Snakes are a subject with many unanswered questions, which is why we chose to research them. I am working with Brendon and Phillip. We are learning about snakes’ senses and eating habits. I got my topic from Brendon, one of my partners.
My partners and I chose snakes for our subject. Our question was: Is there a difference between a California King snake and a Ball Python’s eating habits and senses, and do they change when they are eating? We thought of this question because Phillip has a Ball Python and Brendon has a California King snake and we thought, why not research them? The food many snakes enjoy is mice, whether the mice are frozen or alive. The earliest fossils show that snakes have been around for about 150 million years. The longest snake ever found was found 36 million years ago and believed to be about 60 feet long! Now, snakes range from less than 6 inches to almost 30 feet in length. Today there are about 2,500 different kinds of snakes, but people finding new ones every day. California King snakes are thought to be “the mimicking snakes.” People called them this because they imitate the color of venomous snakes to ward off enemies.
To answer our question we had to first feed the snakes. We got the mice and Brendon and Phillip fed their snakes, taped it, and brought the tape in for research. In the tape, it showed how we fed them by dropping either a live mouse or a frozen mouse into their cage. We did this because we wanted to evaluate how well the snakes swallowed the mice. The kind of snakes we researched still remained a variable. We saw that Brendon’s snake went straight in to eat, while Phillip’s snake moved its head backwards to gain speed and then struck. We evaluated how well the snakes digested the food, also. Phillip’s snake lifted its head up while digesting the mouse in order to digest it faster. The California King snake, Brendon’s snake, vibrated his tail while eating. We are not too sure, but we think it is from aggression.
I discovered that California King snakes imitate venomous snakes to ward off prey. Ball Pythons gather more speed by moving their head back before eating. Ball Pythons also lift up their head while digesting food. And neither of our test snakes is venomous. There were differences between how each snake trapped, killed, and swallowed their prey.
Next year’s students might want to surprise the snake while it is eating to see what its reaction will be. If I had more time, I probably would have done what I suggested for next year’s subject. Next year’s students may want to ask, “How small can the sound be that a snake feels in the ground?” By testing how small of a sound snakes react of change their actions to. And please remember, there were no snakes harmed during the research of this project.