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The Surprising Social Lives of Pythons
- owlninja 2y agoFree link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/science/ball-pythons-social-snakes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b04.kc4n.YiwmaAh8rB4F&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/science/ball-pythons-soci...
- Night_Thastus 2y agoThis was shared on some online reptile communities, and a lot of people there take issue with it. The ball pythons were cramped together in a tiny enclosure with no enrichment, red light that bothers them, no cover or clutter, nothing to climb, no way to burrow, etc. Not exactly a test of whether they are 'social' and frankly it's cruel. Those animals are in so much stress that no data gathered is useful. Now, if you made a giant vivarium with plenty of space for each, things to climb, substrate to burrow in, etc, would they still choose to congregate? That would be a more interesting experiment. But unfortunately, the answer would most likely be 'no'. There definitely are some social snakes out there. Garter snakes, for example, are very well known to form colonies and do much better together than alone. But 'forcing' this conclusion for other species by putting snakes in this situation is awful.
- sonofhans 2y agoThank you for a good reply. I saw a photo and thought the same thing. I’ve had snakes a lot of my life, and they certainly aren’t emotionally deep or socially engaging, but they are absolutely happier in a nice place to live. Balling up like those pythons looks like a stress response to me.
- Terr_ 2y agoReminds me of how the since-retracted "Alpha wolf" categorizations were really describing the stress-formed equivalent of a gang in prison, rather than normal socialization in the wild. Alas, it lives on through pop-culture misunderstandings.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y agoI recommend this TED talk by a well known primatologist about primate alpha males, including humans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPsSKKL8N0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPsSKKL8N0s
- syngrog66 2y ago[flagged]