- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
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Something I have been contemplating that could be of benefit if people familiar with pythons would lend their brain cells and experience.
When observing pythons. I mean CLOSELY observing, developing an affinity, empathizing. Pythons have a trigger point. A 'do not pass go' where they enter into nip/bite mode.
This trigger point diminishes with extended contact with the animal until the trigger seldom or even never gets touched.
But observing wild, untamed pythons, they all, to varying degrees, have a trigger point. A response threshold. It seems to me that python keepers willing to spend enough time could detect the signs, the minute or micro indications, body language, where that threshold could be identified and defined.
As an analogy, horses. Some time after I've been around a group of horses long enough to tell which horse is which at a glance, or even just from how a horse is acting in the dark in a group in a corral, I can pick up who is pissed off, who is spoiling for a fight, who has a -leave me alone- attitude and which ones are laid back and docile. It seems pythons of all animals might be the easiest to detect similar to those horses.
Comparisons. Rattlers. Knife edge threshold. Flight or fight and zero space between. Cobras, especially kings. A very high tolerance level which grows with affinity but again a knife edge. Cross the line and utterly unpredictable. Kraits. Their trigger threshold varies according to the time of day. Early morning it is EXTREMELY unusual for one to go nippy. Come 20:00 to 22:00, they start acting closer to a rattlesnake.
So it seems pythons would be the perfect subject for studying this and furthering our understanding of attitude of the animal by all those little signs, hints, and your empathy.
When observing pythons. I mean CLOSELY observing, developing an affinity, empathizing. Pythons have a trigger point. A 'do not pass go' where they enter into nip/bite mode.
This trigger point diminishes with extended contact with the animal until the trigger seldom or even never gets touched.
But observing wild, untamed pythons, they all, to varying degrees, have a trigger point. A response threshold. It seems to me that python keepers willing to spend enough time could detect the signs, the minute or micro indications, body language, where that threshold could be identified and defined.
As an analogy, horses. Some time after I've been around a group of horses long enough to tell which horse is which at a glance, or even just from how a horse is acting in the dark in a group in a corral, I can pick up who is pissed off, who is spoiling for a fight, who has a -leave me alone- attitude and which ones are laid back and docile. It seems pythons of all animals might be the easiest to detect similar to those horses.
Comparisons. Rattlers. Knife edge threshold. Flight or fight and zero space between. Cobras, especially kings. A very high tolerance level which grows with affinity but again a knife edge. Cross the line and utterly unpredictable. Kraits. Their trigger threshold varies according to the time of day. Early morning it is EXTREMELY unusual for one to go nippy. Come 20:00 to 22:00, they start acting closer to a rattlesnake.
So it seems pythons would be the perfect subject for studying this and furthering our understanding of attitude of the animal by all those little signs, hints, and your empathy.
