Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello All

I've got a albion monocled. I've had this one for a short time like 2 months and he is doing great eating, sheding, also has a very good temperment.

I had a few questions on there eye sight.I know albinos animals reptiles, mammals, what have you. Tend to have poor eye sight.

My snake acts like he can't find his food he smells it but it takes him a while even when it's right beside him. Once hes got a lock on his food it's all over.

Just curious if anyone else has taken notice to there snake acting like this.

A snakes vision is all that great to begin with but that doesnt mean that they dont have good accuracy. My albino kouthia seems to do the same thing when its feeding. I don't have a good answer tho so hopefully someone can do a better job.

I've got no doubt about this guys accuracy LOL. He is on when he's on. I also though that maybe a pinkis body temp is not as warm as a mouse and make it a little harder to see.

I've never had any of my other snakes act like this.

I noticed the other day when I move him to with hooks ofcourse to clean he was staring at the wall hooded up. even though I was in front of him. He might be almost blind. Never the less he still has good instinct and smell.

well I got a albino and a normale kaouthia and I can say that albino animals can´t see [bleep] hehehehehe.. my normal animal will strike and hit a prey 100% and will look at you like wanting to say: I can see you and I will kill you when you come near me..

My albino animal is acting like he´s as blind as a bat. He will try and strike at an prey that is running around but will miss allot of times.. when he is hooding at me and i move from one side of the cage to another side he wouldn´t even see that for most of the time.. I have had the following thing happening a few weak ago:

I put my albino in a box that is transparant so I could clean out the cage and put in some extra items.. When I had put him in the box he was pissed and stood up and hooded all the time with loud hissing and striking at the boxwall. I was standing in front of the box and he was hooding at me ,then i stept over the box to the other side of the box but he didn´t follow me and was still hooding at the side where I was before.. and ye she was so stupid to strike a few times at that wall where I wasn´t standing LOL

cheers niek
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All cobras screw around with their food a little before they eat it sometimes, especially if it's prekilled. They want to make sure it's dead, some try to find the head, others don't care. Even normal cobras have trouble "finding" their food in captivity due to the fact that they get conditioned that when you opened their cage door and threw something in, they go into that feeding frenzy, like "where is it?". They bite their cage, it's surroundings,themselves, your hand if it's in the way. They find they're food mainly by smell but normal cobras do see better than albinos, but not very well.They're visual acuity is best at dawn and dusk when less glare is present.

Generaly speaking all snakes have very poor sight. General snake hunting tatics consist of finding prey in a burrow or underneath somthing, franticly fallowing your nose to the prey and then biteing anything you see even twitch, even yourself at times lol!

I firmly belive your typical elapids and colubrids rely more on their nose then eyes. They smell food and anything that twitches gets attacked. Poor eyesight is even more apprent in their threat display (Naja). They are always just looking in your direction nd down, never realy at you. The reason it was reared at the wall was probaly because of your shadow.

Of cource I am gerneralizeing the families and exceptions to rule exsist. The Naja pallida I have worked with were very visualy aware. Same with Forest cobras. The snouted cobras and Asian cobras were not however.

There are also Deendroaspis, O.hannah and Oxyuranus, all with very acute vision.

Naja kaouthia however seems to have very poor eyesight in general. Being an albino definately helps with that though almost every kaothia I have ever worked with as reacted the same.

Very beautiful snake btw!

That what I wanted to know thanks all.

I'll get some more pics soon. He has grown a good bit since those pics were taken.