Hi folks, ive just started feeding a very stubborn python live for the first time.
Shes been refusing frozen thawed for close to 6 months so I decided to give it a go.
As i was watching the encounter I noticed her tail flicking back n forth. Ive never seen her do this before, so I asumed she was excited by live prey.
But she did it again, and again (4 mice) only stopping after nailing them.
Im convinced its caudal luring im seeing.
Untill now I assumed this was only done by gtp's and adders etc.
Has anyone else seen tail luring in their pythons?

inny i used 2 feed 1 of my pythons live and the mouse neva hit the ground b4 it was in her mouth, i feed my pythons in a seperate box so they dont mistake ur hand as food wen u get em out as u c in all the ads good behaved once out of cage mine r good behaved in the cage too
sum ppl say that takin them out to feed them stress's them n causes them not to eat but i havnt had a problem with this
bak on the subject as i said my lil girl cos she noes her feedin box, she gets ready to strike and once i drop the mouse in she would strike it n catch it, so ive neva seen her do it n i neva have fed my big boy live b4 n i dont feed her live nymore 4 a no. of reasons

ive seen it in m snakes and what you sed about only in adders and gtps could be true but yet again inny anything is possible with herps and you no that, 2 headed beardies etc..... so they could be evolving to use this as a lure

What sort of python is is Inny? - Olives, bhp's and womas are notorious for the 'tail wagging' as well, Seen it a fair few times and was just talking about it to another herp just yesterday who said its more common in pythons than most realise! Cool stuff though!

Shes A Darwin, ive never seen her do it before, ill try to get a short video of it next feed. It was very strange, i couldnt work out what she was doing till it hit me, id seen it before, Im sure it was tail luring, very deliberate and continued till she hit it.

I have heard of this a few times now with Darwins so it may not be as rare as you'd think. My Brown tree snakes will do it from time to time but not to lure their prey so much as to distract it, the mouse looks at the tail wagging and never see's the snakes head coming towards it from the side or behind.

I have seen 2 of my olives wag their tail but not in luring but in excited way when ever I show them a mouse they not all time wag the tail before snatching the mouse from the tongs.
I do see but very very rarely seen them wag when i handle them too