Pandora's Box
I am working on a project with my roommates snake who is a ball python named Pandora. In her cage she likes to move things around ( sometimes hurting herself) so I am working with her on a safe interior design project. I am planning on setting up a box full of soft things for her to move around in, I will choose the objects but she will hopefully arrange them. i have tried to research the "play" habits of ball pyrhons could not find anything on what snakes do for "fun". In class we did discuss how snakes have a keen sense of smell because of their lack of sight. I have thought about taking the objects and rubbing them on mammals ( perhaps my roommates) to see if that affects the way she responds to the materials.
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Comment by LisaJ (04/20/09 22:06:32):
Research the vision of ball pythons further. According to research I found they have good night vision, and during the day they see some color, ultraviolet light and they also "see" heat.
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/202/14/1931.pdf
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Comment by LisaJ (04/20/09 22:06:32):
Research the vision of ball pythons further. According to research I found they have good night vision, and during the day they see some color, ultraviolet light and they also "see" heat.
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/202/14/1931.pdf
Project Updates
05/12/09 15:54:26 - First Attempt
For Padora's interior design project I purchased some fluffy balls in different colors. The first color yellow was only touched by Susie, Pandora's owner. The second color blue was only touched by me, I have the second most contact with the animal; playing with her often and touching her in her cage. The third color pink was touched by Liz, our roommate who has had contact with Pandora but not often. Finally the last color green was only touched by Andrea; she is terrified of Pandora and has never touched her. We rubbed the fluffy colored balls all over our bodies and each placed them in a corner of the box. When I put Pandora into the box she already seemed to be in a curious mood, smelling everything right away. She first went to the yellow balls and smelled them for a while, then she checked out the pink and green balls for a moment. She kept going back to the yellow balls and moved them the most. She didnt seem at all interested in the blue balls which were mine; maybe because I had just been holding her and my smell was no longer interesting. She moved around the box for a minute or so but then she was done and kept trying to get out to explore the rest of the house. I think if I am to try this again I would put her in a larger box because she moved everything whether she wanted to our not because her body took up so much room.
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Comment by LisaJ (05/18/09 18:44:26):
Photos!
For Padora's interior design project I purchased some fluffy balls in different colors. The first color yellow was only touched by Susie, Pandora's owner. The second color blue was only touched by me, I have the second most contact with the animal; playing with her often and touching her in her cage. The third color pink was touched by Liz, our roommate who has had contact with Pandora but not often. Finally the last color green was only touched by Andrea; she is terrified of Pandora and has never touched her. We rubbed the fluffy colored balls all over our bodies and each placed them in a corner of the box. When I put Pandora into the box she already seemed to be in a curious mood, smelling everything right away. She first went to the yellow balls and smelled them for a while, then she checked out the pink and green balls for a moment. She kept going back to the yellow balls and moved them the most. She didnt seem at all interested in the blue balls which were mine; maybe because I had just been holding her and my smell was no longer interesting. She moved around the box for a minute or so but then she was done and kept trying to get out to explore the rest of the house. I think if I am to try this again I would put her in a larger box because she moved everything whether she wanted to our not because her body took up so much room.
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Comment by LisaJ (05/18/09 18:44:26):
Photos!
05/31/09 10:59:12 - Second Attempt
For my second attempt at Pandoras Box I wanted to give her a bigger space to move around in so I got a box twice the size of the first one. I used the same colored, fluffy balls that had the human scent on them but I also incorporated some other scents. The first one was from a mouse, the small pinkie mice that she normally eats. The second smell was from a black lab, I assume that she has never had any contact with dogs so I was interested in how she would react. I was going to use the scent of a king snake because apparently they eat ball python so it is supposed to be in the ball pythons instinct to stay away from the smell. I had a hard time meeting up with Forrest to get the scent and I also decided that Pandora has been a little bit stressed out lately especially because of her injuries and smelling a predator might add to her stress level. I left her in the larger box for a longer time about two minutes instead of one minute because there was more for her to explore so she wasn't as focused on getting out. I also added a few foam pieces in that didn't have any scent on them to see if she reacted differently to them than she did to the other pieces. In the end I was quite disappointed that she was curious about smelling everything but didn't seem to gravitate to one scent more than the other. She did move the pieces around quite a bit and created an interesting art piece, so although the experiment wasn't completely successful I think the artistic collaboration was
[Write Comment]
For my second attempt at Pandoras Box I wanted to give her a bigger space to move around in so I got a box twice the size of the first one. I used the same colored, fluffy balls that had the human scent on them but I also incorporated some other scents. The first one was from a mouse, the small pinkie mice that she normally eats. The second smell was from a black lab, I assume that she has never had any contact with dogs so I was interested in how she would react. I was going to use the scent of a king snake because apparently they eat ball python so it is supposed to be in the ball pythons instinct to stay away from the smell. I had a hard time meeting up with Forrest to get the scent and I also decided that Pandora has been a little bit stressed out lately especially because of her injuries and smelling a predator might add to her stress level. I left her in the larger box for a longer time about two minutes instead of one minute because there was more for her to explore so she wasn't as focused on getting out. I also added a few foam pieces in that didn't have any scent on them to see if she reacted differently to them than she did to the other pieces. In the end I was quite disappointed that she was curious about smelling everything but didn't seem to gravitate to one scent more than the other. She did move the pieces around quite a bit and created an interesting art piece, so although the experiment wasn't completely successful I think the artistic collaboration was
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