Is the ball python actually a social snake? What a group-living study found
Published by Planète Pets · managing editor: Clément Lacaille · how our guides are written
The ball python is almost always presented as a strictly solitary animal, to be housed alone except under carefully managed exceptions. A study by Morgan Skinner, Taylor Kumpan and Noam Miller, published in 2024 in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, nuances that assumption by observing how young ball pythons behave when given the choice to group together (see the study). Find our other pointers in the toys and enrichment section.
Contents · 5 sections
Thirty pythons, five groups, one arena
The researchers split thirty juvenile ball pythons, males and females mixed, into five groups of six, each tracked for ten days in a large arena. In parallel, each snake was also tested alone to measure its individual boldness and sociability before being placed back into its group.
A stable aggregate, not a fluke of the enclosure
The result is surprising: rather than spreading out across the arena, the pythons spent much of their time gathered into a single aggregate, organised around the same gathering spot from one session to the next. That consistency rules out mere chance or a simple attraction to one warm spot in the decor: the snakes were actively seeking contact with their group-mates, a behaviour never documented this clearly in the species before.
What the study does not show
The work covers only juveniles tracked in an experimental arena, not adults in a typical home terrarium. It says nothing either about the very real risks of housing several snakes together: food competition, injury from a misdirected prey bite during group feeding, or the spread of parasites and disease. The sociability measured here is a behavioural trait, not a health clearance to cohabit without precautions.
What this changes in practice
This study does not overturn the basic caution detailed in our guide on housing two reptiles in the same terrarium — always feed separately, never house very different sizes together, monitor closely. But it does invite a rethink of the assumption that a ball python living alone is automatically better off than one with visual or physical access to well-matched group-mates, in a space large enough for each animal to still retreat on its own.
Frequently asked questions
Can two ball pythons therefore be housed together without risk?
Not without precautions: the study documents aggregation behaviour in young animals in a controlled arena, not an absence of risk in a home terrarium. The usual safety rules — separate feeding, close monitoring, comparable sizes — remain essential.
Does a ball python living alone necessarily suffer?
No, nothing in the study indicates that: it shows a capacity for social living when the opportunity arises, not an absolute need for company to stay healthy. Find all our guides on the reptile hub.
An accessory from our shop for this use: Stick-on digital thermometer for aquarium and terrarium glass (€18.90) · the whole shop
This guide is part of Planète Pets’s Reptiles universe. Our advice is general in nature: for any health concern, your veterinarian remains the only reference.
