Well, Reaper isn’t! Healthy snakes “yawn” for very different reasons than humans. They could be readjusting their jaws before or after a meal, or in the case of Reaper here, gathering lots of scent particles from the air to better analyze what’s going on around them. How neat!
Bonus points for those who can share their snake “yawns”!
I believe snake yawns are much more common and predictable than gecko yawns. My geckos have yawned a couple times that I noticed but it’s only for a short time. Snakes that are resetting the jaw will do it after most meals and will do it for a while. Snakes that are taking in scent particles will do it in a new scenario (for example outside) since it brings in more scent particles than the tongue and that’s also longer lasting.
We often do classes with our snakes with kids. Get about 30 sweaty kids into a classroom and our kingsnake will occasionally yawn like that. Sometimes freaks the kids out a little.