Ball Python (Python regius)
(Source: fuckyeahballpythons)
Showing posts tagged ball python
Vibrating Skulls Help Snakes Hear
by Sarah C.P. Williams
When a rattlesnake shakes its tail, does it hear the rattling? Scientists have long struggled to understand how snakes, which lack external ears, sense sounds. Now, a new study shows that sound waves cause vibrations in a snake’s skull that are then “heard” by the inner ear.
“There’s been this enduring myth that snakes are deaf,” says neurobiologist Bruce Young of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who was not involved in the new research. “Behavioral studies have suggested that snakes can in fact hear, and now this work has gone one step further and explained how.”
In humans, sound waves traveling through the air hit the eardrum, causing the movement of tiny bones and vibrations of tiny hair cells in the inner ear. These vibrations are then translated into nerve impulses that travel to the brain. Snakes have fully formed inner ear structures but no eardrum. Instead, their inner ear is connected directly to their jawbone, which rests on the ground as they slither. Previous studies have shown that vibrations traveling through the ground—such as the footsteps of predators or prey—cause vibrations in a snake’s jawbone, relaying a signal to the brain via that inner ear…
(read more: Science NOW) (image: Christian Christiensen)
crotalinae: Ball Python with a bad attitude
Although this is not my snake… this is the attitude two of my rescued ball pythons had today.
Except they shot out of their cages like two and a half foot rocket powered jack-in-the-boxes with big giant attitudes, had no interest in mice, lots of interest in trying to chew on me and no desire to return their front pointy half to their cage without the aid of a snake hook.
Of course the demon snake (as they called it) was the only sweetheart snake who just took his mouse all polite like.
reptilesandexotics: Asystole color phase of the Ball Python (Python regius).
(>0__0)> ——-*** QUE LINDO!!!
reptilesandexotics: Magpie phase Ball Python (Python regius)
Albino Animals: Ball Python
(via: Live Science) (photo: Amwu | Dreamstime)
A Ball Python (Python regius) with two heads is displayed in Villingen-Schwenningen, southern Germany. The animal is a year old and is about 20 inches long. (photo: Patrick Seeger)
(via: MSNBC Animal Tracks)
Leucistic and gold phase Ball Pythons (Python regius)
* Leucism is a state of being without any skin pigmentation. It’s different from albinism, because it is not just a reduction of melanin. Also, notice the darkly colored eyes. Amongst albinos the eyes are usually pink.
