with my own hands for the first time! He's quite scared a lot of the time - understandably so - but if you're gentle and patient he shows a lot of curiousity.

Although there was this one time he got a little spooked and flung himself out of Johno's hand back into his box, landing face first into the water dish. Silly snake.