While working with Dr. Thomas Guensburg (currently a researcher at the Field Museum of Natural History) on imagery of crinoid evolutionary chains for peer review, he revealed that he was worried how it would be received. His work was solid, clearly explained, and very clear- at the time I was confused how other researchers could reject it. It was then I learned how sometimes the truth doesn't always matter, especially when people's careers were staked on false information they based their own research on; many would fight tooth and nail to suppress evidence that things might not be true as they were invested in the former incorrect belief. It is my understanding this sort of suppression happened quite often, unfortunately.

While some of his peers did this deliberately, even with common folks it's much easier to get them to believe something false than to question their belief and change it to something true even with evidence. So far as Hognose Snakes go, from my understanding the last in depth research on these animals in the wild was done in the 1980's - which is incredibly dated. Even in recent years we've found so much of what we "knew" about reptiles was entirely wrong. Back then we "knew" reptiles couldn't see red light so it was commonly used for heating. Back then we "knew" rattlesnakes and leopard geckos were solitary animals. We now know this information is incorrect.

Reptiles can see red light, and a constant red light negatively affects their sleep cycles, health, and behavior. Leopard geckos actually live in colonies - yet some people will still argue they are solitary animals in the wild. As for rattlesnakes, Project Rattlecam livestreams and documents the lives of rattlesnakes. Do they look like solitary animals to you?

So back to Hognose Snakes. When I first got my girls I'd read up everything on them, how they were solitary, and deaf, and not that bright, and unable to feel emotion (let alone love) due to missing the part of the brain that is capable of processing that. All of those things my girls have shown me to be untrue. Snakes are not deaf, in fact my girls regularly respond to my voice. They're not stupid (at least not any more than the average human child tbh) and can be target trained as well as taught to point at things they want. As far as feeling emotion, their brains are structured like birds, not humans, so they have a different brain structure and chemical but do indeed feel happiness, emotion, and affection- I have videos on my blog of Scoria using a gesture to request being pet she learned from mimicking me petting her.

As far as being solitary- the evidence I've seen that can be repeated points to that information being untrue. Think about it, why would a solitary species dedicate one of their few words to say, "I'm friendly! Let's be nice to each other." The "twitch" is also seen in the (very much not solitary) rattlesnake to communicate with other individuals they are friendly. Contrary to popular belief this is NOT strictly to signal mating but used far more often to display friendliness- Project Rattlecam has quite a few examples between babies and adults.

Hognoses also are known to brumate together over winter in the same dens. That doesn't sound like solitary animal behavior, especially considering they tend to brumate with individuals they know. Honestly? This sounds more like loose colony behavior. A researcher very well could have seen that a hognose went to a den by themselves and thought, "Hmm, these aren't like garter snakes who cram themselves into a den like a clown car. They are solitary."

My girls don't either. Usually each will sleep in her own den- unless she's worried about the other. I've seen a few times, including when Sakura was in shed, Scoria didn't leave her sister's side. But normally they'll go to one of their favorite dens (they seem to have decided amongst themselves what belongs to who) and while they'll sometimes borrow each other's dens, like a sister staying in her sister's room, they tend to stay in their own beds for the most part. During the day, they'll seek each other out, Sakura will greet Scoria with a twitch, and they'll either play with today's enrichment activity or snuggle up together and wait for me. They didn't start out together, and the decision to house them together was NOT one I took lightly. I actually have two identical enclosures I bought for each of them, but the other never got set up because they get very upset when I separate them. After quarantining Sakura, I left one of the rocks she'd had in her enclosure on a table Scoria was playing on. Her response was dramatic, she KNEW the scent was another snake, and from that second on she was determined to find this other hognose. I was afraid of introducing them, Scoria actually found Sakura's enclosure and tried to free her by digging through the side (there's a video of this in one of my older posts.) I VERY cautiously introduced them, and after some tongue flicks and twitches, Sakura immediately started treating Scoria like her mother.