dogsignalfire:

I have a friend who has been living in Ghana for a few months and befriended some snake people involved in catching wild ball pythons, among other native snake species! Exciting stuff, he got deets on where ball pythons are found, straight from the trapper/exporter (named Gyasi) himself… I told him to ask for more exact percentages on where they’re mostly found in Africa:

55% in “the bush” near ponds
25% under rocks
10% under trees when they are well fed/full
10% around trash areas (like literally in piles of trash apparently LOL)

No mention of termite mounds or “hiding in holes their whole life”, at least from this trapper. Go figure?

My friend also hasn’t seen very many grassland areas or open areas in Ghana at least where he is, even the drier areas have a lot of low-growing trees. 

He went with his trapper group on a short expedition lately too, and that sounded exciting, getting to see the native range and habitat of these animals.

So in conclusion: ball pythons have a very wide natural habitat range! They are not solely ambush predators like gaboons, and definitely not living in holes and hiding their whole life. Funny thing, the trapper mentioned nothing of holes or termite mounds himself haha. I think my friend brought up the “holes and termite mounds” thing, and Gyasi was just like “?????” If the holes thing is from other trappers, it must be only one very small part of how ball pythons live!

Anyway, I think these are exciting and interesting details, because obviously the average keeper/breeder’s knowledge that is constantly preached in the states on their natural habitat and living conditions is quite skewed. And it’s always nice to be more informed about the animals we are keeping and the way they are kept. The more knowledge, the better!