Music for Snakes.... :D

[DLLNP]

Tell me right away if I've gone of the deep end....

I may be anthropomorphizing my animals more than I ever have in this thread but bare with me!

I keep my animals in my office at home, 2 geckos, 2 snakes. I am finding that when I am in the office, my Day Gecko hides (if you know anything about day geckos you know they are very skittish), if I am in there all day she will hide all day (no eating or basking). I don't like that because I do tend to spend a lot of time in there and I don't want that to impact her health over time. ( I should say, I have had her for 2 years but recently have started working from home)

As far as I can tell, she is really only willing to come out of hiding when the room is empty, and has been dead silent for at least 1 hour or so (if I run out to do an errand I'll come back to find her basking... of course she bolts when I enter the room).

I hope you are still with me.... I am thinking she is only comfortable when it is dead quiet in my apartment, this is obviously not realistic as I live there too! So I wonder what kind of impact it would have running a "rainforest sound" sound track quietly in the office/reptile room during the day time. I wonder what kind of impact that would have on the animals?

I mean dead silence is obviously very unnatural in a wild setting... I used to own budgies and a rule of thumb with them was if you leave your home leave the radio or tv on because silence stresses them out (i.e. predators are in the area)

I would hope that over time the day gecko gets more habituated to sounds during the day and is more comfortable coming out when I am in the room and hopefully it wouldn't have any impact on my other animals sharing the room (2 boas and 1 crested).

Have I lost it or what?

[jjhill001]

My leopard gecko sleeps through Rick and Morty and me screaming at the Cavaliers during basketball season so that's her jungle noise.

I wouldn't really know to be honest. I'm not gonna have that playing in my house 24/7 I would go nuts. It is an interesting thought though. However bird sounds etc could potentially cause added stress for a lizard.

Snakes would probably see no effect.

[Scubadiver59]

It won't hurt anything, plus I'd agree with that sound as well. But I'm not sure the gecko is hiding due to sound...motion is probably keeping it in hiding since it's hiding from predators. The sound may or may not help, but it surely doesn't hurt to try.

If you need a copy of some whale singing, for a change from the rain forest sounds track, let me know and I'll get you a CD!

Originally Posted by DLLNP

Tell me right away if I've gone of the deep end....

I may be anthropomorphizing my animals more than I ever have in this thread but bare with me!

I keep my animals in my office at home, 2 geckos, 2 snakes. I am finding that when I am in the office, my Day Gecko hides (if you know anything about day geckos you know they are very skittish), if I am in there all day she will hide all day (no eating or basking). I don't like that because I do tend to spend a lot of time in there and I don't want that to impact her health over time. ( I should say, I have had her for 2 years but recently have started working from home)

As far as I can tell, she is really only willing to come out of hiding when the room is empty, and has been dead silent for at least 1 hour or so (if I run out to do an errand I'll come back to find her basking... of course she bolts when I enter the room).

I hope you are still with me.... I am thinking she is only comfortable when it is dead quiet in my apartment, this is obviously not realistic as I live there too! So I wonder what kind of impact it would have running a "rainforest sound" sound track quietly in the office/reptile room during the day time. I wonder what kind of impact that would have on the animals?

I mean dead silence is obviously very unnatural in a wild setting... I used to own budgies and a rule of thumb with them was if you leave your home leave the radio or tv on because silence stresses them out (i.e. predators are in the area)

I would hope that over time the day gecko gets more habituated to sounds during the day and is more comfortable coming out when I am in the room and hopefully it wouldn't have any impact on my other animals sharing the room (2 boas and 1 crested).

Have I lost it or what?

[jjhill001]

Then again, constant white noise such as those sounds have shown to have a relaxing effect on infants and would at the least disguise the sound of you moving close to the enclosure if you had say wooden floors that make noise or something.

[DLLNP]

I will give it a shot and see what happens!

[eminart]

Well, the snakes aren't going to notice, since they are deaf. If you play it loud enough that they're detecting it, your neighbors probably aren't going to be happy. As far as your gecko, I doubt it matters there either, but try if you want.

[SerpentineDream]

Originally Posted by eminart

Well, the snakes aren't going to notice, since they are deaf. If you play it loud enough that they're detecting it, your neighbors probably aren't going to be happy. As far as your gecko, I doubt it matters there either, but try if you want.

It is my understanding that snakes are *not* completely deaf. They have ears but those are protected by scales so they don't hear very well. They pick up low frequency sounds best. Thus they rely on feeling vibrations more than on hearing things.

No?

[Doug 351]

Originally Posted by SerpentineDream

It is my understanding that snakes are *not* completely deaf. They have ears but those are protected by scales so they don't hear very well. They pick up low frequency sounds best. Thus they rely on feeling vibrations more than on hearing things.

No?

I play guitar VERY LOUDLY...If my snake wasn't deaf before...it is now. I'm nearly deaf myself. I don't think snakes hear, but are very good at feeling vibrations under them.

[eminart]

Originally Posted by SerpentineDream

It is my understanding that snakes are *not* completely deaf. They have ears but those are protected by scales so they don't hear very well. They pick up low frequency sounds best. Thus they rely on feeling vibrations more than on hearing things.

No?

There is some speculation that snakes can "hear" some airborne sounds. But, it's in a small frequency range. The vast majority of their "hearing" is almost certainly through ground vibrations.

[Scubadiver59]

Snake Anatomy
"...Snakes lack an external ear, but they do have an internal ear, and they are capable of detecting low frequency sounds ranging from 100 to 700 hertz. (A young person with normal hearing can hear frequencies between approximately 20 and 20,000 hertz.) A snake’s inner ear also allows it to detect motion, static position and sound waves traveling through the ground."

The world from the eyes of a snake
"As we explained on an earlier entry, snakes do not have neither external ears nor eardrums. Yet, they do present all the elements of the inner ear characteristic of tetrapods. What changes is the way the vibrational stimulus is transmitted, which in ophidians is accomplished via a bone called columella.
columella2Scheme of the auditory apparatus of a common snake. Image by Dan Dourson.

The columella is a small, long and thin bone attached by ligaments and cartilaginous tissues to the posterior end of the upper jaw and that articulates with the lower jaw. Snakes have one on each side of their skull, which have an equivalent function to the stapes (bones of the mammalian middle ear). The columellas are completely surrounded by tissues, so aerial, terrestrial and aquatic vibrations, are transmitted to these bones which are in contact with the fluids of the inner ear.

Yet, the snakes’ sensitivity to aerial waves is pretty much limited. For example, while human beings are able to hear aerial vibrations between 20 and 20,000 Hz, snakes can only detect vibrations between 50 and 1,000 Hz. Even though they have such limited hearing range, in some species it has been observed that they are able to receive vibrational stimuli with any body part, as these are transmitted through the bodily tissues to the columellas."

[Doug 351]

Thanks Scubadiver.