5 Things About Ball Pythons

5 Things About Ball Pythons

Behaviour/Temperament

Ball pythons are the most popular pet python, often docile with humans and rarely biting. They're called ball pythons since when frightened, threatened, or stressed - they can coil up into a defensive ball - protecting the head in the centre. It can also function as camouflage with a black and brown (melanistic) colouration.

They are generally quite reserved and cautious - though they have the potential to bite; it's typically substituted with their 'defence strategy'. Regardless, bites are superficial, and they have no method of venom delivery because they lack fangs.

Ball pythons are 'constrictor' snakes when pertaining to hunting, which encompasses the squeezing, asphyxiation and incapacitation of their prey. If a given snake is still considered a constrictor despite possessing venomous traits, it is presumably not potent enough to be lethal. Snake diameter is a huge factor relating to how high a pressure they can exude; as they are stocky/heavy-bodied, once caught, there's likely no escape for prey.

Due to their large mass, they operate as ambush predators - to not expend excess energy moving around. They strike with super quick acceleration and velocity out of their stealth spot.

Jaw and Teeth

A common myth about snakes is that they unhinge the jaw from the rest of the head; yet, it's connected by loose elastic ligaments at the front and not bone, unlike most mammals. Snakes will frequently attempt to eat what can fit - even larger prey, although they may not necessarily be capable of swallowing. It depends on mouth size, predicated on the width of the head.

The jaw adaptation is further enhanced by the 'quadrate' bone - a thin and mobile plate prevalent in most snakes. It fuses the lower jaw to the posterior skull, facilitating an incredible motion range for the jaw to open up ~150 degrees - roughly twice the head size vertically.

The jaw is actually separated into two halves, more noticeably the lower, bound together by a stretchy ligament between each side at the very front. They can nearly open their jaws 180 degrees horizontally, equivalating to up to 4x the body width. Not to mention, they can open their mouth vertically and horizontally at the same time.

To support swallowing what is feasible, snakes have 'aglyphous' teeth - all teeth that aren't considered venomous fangs - the universal type all possess. They're akin to needles - long, thin, sharp, and virtually invisible, hidden in the gums.

Most disturbingly, the teeth curl backwards to hook onto prey; furthermore, the upper jaw teeth can move independently from the lower to drag prey through the mouth (it helps they have two sets lining the upper jaw, unlike the lower's one). It's known as the 'pterygoid walk', because the head practically walks on top of the prey.

Chemical and Visual Hunting Cues

A snake's smell comes from the tongue, where its large surface area accumulates sufficient airborne odour particles, then retracts for said particles to reach the vomeronasal organ for efficient integration. The organ is a patch of sensory chemoreceptor cells eventually exposed to odours after opening the mouth.

The chemicals act as hunting cues, where the type of odour associates with the prey type (which the ball python can distinguish). Not only can they follow prey trails by scent - e.g. urine - but via visual cues too - as urine reflects ultraviolet light - that they can recognise.

Most notably however, they can see in infrared heat vision more adept than man made sensors. The pit organ is a facial structure comprised of heat-sensing pores on the upper lip containing nerve fibre bundles. These bundles are formed from pyroelectric membrane cells that encounter infrared radiation, converting heat into processable nerve impulses to generate a thermal image.

Exactly how the organ translates infrared signals into impulses is still not fully understood, only that it is seemingly heat-activated by radiation emissions. Nevertheless, perception of light wavelengths on the infrared spectrum aids their visual acuity for identification of prey/predators and objects in darkness, as ball pythons are nocturnal.

They can accurately determine these entities possibly metres away in a given direction, which even helps them locate + live near temperature sources, such as running water to cool on a hot day (as they cannot thermoregulate internally).

Climbing and Swimming?

Even though ball pythons are terrestrial, they are surprisingly good swimmers (sometimes catching fish) along with tree climbers.

To prevent sinking, they intake a lungful of air; as the lungs run almost the whole-body length in combination with air being less dense than water, they can float with positive buoyancy. It also helps that their weight is dispersed across the water's surface since they're so lanky. They swim using wavy sideways movements termed 'lateral undulations' - making 'S' shapes to propel themselves forward.

Concerning climbing, they have no limbs, claws or adhesiveness but use a 'concertina/accordion' hold and release movement. Ball pythons utilise their core muscles for force and slip prevention; moreover, the gripping of small tree bark projections using their scales and 'S' shape bends in the body. They can modify the length and orientation of the gripping region with how elongated and flexible they are

They seem to use much more force than the minimum required to support themselves, which understandably suggests measures against slipping/falling are the priority over energy conservation.

Hearing

Snakes have no visible structure for airborne sound detection, such as talking (maybe aside from extreme sounds) - lacking an outer ear, including the ear drum.

So, they've lost pressure hearing substantially, except hearing via perceived vibrations transmitted not necessarily directly to the head - but possibly conveyed throughout the whole skeleton by bone conduction alongside the lung. The lung in this case, resembles a fish swim bladder, which can function as a resonating chamber for sound reception.

They have precise sensitivity (plausibly similar to frogs), especially for low frequencies (~80-600 hertz), attributed to prey/predator detection, for instance. To exemplify, they could hear ground-borne footstep vibrations, perhaps like how we hear resonance in walls.

The vibrations get transmitted through the lower jaw, which usually touches the ground due to the quadrate bone. The vibrations then travel from the jaw to their single middle ear ossicle - the 'columella', and eventually to the inner ear and cochlea for sequential integration.

Ironically, most snakes cannot hear each other communicate because most vocalisations are over 3000 Hertz, yet their hearing range will seldom reach over 1000 hertz.