Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is an interesting event that happened involved with your Indigo doing something that surprised you? Like for instance, if it struck the cage for some reason and broke the glass, or a certain behavior or act it does when encounters food. Anything,
as long as it surprised you the first time.

We have always heard legendary stories about eastern indigos being so tame that they will follow their owners around; of course, I thought this was somewhat exagerated; that is, until about 8 months ago. I took out my oldest male (Indy; not real original on names) and noticed that he followed me a few feet. At first i thought it was just coincidence, or hunger, until i walked into another room approximately 20 feet away...and indy was right behind me. much to my surprise, it wasn't a feeding response chasing sort of incidence but more of a curious type of behavior. i sat on the couch and he came right up on to my lap; it was really amazing. that was the last, and only, time this snake showed this behavior so whatever prompted this occurance may always be a mystery; next time, i'll get it on video!

A rather funny (depending on how you look at it) story happened at our wildlife center. one of my rookie volunteer staff just did a talk with our resident black racer and rather than putting the snake back into its off display cage, he put it mistakenly into the eastern indigo exhibit while the public was watching. of course, you can guess the ending.....blood spladdering violent massacre of one black racer and a victorious large male eastern indigo left licking his chops almost enjoying the horror he just displayed to all of the folks witnessing this.....nothing like 20 jaws dropping to the floor at the same time!

Rob Carmichael

Nice.Feel bad for the black racer though. Hope we can see more good ones like this.

I remember one of the first wild TX indigos I found. I had read all the field guides and books and "knew" that indigos were gentle giants. The two I had found before this had been reasonable (although one was a hatchling and another was only around 4 feet).

Then I came across a big bruiser male at 7 plus feet basking on a quiet two rut sandy road in south Texas. I got out of the truck to move it off the road and reached down and gently lifted up the posterior third of this massive black snake. Next thing I know, a freight train with an open mouth comes charging back at my face. Fortunately it missed! Apparently this big boy hadn't read the field guides about being "among the most gentle of snakes". He only managed to score a glancing blow on my forearm.

Now I am a little more cautious about how I grab a big wild indigo!
-----
Chris Harrison

I’ve had some yellow tails that were BIG and MEAN.
A large male imports that I have had have acted more aggressive than any snake I have worked with. (and I’ve worked with mambas)

In all my years working with snakes, I had never seen a snake in the open, with and
Obvious escape route…CHOOSE to attack a human instead of taking the escape route.
Until about 2 years ago.

I had opened the cage door to remove and clean the water bowl. The snake (an 8’ male yt)
Was resting in the hide area, so I just left the door open as I carried the water bowl to the nearby sink.

As I was cleaning the water dish, I heard a “plop” as the snake had exited the cage.

I went in to find him crawling in the middle of my snake room floor. I go to grab him and he quicky
Forms an “S” and strikes, which I dodge, and he starts to crawl again. I figure I’m going to get tagged now, so I reach for the gloves. As I move AWAY from the snake to grab the gloves, he stops crawling away from me (he had easy access to getting under other cages to hide), does a 180, turns around and comes after me!

I stood there in shock…as I had never seen a snake of any kind make such an aggressive move, so I stand there, waiting to see what he’s going to “do” with me when he catches me. He comes right up to me and starts biting and chewing on my leg of my jeans. I think I could actually see him trying to squeeze his jaws as hard as possible and he had a look on his face like “TAKE THIS !!”

I don’t think he liked me very much.

I once was walking in my backyard just looking around. I walked up to a fence and thought I saw a rattle snake. I got a stick and poked it a little bit but soon relised, theres no rattle. Its head was in the ground and its body was trapped in the garden fence. Not the middle part of the fence, more like at the end where the fence in twirled together in a tube like view. About the first third of it's body was stuck in three layers. I had some help but eventually a neighbor and I got the snake out. I had him in a plastic container with an empty Mac-ncheese box and a bowl of water for a few days before I released him back in the forest by a creek.

Now, the real point. I let him stay in that container and let him hide in that little box to relax and such. Something weird though, I noticed he popped his head out to look at me a few times and when I looked back it took him 10-20 seconds to know I was looking at him and sunk his head right back in.

Since indigos are so alert and aware, would it take any less time for one to understand I was looking at it and react?

That's an interesting question. The real question, if I understand you correctly, is "Do they recognize and react to eye contact, and how cognisant are they that you are making eye contact?"

I have worked,through the years, with many many different species of snakes. Some of the most alert and "intelligent" species I have ever worked with were what I call "Fast Elapids". This includes things like Mambas, Forest Cobras, Cape Cobras, Spitters, Kings, Taipans, etc. In my experience, Indigos, Coachwips, and Racers are very very similar in overall behavior.

I think snakes, especially these super-alert species, do recognize and react to eye contact. I think that point is proven out with spitting cobras. They will hit a potential threat in the eyes unfailingly.

I can recall one incident with a zookeeper (who shall remain nameless) working at a zoo (which shall also remain nameless). He was showing some personal visitors (also nameless) a Western Green Mamba in the keeper's alley during zoo hours. It wasn't a particularly large specimen, maybe 5 feet long. This thing managed to get away from him in the keeper's alley while he was showing it (which immediately put all of his personal visitors on high alert), and landed on the floor in front of him. What ensued for the next several seconds can only be described as a 4-way staring contest. This keeper had inadvertently left the door to the keeper's alley cracked open a little. This door led directly into the viewing area which was full of zoo visitors at the time. The keeper glanced at the keeper's alley door and it was like the snake saw him look at the door, looked for himself and realized the door was open and made a break for it, escaping into the viewing area. The now frantic keeper sailed out the door right behind the snake, which was now hugging the wall behind the oblivious zoo visitors. The keeper managed to grab the snake by it's tail and get back inside the door without anyone noticing what was going on. That was one alert snake.

My Indigos are very alert and seem to be capable of at least rudimentary reasoning. I haven't noticed anything that would make me believe that they necessarily react to eye contact, but I haven't paid particular attention to that either. I will from now on, though. My Indigos and Cribos all have their own distinct personalities, though. I have one big male rubidus that is as squirrely as any snake I've ever seen. He's not mean or intent on biting or anything like that, but if he realizes I'm in the room he freaks out and pour himself into his hiding box as fast as any snake you've ever seen. My other big male could care less. He knows I'm there, but just doesn't care. My big female is the same way. None of my Texans are particularly spooky, but my yearling female like to show her attitude when she sees me. My big female Yellowtail is like she's hatching the Master Plan to kill me. It's like she's thinking, "OK, if I wait just another second or two, he'll move over there and that shelf will be behind him. If I strike at his face then, he can't back up quickly enough to get away from me and I might be able to chew his head right off his shoulders. Oh, wait...he has a rat in his hand. Never mind..I'll kill him next time."
-----
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

i've had yt's that have definitely plotted to get to me, no doubt. no wc's live here any longer. they're an evil bunch! :>[ on the other hand, my uni's are WAY calmer [dog tame] and even the youngsters have discerned that by making exasperatingly long eye contact w/ me equates to mean, 'i need a rat right now!' there is no doubt in my mind......they know what they're doing. i see this behaviour from them on a constant basis........

Had my Yelowtail out the other day for some sun & to handle a little, she loves to bite & that’s getting a bit tiresome so I put on gloves & a long-sleeved shirt but she never struck at my hands or arms like she normally does, she was fine, just a little puffed up. After about ten minutes of me thinking her "tude" had changed, without me moving my head at all she reached up & bit me on the lip, my head being the only part of my body not covered, her way of telling me to put her back in her cage, it worked pretty well. I think she knew where to bite to do the most good.

Funny how perceptive they are, isn't it?
-----
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dude! Your lip?! How big is that snake? Do you have a face left?

Eric

She was being very nice, she's over 6' and has given me some nasty chewings but this time it was just a little "love bite"

Yeah, I really hate face bites.

The worst one I recall was a guy in Opp, Al that got tagged just below the eye by an Eastern Diamondback will gassing Gopher Tortoise burrows back in the late '70's or early 80's. He got what was coming to him, but still....YEOUCHHH!!! Not fatal, by the way...but ugly.
-----
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I used to read electric meters for our local power company.
One day I went into a backyard where 3 dogs were biting and chewing on an indigo. I managed to chase them away from it. It was completely limp. I read the mwter and removed it from the fenced area away from the dogs. I placed it beside some woods figuring it was dead. I backed off and watched. After a few minutes he picked up his head looked around and took off into the woods. I don't know if he was playing dead or just passed out from stress. Has any heard of indigos playing dead?

I have a friend whose sister lives in the Tampa area.
She has awesome habitat on her property...tortoises, and indigos...

In 2001, she I was in FL and she let me poke around on her property. I didn't find any snakes, but a few big tortoises.

Anyway...she has 3 large dogs and she told me how the dogs would grab the indigos (she knew how to identfy indigos) and shake them until they played dead. Of course I was horrified and explained the snakes were probably actually dead.

She said...no, by the next morning they are always gone.
I told her vultures or other critters were probably dragging the bodies off...but...now you are making me wonder !!