snakes are smart
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 6:51AM The first time I held a giant python was in John Aspinal’s zoo a day after the under keeper had been eaten by a Bengal tiger. The reptile keeper told me, “He got cocky. You can’t do that with wild animals because they’re…not stupid.”
I held the giant Burmese with renewed respect but when I tried to get it back into its compound it wouldn’t go- however I tried to hoodwink it. They may look like big worms but they’re as intelligent as dogs. Because they are solitary and limbless we think they are thick, but snakes will find the one opening in a mile long wire fence or wait weeks in advance in exactly the right place to snatch a wild boar. I had further experiences of this when I went in search of the world’s longest snake (for which the Roosevelt prize is offered- $50,000 for a snake over 30 feet long)- I didn’t win it- though we did get one 27 feet long in the Spice islands of Indonesia. These super long snakes are all reticulated pythons, very common as they feed on oil palm rats, and much longer than anacondas that are fat and heavy rather than long. We probably didn’t win the prize because the longer and older a snake gets the cleverer it is at avoiding blundering fools intent on capturing it.
Big Snake by Robert Twigger is published by Orion £6.99