What I like about cornsnakes...

Hey everyone, I'm up late and I don't feel like doing homework or cleaning my room so I decided to write a list of what I like about cornsnakes.
I hope I make sense!

1. They're pleasing to the eye. I don't even mean their colors. They just have a pretty body and big eyes and a nicely shaped head. Everything is perfect. I mean, I see some pictures of like..a ball python and they are so thick! They don't even look proportional to their length or anything. No offense to ball pythons.
2. The little hole where their tongues come out. It's just so cute!
3. Their own little unique head patterns.
4. This is kind of hard to explain without visual aids but I'll try. I like the little black marks along the "lips" of a snake that line up when the mouth is closed. No reason. I just like it.
5. Their eyes. Some snakes have really ugly looking eyes. Some animals have ugly eyes. Some people have ugly eyes too Corns don't in my opinion. They're so perfectly round and they come in different colors. The red eyes used to scare me a bit but now I like them. I sometimes see a grayish color on some snakes and I think that's really pretty. I judge people/animals by their eyes usually. A cute puppy's big adorable round eyes. A mean old cat's mean slitty eyes. (not ALL cats are mean, just an example!) A nice person's kind eyes. A mean person's mean eyes. etc. (It's harder with people..) You probably get the idea by now.
6. The way they won't let go of their food once they latch on. Mine sometimes lunges and gets the middle or the side of a pinkie and he doesn't ever let go to look for the head. Instead, he shifts his grip over until he finds the head. or the other end too sometimes. It's so adorable!
7. How pudgy and bulging females get when they're almost ready to lay.
8. When their eyes go cloudy.
9. When they soak in their water bowls. Of course mine never does because of his hydrophobia, but my friend's snake does and it's just so cute!
10. How they're just so curious! Or dumb..either reason can account for one crawling down a sink drain and not showing up for half a month, then popping up in another sink! (for those who don't know that story you can ask me about it and i'll post/email it)
11. How they finally get used to you and your touch after a long time of handling and don't flinch anymore. Well not as much.
12. The way their tongues flick out and softly touch the surface they're slithering on. Sometimes, if you put a piece of paper under the head area, you can actually hear the sound of the tongue flicking the paper as it comes out of the snakes mouth.
13. How they try to shove their faces into every corner they find. Sometimes when I'm holding mine, he pushes his head in between my arm and my body.
14. How they pull themselves out of something if they decide they want to go somewhere else. Like sometimes when mine gets his head and a little bit of his body into a space and then changes his mind and withdraws. Know what I mean?
Well, now that I've wasted like..I don't even know..maybe 30 minutes? of my time, I'll go back to doing my English homework now. Feel free to add to the list or ask me why in the WORLD do I like this or that about snakes.
Madame Bovary, here I come..

I just think Iris had too much free time, but I do agree corn snakes are addictive.

So what is the story about going down a sink drain? Sounds interesting. . .

corns vs. cats

I hate Madame Bovary, I just wrote a paper contrasting the movie to the book, all in french ack!
You hit all the things I like about corns too, except that they don't sit infront of the computer screen while you're trying to type, like Mia my cat. I wish they had small corn sized cats that would live in aquariums and when they start to get in the way,plop, nappy time, go in your aquarium and sleep.

Well here's the sink drain story. A couple of months ago, I was keeping my snake at school (in my biology teacher's classroom) for a few days to show other kids and help them get over their fears and stuff. My teacher has 2 adult amelanistic corns, but a lot of kids are intimidated by them because they are big. I was surprised at the amount of kids who wanted to hold a "little baby one" and girls who scream when they see the big ones were like "Awww how cute!!" about my baby.
Anyway, one day, he somehow got out and probably explored the countertop until he fell into one of the 7 sinks in that classroom. Of course I didn't know all this at first but I kind of guessed since there was a huge sink right next to where his tank was. Anyway,
for about two weeks he was missing and I thought he crawled down the sink drain and died. So I had pretty much given up. Then he popped up in an adjacent classroom. A girl was about to turn on the water to wash her hands but noticed a little orangey brown striped snake crawling out of the drain. Apparently the girl started freaking out (she was petrified of snakes) and so Xavier was found! yay! Poor girl though, what a surprise for someone who is scared of snakes

Yes I did have a lot of time...It has been my school's spring vacation for the past week

I have to write a term paper on Madame Bovary, about how Emma's downfall is her own fault. Compared to you writing your entire paper in French, this sounds easy! But it's not Good thing I take Italian instead of French. I can rest assured I'll never have to write a paper about Madame Bovary all in French. Thank goodness!

your lucky

aww your so lucky,
I wish my teacher would let me bring my cornsnake to school.All he's says he's scared of them. I wish I went to your school iris and had cool teachers that will actually let you do fun stuff. oh well. Just thought you should know how very lucky you are . Oh also i'm glad you found your snake after it went in the drain. It's also a good thing to try and get people over there fear of snakes!
see ya! Hope you and your snake have a good year! That goes for everyone else on the board.

hehe yeah my teacher is pretty cool. He also has a bearded dragon and 2 tanks of fish. Lots of animals I like.
Sounds like your teacher needs help getting over his fear of snakes...maybe you could help him one day.

It's good to hear that education is getting more hands on, and hands on keeps kid interested. One of the high schools down here in Melbourne has a teacher who breeds corn snakes as part of his course study for the term. I just wish back in my day teachers were willing to go that extra mile like some of todays educators.

PS Only using plumbing snakes in drains instead of corns j/k

plumbing snakes..har har...
hehe
Yeah it's great..and it probably helps that he's actually a good teacher (what a change!) and he's interesting. Which doesn't hurt when you're trying to get the class to listen to what you're teaching.
Wow that teacher is really going the extra mile for his course. I'd like to breed cornsnakes and study it! and get graded on it! What a treat that would be.

THe one thing that I didn't like about high school biology was all the disections, we even had to disect a snake. I just watched I didn't have the heart to do anything other than watch from the far end of the table. Of course I'm taking my last science class next semester her at UWSP and the prof. specializes in herp stuff.
Hopefuly I won't be staring at any little shriveled greenish smelly snakes on my disection tray.

Dont they have the disection program for computer. I remember that back when I was in school even had it in college at GSU.

I don't know. My high school didn't until the year after I took bio. just my luck. I'll have to ask. I'm sure there's some way to get around it and still get the credit. So long as the prof. isn't a hard nosed and against "alternative research methods" I'll just say it's against my religion to disect snakes or something.

About that list...

A cute puppy's big adorable round eyes.

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I believe we're actually pre-programmed to recognize certain features as "cute," which is supposed to bring out parental instincts in us. One of those is (proportionally) large eyes. I'd heard about this in a psych class in college, and I think there's a lot of merit to it.

I mean, I see some pictures of like..a ball python and they are so thick! They don't even look proportional to their length or anything. No offense to ball pythons.

Click to expand...

Just wait until you see a hatchling BP, especially in person. There are some jaw-dropping gorgeous corns out there, but BP hatchlings are the most adorable snakes I've ever seen. I just want to pick them up and talk baby talk to them.

Hey Serpwidgets~after I read your post about ball pythons, I went and looked up pics on the net and you were right! (of course you probably didn't need me to confirm that but...They ARE cute! I guess it's because they don't look quite as thick and their heads are really cute looking. But they're a little too thick for me once the grow up. I think corns stay cute for their whole lives. Don't I sound like a classic teenage girl when I say "cute" all the time? I'll try to stop.
And I really do agree that there is something in the whole preprogrammed thing. I think I just proved it with my list lol. Seriously though...some things are just so cute and I don't even know why. Psychology sure sounds interesting..except the only psych-related stuff I know is the id..ego..superego...lol.

the poll

iris,
i was checking your poll and i'm afraid i can't log a proper response for you as there is no all of the above option. if this is an oversight that can easily be remedied let me know and i will surely cast my ballot. ---jim

hehe I think the only person who can change the poll is the "moderator." Which is Rich? administrator? moderator?