red-bellied snakes

How do they communicate with each other?

Red-bellied Snakes communicate with each other primarily through touch and smell, especially during breeding. Outside of the breeding season they do not interact much with other snakes. They use their forked tongues to collect chemicals from the air and insert these forks into a special organ in the roof of their mouth, which interprets these chemical signals. Snakes are also sensitive to vibrations and have reasonably good vision.

Communication and happiness. Do they have anything to do with one another? Are the snakes happy?

I came across "The World Map of Happiness"- you need to check this out. Watching young boys in the woods for a couple weeks, as they gift you daily with toads and snakes - but have little need for communication - at least the kind that I can truly understand. And yet, it is obvious that they are happy. And the dog - who must remain leashed when outside in the city - is delightfully happy when she can run and swim and chase her charges (the young boys).

Adrian White said “The concept of happiness, or satisfaction with life, is currently a major area of research in economics and psychology, most closely associated with new developments in positive psychology....” My cynical translation when hearing the worlds "happiness" and "economics and psychology" is that they are trying to figure out new ways to get us to think we need to buy more useless stuff. And yet there are so many simple pleasures to be had.

Why do we forget that so easily?


More quotes from the Happiness Map site:
"There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjuntion with measures of wealth. A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the Government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier."

"Further analysis showed that a nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51)."

“There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per captia, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.”

An entire two lazy weeks up north. Home now and back to school and a schedule. The sabbatical year is officially over for and it has been a wonder and a gift.