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My friend and I aquired an eight year old male burm about a month ago. When we went to pick him up, I realized this was a more of a rescue case than I had thought. The owner had him in less than optimum circumstances, namely a 25 watt bulb and no UTH of any kind. His enclosure was probably at about 70 degrees, with very low humidity. He was having major shedding problems, and had the distinct wheeze of RI. I've kept a number of different snakes in my day, none over the six foot mark, and have delt with these and other problems before, so I wasn't too concerned about them. We got him home, and went about getting his heat and humidity up to par. Now a month later, and he has had a perfect shed and no sign of RI. His scales from his bad nose rub are still healing, but he looks 100% better than when we got him. I only have one question: he has been extremely docile every time he is handled, but yesterday I brought him into a room he'd never seen in the apt., and he seemed to get a little agitated. Any time something moved, he would breath out loudly (not from RI), the tip of his tail would wag, and he S'ed back as if to strike. I've never seem him act like this before, and was wondering if that is normal burm behavior when they feel theatened. Any info would be much appreciated.

I have had many otherwise perfectly docile burms (and other python & boa species) "freak out" or get real defensive when in a new room or a different place. I have always attributed this behavior to them smelling something that they are unfamiliar with and thus becomming defensive just on the off chance that the "unknown thing" is something to fear. They (the snakes) have very keen and heightened senses of smell, likely 50 or a hundred thousand times as keen as our own. So even subtle smells that are new to them, that we could never even detect, may alarm them. It doesn't have to be the smell of another animal. I have seen reactions to a girls new perfume. So I would think that it could be anything: chemical, animal, etc.

The tail wagging is a definite signal that the snake is irritated or feals threatened. All snakes do this, some rapidly (rattlesnakes, gopher snakes, etc) and others much more slowly (boas, pythons, etc) but it all translates the same meaning; "I'm irritated! Stay back!" I theorize that this evolved in all snakes because those that innitially wiggled ther tails during an attack diverted the attack away from their vulnerable head and thus lived to pass on the tendency to shake a tail during stressful events. Hardly relevant here, I suppose,.. just a thought that zipped through my head.

I hope you have lots of fun with your new guy there. Happy Herping.

>>My friend and I aquired an eight year old male burm about a month ago. When we went to pick him up, I realized this was a more of a rescue case than I had thought. The owner had him in less than optimum circumstances, namely a 25 watt bulb and no UTH of any kind. His enclosure was probably at about 70 degrees, with very low humidity. He was having major shedding problems, and had the distinct wheeze of RI. I've kept a number of different snakes in my day, none over the six foot mark, and have delt with these and other problems before, so I wasn't too concerned about them. We got him home, and went about getting his heat and humidity up to par. Now a month later, and he has had a perfect shed and no sign of RI. His scales from his bad nose rub are still healing, but he looks 100% better than when we got him. I only have one question: he has been extremely docile every time he is handled, but yesterday I brought him into a room he'd never seen in the apt., and he seemed to get a little agitated. Any time something moved, he would breath out loudly (not from RI), the tip of his tail would wag, and he S'ed back as if to strike. I've never seem him act like this before, and was wondering if that is normal burm behavior when they feel theatened. Any info would be much appreciated.
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"If I had 365 enemies it would only take a year out of my life to settle all scores." Mia Miselfani

Thanks for the info. I mainly keep colubrids, so I am quite aware of their defensive displays, but I didn't know that old world snakes wag their tails too.