Do Snakes Talk?

 

When you think about it, a snake is really just a bendy straw, which hisses on occasion. I mean, they're so basic and primitive, they just decided that there's no need to evolve past being a head and a spine. This isn't entirely fair, as, upon closer inspection, they're actually pretty sophisticated in their set-up. For instance, the tails on our three snakes serve as a hand of sorts. They hold on to things with it, secure themselves, stay 'grounded' in a way. Each one of our snakes feels a lot more calm and relaxed if you let them hold on to you with their tail when you pick them up. There's also a lot going on with their scales, depending on whether a snake is designed to hang around in trees or spend most of its life down on the ground. Our Burmese python is downright fluffy, which isn't a term I ever thought I'd use when describing a reptile.

What I find even more interesting are the signs of apparent intelligence I get to catch as I interact with them on a daily basis. Reptiles are smarter than most give them credit for - something I experienced first-hand with our pet monitor lizard, who would play with his own collection of toys, climb up on the sofa for social interaction and carefully take food straight from our hands, always avoiding to bite the hand that feeds him. He was housebroken and roamed around the house just like any cat or dog would. We could walk him outside and he'd know the way back to our house or the way back inside the pet shop, when Claire took him to work. For all intents and purposes, having a tame monitor lizard really isn't that different to owning a pet cat or dog, apart from certain reptile-specific care requirements. 

He'll chill with you on the sofa like any other pet.

I'm fully convinced that he was capable of dreaming. Just like a dog would occasionally 'run' in its sleep, our lizard would often twitch, make noise and hiss to himself while he was sleeping. So while I wouldn't necessarily ask him for help with a tax return (they can count to about six), I'd certainly put him one one cognitive level with our more regular, furred, four-legged companions. 

And it's starting to look like snakes might be a lot more intelligent than you'd expect your average toothy fleshlight to be. Did you know that certain snakes can tell each other apart, make friends and clearly prefer hanging out with some snakes more than others? Because the garter snake absolutely does all that.

When it comes to our own pet snakes, we have started to spot certain interesting behaviours, which could be interpreted as a means of telling us about their needs and wants. Or it could mean absolutely nothing. When a cat jumps on top of you in the middle of the night, bats at your face and meows at you with awful animal breath that reeks of fish and death, it's fairly obvious the furry fucker wants to be fed. I had one cat in particular, who, after having her bedroom privileges revoked, would walk all over the telephone or the tv's remote control, trying to get them to make noise in order to force me out of bed to turn them off. And, since I was already up, I may as well feed the damn cat. Snakes have to be a bit more subtle than that for obvious reasons.

Cats hate you.

Our carpet python has picked up this weird habit, where she'd sit in front of her water bowl and stare at me whenever the bowl is empty or there's a bunch of straw in it and it got all messy and stale. She'll sit at the edge of the bowl and just stare. Snake scorn. So I open her tank, clean the bowl when necessary, get a pitcher of water and she'll sit and watch me give her a refill. Then she'll immediately start to drink. This has turned into a ritual, which we repeat on a regular basis. Snake sits there and makes me aware of the water situation, demands service, has a drink. 

Then again, isn't it just as likely the snake checks out her bowl for a drink, finds nothing in there and just stays there because she has nowhere else to go? How much of her behaviour is communication, signaling that she wants something? How much of this means the snake is saying, 'hey, gimme a refill' and how much of it is really just 'snake wants a drink, bowl is empty, so snake hangs around, not sure what else to do'?

Some snakes prefer tea.

There's our Burmese python, who is a lot more social and spends more time outside of his vivarium than our other snakes. He'll come to the front of the tank, you can let him out (after making absolutely sure there are no cats in the room), he'll have a look around and even go to sleep in your lap. And he'll go right back inside his vivarium when he's had enough. Of course there isn't always the time to banish the cat, close the doors and let the snake out. So he'll get a little impatient, he might give you the death stare for a while, and if all else fails, he'll tear down his light.

He has a little LED light strip in his tank, which is attached by magnets. That way you can easily remove it in case you want to clean or replace it. Of course this also means that our snake can remove it without too much effort, meaning one of us will have to get in there, sort it out and interact with him. 
What do you think? Is that him just wanting attention, knowing he'll get it when he dicks around with his lights? It's a fairly easy connection to make, right? Light comes down, human comes in to fix it, pays attention to snake. Or is it a mix of coincidence and wishful thinking? Snake gets bored, derps all over the place, unintentionally knocks down his light and is happy to see someone checking on him to fix it, without understanding that one event lead to the other? It's difficult to tell with these guys.

They're too damn busy surfing the web all day.

Our Burmese python is also the most likely to sit still and put up with your shit when you're trying to help him. For instance, he's incredibly messy when he sheds his skin. Our other snakes just slide off the old skin like a condom. But our big guy explodes into huge chunks of skin, some of which just stick to his body and remain there until you peel him like the world's longest potato. On another occasion, Claire had to open his mouth and remove a piece of bark, which had got stuck in there. 

Have you ever tried opening your cat's mouth to shove a pill in there? I'm not saying there aren't any cats out there who would actually let you do it, but in most cases, the experience isn't going to be pleasant or peaceful. Now try forcing open the mouth of an animal, which is large enough to eat a whole pig and strong enough to kill you entirely by accident. And yes, he did try to wiggle out of it, tried to get away, he huffed and puffed a lot, but in the end, he gave in. Most importantly, though, he didn't bite.

Claire says he ultimately put up with it, because he knew she was helping him. Can that really be true? If nothing else, is he intelligent enough to make the conscious decision not to attack? Or is there no intelligence at play and it's just his fight or flight instinct choosing the latter? 

He's got plenty of space for brain matter up there.

I'm fascinated by this. He's big and strong enough to seriously hurt you. He could do so to immediately get you to stop whatever it is you're doing to him. But he doesn't. Why? The damn cat won't hesitate a tenth of a second before fucking me up if I dare touch her belly one too many times. Snake just moves out of the way, doesn't have time for my shit. He reminds me a lot of our old family dog in that way. Kids, little cousins, all sorts of brats climbing all over the poor thing, poking and prodding it and the dog, while clearly not enjoying it, would peacefully sit it out and hope for it all to be over, soon. 

You'd say it's a good, friendly, patient dog, who is smart enough to understand a small kid means it no harm. There was our giant monitor lizard, who would gently pick up tiny prawns you held out in front of his face, because he was smart enough to understand you're being nice to him - and you'll be more likely to continue feeding him if he doesn't hurt you. Is it possible a snake can be smart enough to consciously decide against biting you, knowing it'll benefit from it in the long run? Understanding that it pays off to be on good terms with the human that feeds you?

It would certainly explain how this feral snake clearly recognizes a guy, who hand-feeds it some fish, which the snake takes quite carefully and gently before disappearing again. Doesn't look like something a stupid, primitive animal would do.