Breeding Ball Pythons; Sexual Dimorphism and Arboreality in Ball Pythons.

[@kpexoticpets3749]

Bravo for this video. Great job at picking it apart. Attributing traits to an entire species based on the adaptive behaviors of a localized population from one single study/paper is, well, not smart and not how science really works. Adaptive behaviors don't negate the importance of physiology and gravity, lol. BPs are not built to be truly semi-arboreal. They have short, stubby tails that can't grip anything. They have to use their whole body to really climb, even as youngsters. That means climbing takes a lot more effort and energy than it would for a species more suited to climbing such as a Boa (BI & BCC) or reticulated python. To warrant expending that amount of energy, there would need to be unavoidable circumstances, ie. being chased by a predator or too many predators at ground level, lack of food at ground level, flooding, etc. Give your snake a stick and a hammock to "climb" on, and give him chicks to eat, none of that will hurt your snake and a varied diet is a good idea. Just know that unless your snake is not eating and behaving poorly, all of that "enrichment" is for you to look at and feel good about yourself as a keeper. Your snake is only concerned with a sense of security, proper temps/humidity, and a regular source of food & water.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

I'm going to pin this comment at the top of the comments section. I could not have hoped for a better summary. If you have not seen any of my terrarium experiment videos, in summary, the terrarium snakes find a safe secure spot and as long as food is brought to them on a regular basis, they have shown little inclination to do anything other than wait for the next meal. They don't climb, they don't explore, they don't even move a great deal. They shed and pee inside their hiding place and will even poo in there. They give me the impression that as long as they are safe, secure and food keeps coming, they'll stay in that one spot forever. The terrarium and all its "enrichment" opportunities is totally wasted on them. They simply don't care. They do however exhibit very strong food oriented behavior within the confines of their enclosures, always facing the direction food comes from. In terms of the paper, I think with a little bit of supplemental research and some educated speculation, there is actually a great deal of information we can glean from such a paper. Data sets like these, limited though they are, are not generally readily available. I found myself wanting the full data table with each individual snake, sex and length documented and the table of stomach contents for individual snakes to answer some of the questions I inevitably had about this study. You can only stretch data so far, even with educated guesswork, but I did speculate that with such a clear size breakpoint in dietary variation and snakes above 70cm showing an almost exclusive bias towards rodents, even in an environment with other feeding opportunities, are these larger snakes occupying and outcompeting smaller snakes for the best spots for ambushing rodents, thus forcing the smaller ones to look elsewhere? We know that snakes do not tolerate each others presence, nor do they tolerate competition for food. Given that Ball Pythons are relatively abundant in the study location, I suspect that there is an element of competition for available resources, or at least the best locations for security and food availability, at play here as well. Drop down the comments below because there's a question about feeding birds to our Ball Pythons and I'm going to answer that question lower down. Thanks for taking the time to both watch the video and to comment on it. A lot of time went into it but I loved doing it.

[@rikersreptiles]

Well stated and they get all the requirements plus a little extra and thrive. My average hatching is 70g and 7 egg clutches and the difficult eater obviously aren't getting handled as much. The study did show once the snakes got over a size it was probably harder to climb. Due to their larger bodies.

[@kpexoticpets3749]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Very good point about food competition among themselves. That hadn't crossed my thought process. I was thinking more about competition from other predators. And thank you for pinning my comment! I have watched your other videos and very much enjoyed the enclosure experiments. I have recommended them to others in discussions on Facebook.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

I am grateful for a large number of subscribers who contribute a lot to this channel through the comments section. Their experiences and willingness to share adds real value to my content. I hope this continues.

[@MPRbyHamlin]

I've finally managed to watch this in full. This video should be a documentary series on netflix. The paper gives me some theories that I can associate with other species primarily the fact that the smaller snakes are the main opportunist feeders, they are obviously wanting to grow as big as they can and as quick as they can. If I put the biscuit tin out of reach from my 5 year old, he will pull up the chair to stand on to reach it 🤣 no fear of exposure or fear of fall risk.. just pure one track mind. The temperatures... my artificial hotspot does not change year round, yes the ambient temperature does but in general I have a gradient of 31deg hot side and 22 cool side. Fantastic video Rob and I hope this gets the views and likes it deserves.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Glad you could watch it all Mate. In this case I think the opportunity to rob nests only exists for the smaller Ball Pythons because the bigger ones simply can't climb that well. And yes, their priority is to get big before something else eats them. Baby birds must offer an unlimited supply of food because a Ball Python is very exposed and vulnerable up a tree. Even the small ones are not great climbers. I know controlling ambient temperature in our snake rooms as a primary climate control is not viable for most people and heat mats are a suitable alternative. As well as a simple set-up, my message is also keep your method simple as well. In your case, keep the heat mat at a constant temperature and let the ambient do it's thing. As long as your snakes have the hot spot, they will sort the details out for themselves. So yours is perfect. Simple. Effective. Successful.

[@tullysoutregiusroyals]

Hi rob, sorry I’m late to this one but i wanted to study this and give it the time this video deserves. I had a lot to learn and digest here, and i have to say This is quite possible the most valuable video i have ever seen with regards to BP keeping. Seldom do you see or hear real evidence presented in this way. We tend to only hear “this works for me” but as we have discovered in this video “this works for me” is a testament to these animals and not the knowledge of the breeder. BP are so forgiving and will probably breed regardless of the mistakes the breeders make. These historic temperature misunderstandings get passed from generation to generation and i hope this video helps set the story strait and I am willing to join you in the fight. I realised that over the seasons i have tweaked my temps dictated by the animals requirements, and i have achieved a happy medium between pure ambient, and the more traditional methods. My hot spots are cooler but my ambient is higher with about 2-3 degrees Celsius gradient in my tubs. The ambient drop my room sees occurs naturally without me having to change anything. I have toyed with the idea of going to pure ambient but i worry my room temps will drop to drastically in the winter months. Its a small room so every time i open the door it will drop a degree or two. Pulse for the comfort of myself while working in there not being acclimatised to a tropical climate had to come into question. The paper you have referenced in this video i don’t actually like however i am grateful the study exists, as it is open to a great deal of ambiguity. Is this common with these types of papers? . So yes it had been miss referenced in the past but i can see why. Not everyone is as scientifically literate as yourself if you don’t mind me saying, so its a good job we have prof balls to lay it all out for us in a language we understand. There is such a huge amount of misinformation out there and i will for one be pointing a lot of people in the direction of this video. Fantastic Rob. Superb

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks Joe. That's a glowing reference. No, scientific papers are not written to confuse or be ambiguous, but neither are they ever black and white or written in everyday language, which is a shame because many of the concepts are actually fairly simple and logical. Try a legal document for comparison. Science is child's play! The authors themselves go to great pains to explain the limitations of the study but inevitably they have an aim in mind and consequently a possible bias. This is accepted and picked apart by other scientists (a skill in itself), but often a cursory glance will simply reinforce what you want to see, rather than what is actually there. It's normal to see too much in the data or to miss things which are there but just need restructuring to see. This is why scientific papers are almost always peer reviewed before publishing. Someone might see something glaringly obvious, missed by the vested interests and emotional involvement of the original authors. Also try not to like or dislike a scientific paper. Science just is. No like or dislike about it. There is nothing to hate in the paper itself. Much to be frustrated about by the various interpretations and "conclusions" of others who have looked at it, often with their own specific biases very much in the foreground. I have my own. We all do. Each new data set that becomes available, however limited, is of value provided it is reviewed in the correct context. Any study is only as good as the data collected and unfortunately for us, the full data set isn't presented here and probably would not be of much use unless we ourselves have a specific objective or testable theory in mind when we look at it. So we start with when and how the study was conducted, how and when the data was collected, so we can understand if it has limits, biases or if it's reasonably representative and a large enough sample size to average out local influences. Data is often collected with a specific aim in mind, but its only afterwards that we realize the data has other hidden answers within it. We can test various hypotheses or ideas by looking at the data from different angles. Some ideas will be immediately discarded. Not supported by the data. But usually a variety of alternate interpretations are still consistent with the data. Often we end up with more questions than answers, but with supplemental research we can have some educated guesses or start to fill in the blanks. The best part of science is it makes you think! It's also very common to pick up nuances in the data after the second or third read of it. I think if you think about it and formulate some of your own ideas, then re-watch the video, some of the answers to questions you now have are already there.

[@tullysoutregiusroyals]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls to clarify, when i said i dislike the paper. I only meant on how it was worded not the actual science. It is a very good study and I’m pleased someone bothered there areses to gather the data. Bias or not, data is data. You know that this paper has been referenced to support arboreal behaviour in BPs but in-fact what it states is the opposite to what it is interpreted as. Whats true in nature will still be true in nature weather we agree or not. What i don’t like is how the some readers interpret it, but its difficult to combat that when words are so easily twisted.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

This will always be the case. That's why its so important to have guys like you doing KZbin! And to text me a lot and ask difficult questions! Balance the equation. Misquoting science is always the best way to spread misinformation. It sounds so legitimate!

[@laurablockley1269]

Thought I commented on this but was just checking your temp data again and realised I hadn’t. Anyway thank you so much for doing this and breaking everything down for us. I hope lots of people watch this video and take note of it 😊💜

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks Laura. It was quite a popular video, but I'm still waiting for that one viral video that hits the big time.

[@laurablockley1269]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls I’m glad it was popular and worth all the time you put into it :)

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

A labour of love! I have been meaning to tackle this one since it first came out. I hope I did justice to the science.

[@laurablockley1269]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls you definitely did :)

[@jaime8907]

Thank you for taking your time and making these videos.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Always much appreciated to receive a comment like this. Thank you for taking the time to do that. It's very motivating.

[@JerWeiLow]

Great video. Thanks for sharing your thoughts for free

[@sammythai99]

Excellent video! Great information! Thank you for directing me to it.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Well it's one of mine, so a bit of blowing my own trumpet! I try to present things as facts only when they are facts. Data as data. Interpretations as interpretations. The conclusions others have drawn from this paper are staggering in their depth of generalisation and lack of context.

[@sammythai99]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls I really enjoy how you present everything. It's very clear and concise.

[@LeviathanSnakes]

Amazing video and thank you so much for all the work you have put into this!! Definitely a service to the community!

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thank you for watching and commenting.

[@jrbp33]

Amazing video Rob tons of great information, I wonder if the picky feeding in youngsters and the "1000 gram wall" that some people experience with their snakes going off food would be different if we offered our young ball pythons bird food items such as chicks or quail growing up and then switching to a more rodent based diet once they become mature.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi Jacob. Let me try to tackle this one for everyone thinking the same thing. The thing about nest robbing is it's opportunistic, seasonal and almost inevitably is limited to certain environments within the extensive range of Ball Python habitat. Not all Ball Pythons populations would even have this opportunity to rob nests. Python regius are a remarkably adaptable species that can thrive in a wide variety of sub environments and exploit a wide variety of prey types. Climbing and bird eating is therefore not an obligate behavior, they manage just fine without it and its not an essential element of our snake keeping. Watch the terrarium updates and you'll see a hatchling quite happy to eat baby rats and it's perfectly healthy and growing fast. It shows no inclination to climb. That would be a total waste of energy and there's no food up there anyway. Why climb if you don't have to? I'm going to suggest here that feeding baby birds to hatchlings on the surface might look like a good idea, but logistically its difficult for most people. I have actually tried feeding live quails to my hatchlings and not a single one would eat them. I suspect they did not even recognise them as prey. Certainly they were not hungry enough to try something new. This was not an issue for my GTP's, which although fed exclusively rodents, had no difficulty determining the birds were prey items. So there is a chance that they would reject the food or alternatively they like it so much they refuse to eat anything else. Some Ball Pythons are notoriously mouse eaters and the last thing we want are overindulged and fussy snakes. I start all my baby Ball Pythons on fuzzy rats for this reason and almost all of them will eat rats. If they are going to be fed rats all their lives and they are perfectly happy and healthy on this diet, I feel its unnecessary to make things more difficult for myself by feeding them other things. Very occasionally I do resort to live mice for my stubborn hatchlings but I also experience some of them not wanting to switch over having done so. I feed them only enough to get them gaining weight and shedding and then I'll switch them over. Incidentally, my cure for an established mouser of any sort of size other than a hatchling sized snake is extremely effective. I offer them only rats until they get hungry enough to eat them! Now the 1000gm wall is a different subject, which I can expand on if you wish. It is not a dietary preference or dietary deficiency that causes the wall and in fact most of my snakes eat their way right through it. I think other factors are at play. I do have a few that stop eating for a while, but I think most experienced snake breeders will have encountered this before and simply wait them out. A Ball Python can slow its metabolic rate to a tick over and they can go months without loosing hardly any weight at all. This is not necessarily a problem since snakes are physiologically designed to do this. It's only a problem for us keepers because we have plans for that snake and can't wait to get it up to size and plug it into our breeding programs. Sometimes the snakes don't play and its perfectly natural, so should we even worry?

[@Arctic_Morphs]

I have been wanting to use ambient heat for quite a while, a little more difficult here in Alaska. I have my snake room cranked up to between 78-80, at that temperature I still use heat tape on my racks. In the future I would like to have a separate room that I could have that kind of heat in and that could handle high humidity as well. Great video!

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi Barbara. Yes its going to be a tough ask in Alaska, but with good insulation, it might be possible. Your current set-up seems to work well enough, and if it's not broke, why fix it, but my message was one of simplicity is best.

[@MPRbyHamlin]

Apologies for broken comments, I've been waiting for this video landing and instead of waiting yo watch it all, I simply couldn't wait lol. I'm about half way in, and it's awesome so far.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks mate. Take your time!

[@SplicedSerpents]

great video and really well presented. I hope it gets picked up by the algorithm!

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks mate. Me too. I'm waiting for my first viral video that's going to turn me into a KZbin millionaire! I just got my latest payment from AdSense - $85.55 from February to May - not quite cutting it as an alternative income!

[@coachsroyalreptiles]

Very interesting! Stuff I have preached for many years! My undertank and back heating elements are to create an ambient temp of 85F on the warm side of the enclosure, and the surface temperatures are irrelevant. As long as the surface temp remains around 90F in my belly heat enclosures, my ambients stay around 85F. I notice my snakes do not spend much time directly over the heat element, but slightly off of the heating element, while digesting food. I also notice many of my animals spend most of their time on the cool side of their enclosure, where ambients run in the low 80's F. I keep my room temp between 77 and 82 F Thanks for the video, very interesting! Oh, and I have zero climbers! I provide hides in all of my enclosures, even tubs, and the snakes utilize the hide the vast majority of time...they will slide the hide to where they want it temp wise, and get inside. These animals love to spend hours in tight quarters. When they have more space, the majority of their time they choose to be in their hide, that is much smaller.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi mate. Glad you enjoyed the video. Having done my terrarium experiment and documented what my snakes do when provided tons of enrichment opportunity - pretty much nothing! - I'm more convinced than ever that our tub and rack systems are actually a Ball Pythons preference too. I terms of artificial heat in our enclosures, you have watched your own snakes and with a bit of imagination, you know what your snakes "want". I have seen in many cases so much modified behavior in terrariums caused purely by the set-up. A snake needs security, but it needs that security at the exact temperature it prefers. Without both, your snake will be restless. Experienced keepers will recognise this and make changes to suit, but its harder for new keepers to observe, recognise and modify. Easy to provide correct temps and security in a tub, but sometimes our terrariums are set up such that a snake has to choose between the two - security and temperature - and spends all its time very unnaturally wandering between the two. You can get it right but its a bit more difficult. This is why tubs work so well and terrariums have a reputation for snakes being finicky. They actually aren't, but look to your set-up to get things just right. Climbing? You only need to look at a Ball Python to know they are not great climbers. Watch them move in a tree to see they're not well balanced. Can they climb? Yes, they sure can. But the only reason they would ever do it in my experience is to escape or for food. They won't climb if both these factors are not driving any unusual behavior. My terrarium snakes have security, correct temperatures and food delivered to their doorstep at regular intervals. They are very reluctant to move at all when provided with these three essentials. Why should they? They expose themselves when they move and its hard work looking for food when you can order doorstep delivery.

[@coachsroyalreptiles]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls when folks stop trying to please themselves, and just try to do what’s best for the animal, the finicky eating ball python becomes a fairly regular eater. Every snake in my collection takes frozen thawed rats. No mousers, no live only eaters, and when I feed 40 ball pythons, 38 of them eat, and the two that didn’t were deep in shed. But there were two or three that were in shed, that took. Also, I don’t ever feed weekly, and never on a regular interval schedule. If you feed weekly, your ball python is eventually going off feed. Their metabolism and digestive system don’t work that way…it’s not NATURAL

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

@@coachsroyalreptiles absolutely! You will enjoy my next video too. Food cycling to condition your snakes for breeding. Hope you get chance to watch and comment. I am blessed with subscribers who really add value through their comments. I am grateful.

[@JerWeiLow]

Watching it right now!

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Very fast! Its long bro. Grab a coffee!!!!

[@rikersreptiles]

Great video. I believe there are alot of bird spices that live on the ground. They probably eat their young the most. After hear their range I bet they experience wet seasons and flooding. They probably swim in the wild if there is that much natural water all over.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi mate. This adaptive behavior of robbing nests is documented for this one area at this one time of year and is not obligate behavior. In other areas Ball Pythons manage just fine without this opportunity. I think the scientists did a good job of identifying prey items, in almost all cases down to genus level, but in many cases species level. So no doubt the prey here are species of birds that live in trees. Elsewhere, I'm sure ground dwelling birds are on the menu. These ground dwellers tend to be larger species of birds, so again probably limited to ground nesting birds and their hatchlings. The problem a Ball Python has with birds is that they can't catch them! Eating bird hatchlings is only going to provide enough nutrition for smaller snakes and as bird hatchlings grow to a size where they might be a decent meal, they have also grown to a size where they can easily escape. So diminishing returns forces the snakes to look for something more substantial. Something they are designed for and good at catching. Rats! Yes Ball Pythons are adept swimmers. All snakes are. Waterways provide a fast efficient way to travel longer distances and many tropical snakes are found near water. Funny how no one argues Ball Pythons are aquatic because they once saw one swimming. I did see your video of your Ball Python swimming in your pool and this is a perfect illustration of how good a swimmer a Ball Python is. Water is a very good conductor of heat, so if the water is a bit cold, your snake can cool down very quickly, but I'm sure swampland and rivers in their natural habitat is no obstacle for a Ball Python.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

@@sunnys_day Hi mate. Yes no doubt roosting birds are almost as vulnerable as nesting birds, but my speculation is that a Ball Python large enough to eat an adult grey parrot is probably not able to climb a tree to get them. The paper documents a total absence of birds in the stomach contents of Ball Pythons larger then 100cm even in an area where there are abundant trees and for the most part it's the smaller 70cm animals that exploit this opportunity. It makes perfect sense that an opportunist feeder like a Ball Python would take advantage of any opportunity it can exploit, but an adult female Ball Python of 3kg weight just isn't going to be able to climb a tree. I'm sure the smaller snakes are primarily robbing nests where hatchlings are not able to escape. Roosting birds often do so in higher branches which are flimsier and more difficult for a snake to climb. There is more work to be done on this behavior for sure and certainly a large part of the range of Ball Pythons is scrub land with few trees, so I think the "arboreal" nature of Ball Pythons has been blow way out of proportion and they do not require this opportunity to survive. It is not a necessary part of our animal husbandry. But yes, Ball Pythons, especially the smaller ones are capable of climbing. They're just not very good at it.

[@charleyhendersonj.r.6297]

Hello Rob...WOW..thank you for this video!!you explained to me a couple of things I've noticed about my snakes now I'm understanding things... I really appreciate it when the professor comes out.... so you're saying if I can keep my room at 86° Fahrenheit I can get rid of my heat mats... shouldn't be too hard because I keep the ambient temperature in that room at 80 already thanks again for a very great informative video

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi Charley. If you can hold your room at around 86F year round, you will not need heat mats.

[@charleyhendersonj.r.6297]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls okay I can probably do that cuz this year we got down to 50 degrees below zero twice my ambient temperature went down to 78 instead of 80

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Just make sure you have heat mats available on standby in case of mishaps. Obviously I don't need that insurance since my climate is tropical. 50 below would kill most animals never mind a tropical reptile.

[@charleyhendersonj.r.6297]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls that's what I was thinking just have them unplug but ready to go and definitely use them in the winter time in my climate

[@karyannfontaine8757]

Loved the video and the study.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks Kary Ann. Glad you found time to watch it and comment. You are a regular contributor now and I always watch out for your comments. Much appreciated.

[@johnwilliams2171]

🤯🤯🤯🤯 Absolutely mind blowing information Sir ,,, I will be traveling to Nigeria in the next two months for my work and i can ashore you i will be spending every spear moment hunting and gathering all aspics off information that i can possibly, can ,, I have already soused a good jungle guide who shores me he knows of ample great locations for ball pythons ... i will try and fill in the missing information from this half put together survey , If you have any major aspects you think i should look in too pleas let me know ,, i am very exited and yet nerves for my ones in a lifetime opportunity to do this . I will definitely be concentrating on feeding and location and size expressly girth of the snakes .... cheers

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

You have a fantastic opportunity to experience Ball Pythons in their natural habitat. I'm envious! Be prepared for hot sweaty conditions and loads of flies and mosquitos! If you have never been to a tropical rain forest before, it's going to feel like a sauna.

[@Bildgesmythe]

Thank you so much for this.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks for watch and taking time to comment.

[@justinwinther4407]

Your amazing. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge. I have always used room temperature and have had no issues. Thanks again

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Thanks for the support Justin. Always nice to get comments like these. Keeps my motivation high!

[@johnwilliams2171]

Sir a home project for you if you don't mind ,,, what will i get if i breed a MJ Axa X VPI Axa double recessive together ? So double recessive MJ and vpi axa ..... cheers 🧐

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi John, I only work with VPI Axanthic, but my understanding is that these two variants of axanthic are not compatible. This means that breeding a VPI to an MJ would get double hets and look like normals. So you would be trying to make a double recessive visual from a double het which is a 1:16 chance. I have no idea what a double visual MJ VPI Axanthic would look like. There are none on MM.

[@sammythai99]

Most of the animals here hide in places that are shady (like holes or under trees) and then lay on or near the roads at night. This includes reptiles and street dogs.

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Roads are an obvious source of heat on a cold night, but perhaps less obvious is that roads form a natural highway for animals moving over longer distances, or a natural barrier to animals that are shy and reluctant to cross. All of this makes them an ideal location for all manner of animals to hunt for food or to move around more easily. It also makes them vulnerable to being run over!

[@sammythai99]

@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Agreed

[@MPRbyHamlin]

I think the sexing of ball pythons back then was as follows. If its tails long and thin "it must be male" Short and fat... "female" .

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

I think you might be right. The absence of females in the smaller size group is not significant for our purposes, but it most certainly is for their conclusions. It becomes a somewhat circular argument, males are small, so all small ones are males.

[@CatNip379]

😅 Wow who knew snakes were criminals repeated offenders the only ones there are offending are the people doing this study😅😂

[@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls]

Hi CatNip. You are getting through my videos and commenting on them at a remarkable rate! I try to answer all comments, so here goes. This particular paper has been misinterpreted by many people as an indicator of arboreality in Ball Pythons. Nest robbing has been interpreted as an indicator of an arboreal lifestyle, when in fact it is nothing more than adaptive behaviour in a normally ground dwelling snake. All snakes can climb to a greater or lesser degree, just like they can all swim. Most snakes are also opportunistic feeders and will take advantage of a readily available food source which might be only locally or seasonally available. So no surprise that during nesting season, vulnerable chicks are preyed on by a wide variety of snakes which would not normally be found climbing trees. The ones that learn this behaviour are often seen doing it more than once. There is a survival benefit to this adaptive behaviour. It neither implies an arboreal lifestyle, not does it imply that all Ball Pythons throughout their range do it. The paper also points out that only the younger, more agile Ball Pythons are able to do this and mature Ball Pythons were not observed climbing trees and neither were birds part of adult Ball Python stomach contents. This represents a very clear ontogenic change in behaviour. The authors themselves point this out very clearly, but if it doesn't fit the narrative of Ball Pythons being arboreal, this part is ignored. There is nothing wrong with the science in the paper. Unfortunately it has been misconstrued, misinterpreted and misused by those who wish to "prove" that Ball Pythons are arboreal.