[HN Gopher] The Surprising Social Lives of Pythons
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       The Surprising Social Lives of Pythons
        
       Author : Thevet
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2024-11-14 17:07 UTC (8 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | owlninja wrote:
       | Free link:
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/science/ball-pythons-soci...
        
       | Night_Thastus wrote:
       | This was shared on some online reptile communities, and a lot of
       | people there take issue with it. The ball pythons were cramped
       | together in a tiny enclosure with no enrichment, red light that
       | bothers them, no cover or clutter, nothing to climb, no way to
       | burrow, etc.
       | 
       | Not exactly a test of whether they are 'social' and frankly it's
       | cruel. Those animals are in so much stress that no data gathered
       | is useful.
       | 
       | Now, if you made a giant vivarium with plenty of space for each,
       | things to climb, substrate to burrow in, etc, would they still
       | choose to congregate? That would be a more interesting
       | experiment. But unfortunately, the answer would most likely be
       | 'no'.
       | 
       | There definitely are some social snakes out there. Garter snakes,
       | for example, are very well known to form colonies and do much
       | better together than alone.
       | 
       | But 'forcing' this conclusion for other species by putting snakes
       | in this situation is awful.
        
         | sonofhans wrote:
         | Thank you for a good reply. I saw a photo and thought the same
         | thing. I've had snakes a lot of my life, and they certainly
         | aren't emotionally deep or socially engaging, but they are
         | absolutely happier in a nice place to live. Balling up like
         | those pythons looks like a stress response to me.
        
         | Terr_ wrote:
         | Reminds me of how the since-retracted "Alpha wolf"
         | categorizations were really describing the stress-formed
         | equivalent of a gang in prison, rather than normal
         | socialization in the wild.
         | 
         | Alas, it lives on through pop-culture misunderstandings.
        
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