Wild ball pythons are often found in trees. Something like 70% of males’ diets are avian (mostly nesting birds) during certain times of the year. Females I believe are more 50-50. They use burrows as well. They are generalists that will utilize whatever is available, but definitely aren’t strictly terrestrial snakes and definitely access tree tops to bask.
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Did you happen to watch Dav Kaufman’s recent documentary on ball pythons? Maybe he went during a period when ball pythons avoid going into the trees but from what I recall he didn’t find a single one there and I think he got mixed information from natives regarding whether they ever see them in trees.
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Yes, I did, Kaufman didn’t work with any scientists and in fact, there is a channel : Reptiles and Research that just uploaded an actual scientist’s film from the mid-90’s that has more accurate information. They DO use burrows at certain times of the day and certain times of the year, but are not exclusively terrestrial by any means. Kaufman’s film was okay but disregarded years of research by scientists. One of the reasons we know they are frequently in trees is the scientific study examining the stomach contents of wild snakes, something like 70% of males’ contained the remains of avian prey. They do frequently hang out in burrows during the day, but they also frequently climb trees. Also, in Kaufman’s film locals DID say, they were always in the trees during the rainy season. LOL Keep in mind, no one is going out looking for ball pythons in the middle of the night, when they might be out hunting, instead it’s mid-day when they are hiding underground. Also, keep in mind, they are generalists, so if Kaufman was out looking in farmland without a lot of tall trees, they make use of what is around them. Ball pythons are distributed over a large region in Africa and adapt to their environments, it’s one of the reasons they are so hardy and able to withstand so much neglect in captivity. Think about how you sleep 8 hours in a bed, now think about if someone was doing research on humans but only observed humans when we were asleep in our beds and so concluded this is how we always exist? I’m a night owl, one of the reasons I like nocturnal snakes and they are up all night with me, exploring and climbing. So you can’t really judge them based on what they are doing during the day, since it’s when they are generally sleeping. Also, every single one of my ball pythons bask, they generally do cryptic basking during the day and will sometimes come out “evening” right before the lights go off to bask fully.
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These are behaviours of individual animals and not necessarily indicative of the behaviours of all animals carrying these traits. It is dangerous to make “scientific” assumptions based on limited data
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All BluELs have red pupils. It is just reflection off the tapetum lucidum, the same process that gives you eyeshine in cats. The altered pigmentation of the eye exacerbates the already present effect (I have numerous other morph combos that exhibit it as well)
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This is not entirely correct. The paper that people love to rest this statement on had a lot of problems to it that are largely overlooked, starting with the fact that they completely ignore the biophysiology of these animals and moving on to that they were only looking for balls in trees in a forested habitat and ignored the behaviours of all other balls in all their other habitats…
Will balls climb occasionally? Sure. But using that single, very narrowly-defined, paper to claim that ball pythons are semi-arboreal is a total farce
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I would agree regarding the study. I’ve heard of this study mentioned in a multitude of places over the years, and it’s always a very controversial topic. I’ve heard many bad things that seem to discredit a lot of it.
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Take it for what it is but I’ve experimented with a large number of ball pythons and climbing pretty extensively in my outdoor snake area. I keep between 80-150 ball pythons depending on how many babies are on hand and I have employees who help with this during the warm months. I started doing this is 2019.
Most babies will climb to some degree, some juveniles will continue to climb and certain small bodied adults. I’ve never had a reproductive female climb onto branches or limbs. I feed all of ball pythons for a lean body composition, so none of the animals used are overweight.
One thing I’ve noticed is they seem to be very conscious of arial predation, and will generally keep branches or the shade of the larger tree at least, between themselves and the open sky. I doubt they’ll be found in the upper canopy at all, assuming the foliage there would support their weight.
I’m not sure if anyone here does, but a lot of the keepers I see that think of BPs as comfortable climbers, don’t keep any arboreal species. When you spend time observing the mechanics of Arboreal species like Amazon or Emerald Tree Boas, Morelia, etc. you can clearly see the limitations that a stubby little python faces trying to do the same thing.
You can take a look at area I used here. There is an easy way for them climb up the opposite side of that large tree, but they rarely attempt to climb higher 2-3’ at any part of the circle. The only one to ever climb to the first branches (5.5’) was a 3-4 month old snake.
https://community.morphmarket.com/t/the-snake-circle-enrichment/20491
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^^^
Thank you Don, a much more detailed way of conveying what I was trying for with my more rushed comment:
It has always frustrated me that people chose to define “semi-arboreal” as meaning “can occasionally be found in trees”. Using that same loose way of defining things means we can call sloths “semi-aquatic” because they are occasionally found swimming, or bats “semi-terrestrial” because sometimes they are found on the ground.
There is a very large difference between what are observed, opportunistic or coincidental behaviours and what is an actual evolution-derived lifestyle
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When I was referring to my butter corn snake or leucistic snake, I was only providing anecdotal information, no where did I state my own observation as scientific fact. The reason I explained leucistic eyes was for anyone wondering why I’d even bring them up on a post about albinos and light sensitivity. As far as the study you are discrediting, I would ask you to provide studies that back up your claims that the original study is flawed? You are overlooking the fact that much misinformation about ball pythons only existing in burrows comes from where they are collected. If people collecting them are going mostly into farmland that has been largely deforested, they won’t find them in trees that don’t exist. Most folks doing the collecting of wild studies, nor studies have not ventured deep into the forest during the night to either collect ball pythons, nor study them, so to discount the fact that a generalist species might be semi-aboreal is incorrect. If you ask people if rat snakes are arboreal or semi-aboreal generalists most, if not all folks can attest they are found in trees, yet I doubt anyone is climbing 30 feet up to gather them, same with ball pythons.
There were a pair of ball pythons at a Zoo in London? I believe? That had a huge enclosure and there is anecdotal evidence that the animals constantly climbed and rarely used any of the hides available on the floor. I myself have a large female ball python that is allowed to climb and wander around outside during the summer and I have an issue with her trying to scale the wall from my rooftop deck, to the higher rooftop. She climbs like a rat snake. She has to anchor herself more being bulkier, but she’s definitely able to climb.
How much is climbing to hang out in a branch as opposed to climbing to look for an escape?
I noticed that with my Rosy OC they aren’t arboreal but she climbs the branches and wall but i suspect its her trying to look for escape attempt #3 rather than climbing because she enjoys hanging out on a branch. I took a few pictures of her on a branch which was cute but i doubt ill see her on the branches unless she forgot that she already looked for an opening in the lid, which there is not, her new home has secure lid and locking front glass.
I built her this but i doubt she will use it except to use it in a failed escape attempt.
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I will preface this by noting that if your post is hidden by a CS team member (not myself, for the record), that reposting it pretty much word for word shows a bit of a cavalier attitude toward the rules… I mention this not as a personal threat (as I said, I was not involved in the initial edit and nothing about it struck me as particularly egregious) but more as observation that bahaviours that indicate a willingness to violate the rules can potentially have negative consequences
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With that said…
And my point was to inform the community as a whole that the observation you were making is actually an inherent condition of all ball python eyes and so would not contribute to any perceived light sensitivity by your specific animal or leucistics in general
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Why, exactly, is it my job to lead the horse to water?
I pointed out important factors that specific paper lacked and you are just as capable as I (or anyone else here) of researching those topics. Which was the main point I was making: that simply taking a single point of evidence and conflating it to absolute fact is a flawed way to draw conclusions
I recognized that there was likely more to the greater whole than what was presented by that one single paper. I took the time to hunt down more papers. I took the time to do the extra research. I did that so that I could be a more informed keeper.
I did not demand someone else do the work for me and I will not cater to someone that demands that I do their work for them
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You use a terminal logic flaw here. I did not “overlook” anything. I never once said the other papers were right and the paper you are talking about is wrong. I did not even imply that. In point of fact, I never even mentioned other papers, you drew that, incorrect, conclusion all by yourself
Now, I can and will fully acknowledge that the studies of ball pythons that are only performed in farmland and savanna habitats are just as narrowly limited in their conclusions. Which is why I can make the decision to become an informed keeper and do more research and apply what I learn from all the sources into a more holistic conclusion. Something that people using that one paper to absolutely define ball pythons as “semi-arboreal” are not doing
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Hi, so my post WAS hidden because SOMEONE complained and then they vetted it and unhid it. LOL. Anyway…
I’m not sure about your point to “inform the community as a whole that the observation” I “was making is actually an inherent condition of all ball python eyes and so would not contribute to any perceived light sensitivity by your specific animal or leucistics in general?” That is simply not true. Albinos lack melanin, leucism as well causes many ball python irises to be red, thereby making them more sensitive to light. They are not the same as ball pythons with darker colored eyes. Their eyesight is impaired and they are more prone to damage from UV light. Leucism in general does not only affect the eyes but if you read up on leucistic animals, their actual scales (or feathers, etc) are structurally weaker, something I discovered upon putting my leucistic snake in a bioactive, enriching enclosure. It would be a great thing to tell people buying them as pets so they can just keep an extra eye on their beloved animal as they are more prone to scale damage.
I understand you do not have any scientific research to back your claims, which is fair, there aren’t a lot of scientists studying ball pythons and not a ton of papers out there. I would just like to point out, a lack of research is not an opportunity to just fill in information with views that support your desires. Hopefully, with such a world wide adoration of ball pythons, that will change and we will see more scientific studies being done on their natural behaviors.
For your last point, I will just say again, ball pythons have an extensive range with varied habitats, which points to them being a generalist species. By definition a generalist CAN be semi-aboreal. Anecdotal evidence is full of examples of wild ball pythons climbing trees, I find it hard to believe a scientific study (where they too, were not collecting the ball pythons in trees, they were collecting them on the ground, but examining stomach contents-which reflected their diet of 70% nesting birds) was a one off.
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That’s s nifty climbing tree. It’s got a nice area to hang out, too, for any creature who’d want to make use of it.
Lol I’m sure she’ll look again, again, again, again. And again. After all, one never knows when a new point of egress might magically appear. Gotta keep checking. And why not? It’s not like they’re gonna say,"Hey, it’s a great afternoon to work on some poetry. " 
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her thoughts be like must be super sneky can’t be SEEEEN MUST HIDEEEEEE
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if we were mice she would definitely be brain and me pinky
She seriously makes me laugh.
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Lol I LOVE “Pinky and the Brain!” And yeah, OC is all, “I’m sooo sneeeeeeky. She can’t sssee meeee!”
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Within this statement you chose to ignore all of my experience with these animals in this setting, and instead rebutted with examples of 3 specific ball pythons. I’ve spent a several hundred hours with a couple hundred ball pythons total over the years, seeing in real time, how climbing is limited to specific animals and scenarios. I’m not aware of anyone else who’s done something similar, and it definitely hasn’t been done at the scale I do it at.
One factor that will drive them to climb, that I haven’t seen you address, is stress. How can you be so certain that the animals you mentioned aren’t constantly climbing in an attempt to escape stress?
You’ve called out others for not providing scientific papers for their statements, please share with us the science that supports this one.
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I don’t know about balls only my limited knowledge of my rosys and even though she has climbed on stuff im pretty sure its because she was trying to escape rather than out of fun of climbing, my other 2 rosys dont climb at all. They might climb over a low branch but they really dont climb.
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Your first post (4Oct) was hidden because someone complained and a staff member agreed with the complaint. You then posted basically the same thing again on 8Oct that was also hidden because of a complaint. The second post was vetted and unhidden. Your first post, however, still remains hidden
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What I said was absolutely correct. Albinos lack melanin, and that does indeed lead to photosensitivity. Leucistic animals do NOT lack melanin. The nature of the mutations results in improper distribution of melanin throughout the body, however, they produce it just fine which is why their irises are still pigmented. Further, it is their pupils that appear red, not their irises and the reason for that, as I noted above, is because the altered pigmentation of the iris enhances the always present eyeshine effect from the tapetum lucidum. The nature of the morph has nothing to do with it
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I have a Freeway Enchi Pastel Pin with green irises and “red pupils”. I have a Butter Enchi OD Pastel YB with amber irises and “red pupils”. I have a GStripe Acid Pastel with gold irises and “red pupils”. I have a BlkPastel Enchi Butter OD with amber irises and “red pupils”. I have an Acid Blackhead BlkPastel with onyx irises and “red pupils”. I had an Ivory with cobalt irises and “red pupils”. I had a SuperFire with indigo irises and “red pupils”
Every single one of these morph combos has darker irises (because all of them still produce melanin) and yet all of them have "red pupils” because it is not that the pupil is actually red, it is just the eyeshine effect
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Excuse me??? I would like you to directly point to where I say I “do not have any scientific research to back my claim”.
You cannot do that because what I said was - why is it my job to spoon-feed the readily available research to people that are too lazy to look for it themselves?
I have read numerous papers on the natural ecology and habitats of ball pythons across their range. I have read studies on their diets. I have read research on the bio-locomotion and structural physiology of terrestrial, semi-arboreal, and arboreal snakes.
I have taken all of what I have read into account when I say that the single paper discussing ball pythons in trees is being vastly overplayed as a justification for calling ball pythons “semi-arboreal”
Just because you have not bothered to find, read, or understand that research does not mean that it does not exist or that I do not have it
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And yet not only are you doing this exact thing, you are also blatantly ignoring the actual research that contradicts your desires…
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While a generalist can be semi-arboreal that does not mean that a generalist that is on occasion found in trees automatically becomes semi-arboreal. Obsessively focusing on a single behaviour on a limited scale to the exclusion of all other behaviours across a broad range and the actual anatomy and physiology of an organism is not how to make an informed decision. Again, I point to the ridiculous concept of claiming that sloths are semi-aquatic simply by want of focusing on the times they have been found to swim.
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