Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was looking at the old posts and came across a discussion of reptiles being able to form a bond with their keepers. Some reptiles are very capable of forming bonds.

I find a bond with my California kingsnake. When I come up to the cage, she quickly comes to the front and follows me back and forth, I know it is because she thinks I have food but it's nice that she knows me. Also, I rarely handle her, yet when I stick my hand in the cage, she can identify my scent and realize I'm not a dead fuzzy mouse and thus does not bite me.

I also had a bearded dragon that recognized me and would run up to the cage when I got their.

As for turtles, the aquatic ones recognize you as a food source and swim up to you when you approach them. The land turtles(box turtles and wood turtles) and tortoises, however, are completely different. They do recognize their keepers and run up to you. If you keep them outside, they will run up to you and even nibble your feet. Larger tortoises, such as leopards and sulcatas, will follow their keepers around the yard(assuming you are a responsible herp keeper who knows big tortoises should be kept outside when possible!)

Amazingly enough, the most intelligent reptiles that can form very strong bonds with humans are, in fact, the crocodilians. Yes, that includes crocodiles, alligators, caiman, and gharials. I was at a reptile show and met an American alligator named Bubba. The animal was 12 feet long and just sat on a table, mouth NOT tied or taped shut, and people could pet him and even have pictures taken with him giving him a kiss on his nose! The keeper, whose name I cannot remember, would do a small presentation at this show. Bubba would come to his owner when called, and would even sit and get up on command. He even picked kids from the audience and Bubba would give them rides on his back!

So if you thought reptiles are stupid, think again.

PS-I saw some guy saying he shot starlings with a BB gun and fed them to his snakes. I think he should know that that method of feeding is rather ignorant, as the lead or whatever the pellets are made of gets into the bird's body, thus exposing the snakes being fed to deadly chemicals.

Right On! Good post I agree with everything you said.

My box turtles, my aquatics, do follow me around and so does the sulcata. They love to have shell rubs, they'll dance because they like it.
Each one of them knows their name just like the rats do.
I can call a name & that one will pop a head up & look at me as if to say yes I'm here, what do you want?
I adopted my fat tailed gecko- his owner was moving and was going to give him to a pet store. I couldn't stand that idea so I took him. He's learned who I am & he knows when I am about to feed him. If I don't feed him when he wants food, he'll come out of his "herp hotel" to look for me.

They are not moving rocks they are very intelligent.. I've learned that you take each species of animal for what it is, don't compare it to something else & you can see how smart each one is.

I compare rats to dogs sometimes because they do exhibit some dog like behavior, in other ways they exhibit cat like behavior.. but still they are what they are & they do have behavior that is all their own.
All animals are intelligent and can bond with their humans in their own way.. we just have to pay attention to what they're saying to us.
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PHRatz

We used to have a red-eared slider and he really liked us. Even after he ate he would follow us from one side of the tank to the other, and he liked to just swim there and watch us talking to him. He was a cool turtle.
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, Em, and baby Rosa, and the wonderful winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

Kadee I adore turtles. LOL
I bought my western painted, he was a captive bred baby. Then the rest just happened.
Now that I have so many I can't imagine never having one. They are just really neat critters.

The other day my baby box was in it's feeding tank after it's bath & saw one of the rats. The baby turtle was very interested in looking at the rat, I think the turtle wanted to sniff the rat but of course I couldn't let them do that.
They're all so cute, turtles, rats, puppies.. lol
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PHRatz