Yeah I think your absolutely right as unfortunate as that is.
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You find someone to match my current salary and fund the cost of the experiments and I will turn in my two weeks and pack my bags LOL
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I want to go too! 
How accurate do you think these studies would even be? I would think that you would be more likely to see the ones that are in the same burrow because they would take up more space. The same goes for trees, it’s easier to see a snake in a tree than look for a small burrow entrance under a bush.
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That would depend on the person performing the studies…
The USGS funded and published a paper that concluded Burmese pythons could comfortably inhabit ~30% of the continental US ranging as far north as Connecticut and as far west as SoCal. Lots of money went into the study… Very little accuracy came out
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The study on arboreal behavior just highlights that a previously disregarded capacity for behavior can be unlocked by the conditions of an environment. And that the less common behavior provides constructive stimulation to the animal, or they wouldn’t be found climbing branches in tanks. In other words, ‘capacity’ can’t be reversed once it is proven to exist in an environment, no matter how irregular the context. I’m pretty confident it’s a good analogy to my core point…I don’t see anything logically inconsistent in my statements at first glance.
On further research - I fully intend to lead the charge on this work and have thought a lot about the construction of a larger environment (with constant camera tracking, etc). I’ve been grinding my butt off to create something special for ball python keepers that I hope will have enough economic value to y’all to support further investment in technology and research. 
Certainly a lot of research is poorly constructed or draws conclusions irrelevant to reality. But plenty more can expand the way we view the world.
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I got a lot out of this post, but this statement here is profound.
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This picture makes the rounds on social media every couple of years. Gerry Guerra used to post a couple others like this people had sent him (before he retired).
If this a possibility, what are the positive reasons to cohab?
Warning: Snake eating another.
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That’s my theory on the whole “dominance” topic. What we see as “dominance” may just be cold blooded animals joining to share each other’s heat. We’re excluding the obvious in my opinion. For all we know, the snake on top is making the sacrifice to both keep the bottom snake warmer, and being the most exposed to danger.
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I’ve seen a few of these pics on old forums, and I certainly believe the anecdotes suggesting cannibalization can happen (though I maintain it seems incredibly uncommon among ball pythons).
It’s hard to tell from that picture, but the bone exposure along the dorsal might suggest malnutrition. Or maybe one snake was particularly crazy. Or they were wrapped up together and locked onto the same feeder - a state where I would expect problems to occur at higher rates, if only because the ‘ambush/feeding response’ is an overriding cognitive state and maladapted for the presence of other snakes. There are a bunch of possible ways to trigger even the most unlikely behaviors, and without understanding the conditions of the environment it’s pretty hard to discern what promotes this kind of action.
My sample size continues to grow and I’ve seen nothing resembling even a strike between animals (I’ve probably tried 40 pairs/triplets by now and raised a few maternally incubated clutches with their moms for 3 months, for some total of like 200 social connections). Now, I’ve had a nippy mom and two others strike at me to protect their partner in shed…but that tells quite a different story
I’m reasonably confident from my experiments alone that the probability of an attack amongst a pair in a given year is far lower than 1/100. Maybe 1/1000, but given my behavioral observations my wager is < 1/10,000 in the conditions I provide - basically large enough space and separation for feedings.
All things in life bear risk. Many are unseen, or highly controlled through the engineering of our environments. At least for me, the risks seem worth the perceived benefit of a more interactive and tactile environment for my sneks 
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I’ve really enjoyed following this thread thanks for updating us!
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wow. too much info to fully take it all in at this point, too much info to digest in one reading.
I would just suggest, if there is enough space, just like in the wild, it should be OK.
How much space, I am not sure yet with ball pythons.
Enough space should allow for dominance not to be a problem, and also feeding not to risk the same animal going for the same pray item and hurting each other.
Also enough space and thermoregulation options so both can get the temps and humidity they want without having no choice but to be together.
I have successfully done this with other types of snakes in the past.
Feel free to challenge, here to learn and consider others opinions.
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We have two snakes in a divided rack, both female, one is 2019 over 1000g, one 2021 around 300g. The small one found a way to get into the other side of the bin and “snuggles” with the big female. Yesterday morning was the first I saw it. We split them up. When I got home from work she had found her way over there again. Split them up. My partner got home from work an hour later and she was in there cozied up again! We’ve since moved her to a separate bin entirely, neither looked stressed. I am actually more concerned moving her will stress her. She was doing this all of her own will.
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It will not. Ball pythons do far better kept separate I highly recommend leaving them in there own enclosures.
Welcome to the community! 
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I would be more worried about the possibility of cannibalism.
If this is a case of resource guarding I’m curious why the smaller snake went to the bigger snake.
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I was definitely not trying to put them together. She kept jail breaking into the other bin. It took us quite a while to get her eating because of stress which was my moving her concern. Finally got her to eat 2wks ago (after 2 months and she is only a summer '21 and had been eating 2x weekly from the breeder). So she just got comfortable and now we’ve moved her again. She did eat for us again though so that stress is relieved
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I wouldn’t expect it to be resource guarding, they are kept in the same conditions and offered food the same time (in their individual space, we don’t try and keep them together) both of them were terrible eaters before we moved them into a smaller space.
Please do not rip the space in this photo, there was many months of being sick with stress trying to get these two to eat in nice big enclosures, they refused for months and only started to eat once put in a divided bin.
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Probably laying there because the larger snake presents a more thermally efficient ‘substrate’ to lay on than the coco does.
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She had to lift a heavy, secured divider to go under (and one of them times she went through the divider under water) to get there. They are not kept together and are not supposed to have access to eachother.
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Your observations match my many experiments now totaling two years and >300 social connections. They fit my expectations completely, and I’ve seen the same with my dividers in every case where the snakes are small enough to squeeze under. Not that I use dividers anymore.
I’m going to keep passionately defending this point, as I now have enough experiments to very confidently quantify risk to a high degree of accuracy as negligible. My only caveats would be don’t pair adult males (male babies/clutchmates also seem perfectly fine), or animals that are clearly trying to maintain separation (I find this behavior often happens with failed mating pairings).
This is choice.
The conventional wisdom is dead wrong.
We have an obligation to the behavioral health of these animals to stop spreading it.
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This can’t be true since the snake is cold blooded. An extra layer of meat only absorbs thermal transfer from the heat tape - it will always be at least slightly colder than the warmest parts of the substrate below.
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