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I was cleaning cages today and noticed something a little odd (or maybe not) with a het pied female that has a particular hatred of me...aside from her normal puffing hissing and striking, she started rattling her tail at me. I've seen this loads of times in colubrids but never in a python. Just wondering if this was common in non colubrids (and non rattlesnakes obviously lol) or if I just have a snake with an identity crisis.

My wife informed me upon my reading your post to her that her wild caught ball that she has had for some years now used to do that to her when she first got her. I think she has had her for around thirteen years. She finally stopped hissing at everyone about a year or so back(after being moved into a 75 gallon reptile habitat).
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1.0 100% het albino columbian
1.0 pastel columbian
0.1 hypo columbian
0.1 guyana
0.2 jcp
1.0 irian jaya
1.1.1 normal balls
1.0 granite al burm
0.1 granite het al burm
0.1 albino burm
1.0 sunfire retic
0.2 tiger retics

No identity crisis. I have had several pythons do it. More younger balls. I tend to see it fairly often in boas, more so than pythons. And almost every colubrid i have here does it.
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Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
Email Cindy
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Thanks for the replies everyone...I've always kinda wondered if they tail vibrating was common in all snakes and it was just the rattlesnakes that decided to take it to the next level or whether not rattlers do it to mimic rattlesnakes, which I guess wouldn't make much sense for old world snakes to do.

I've seen it in a lot of different species, both old and new world. It definately seems to precede a spray of urates/feces if you're holding them, and if you go to pick them up during a tail shake session, urates promptly follow.

I think rattlesnakes are just taking the shake to a different level, whereas other species are using it as a more standard warning - "I'm about to sh*t all over you, watch out!"

The poop defense is pretty common. Lotta lizards do it too.

~jen
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)