While doing an enrichment enhancement today (new, fresh tree branches), I decided to capture our ball python hanging out in the old tree top before we broke it all down. Above is our western green mamba peeping from the shift box, which I utilized as there’s no need to stress the snake even more (& the eastern greens give me plenty of hook experience to keep me sharp as they rarely utilize their shift boxes). Ball pythons are primarily terrestrial by nature. That being said, I see a lot of “they’ll fall & hurt themselves!”. Give this species more credit than you’ve been taught to. This snake has hides on the ground, & plenty of coverage, however it chooses to hang among the branches, & is a VERY capable climber. It even utilizes the shift box far more than the western green mamba! Really cool to see. I believe many people don’t fully understand this behavior as they either don’t allow proper set ups with natural arboreal enrichment, or simply utilize rack systems as it’s the most popular among keepers & breeders for BP’s. This being said… yes, they get along absolutely fine.
This will give the FB group warriors a heart attack. A ball python doing arboreal things?! Yes, BO are very capable climbers, & this one shares an enclosure with one of our western green mambas. More info in picture #snake #mamba #herps #herpetology #ballpython #greenmamba #Dendroaspis #viridis
