Woma tail wagging considered caudal luring according to DECCW. Thoughts?

[rvcasa]

BHP & Womas (Asps) dont have a prehensile tail like other pythons (they cant wrap thier tail around and grip anything) I could easily believe that a BHP or woma might position its body under leaf litter or soil on a frequently used path/track and when an animal walks between the tail and the mouth.... a quick wiggle would make the animal run away from the disturbance.... straight for the snakes mouth

Womas are not ambush predators, they don't just sit still and wait for their prey either...
Being a desert species, food is scarce and their diet persists mostly of cold blood reptiles (that's why they don't have or need heat pits) they're always on the look out for food as they never know when the next meal is available. So most of time they hunt their prey in their burrows and because it's often a tight space (unable to coil), Womas then press their prey against the inside walls for suffocation.

My Woma quite often rubs his face against the walls of it's enclosure after a meal, my son says "he's wiping it's mouth clean". I let him think that, but I wonder if it really has anything to do with it's bottom jaw being dislodge after a large meal and he's trying to put it back in place as he always stretches his bottom jaw splitted ways (one side goes up and the other goes down, then the inverse), but these does not last for longer than 3-5 mins. or so!

I've also observerved the head rubbing against the enclosure walls for longer periods of time (and a few days/weeks in a row) just before shedding and during shedding for 2 hours or so.

As for climbing, there has been two different Womas spotted and photographed, hunting lizzards on a tree top, 5 meters up hight! (google UQ PhD student Melissa Burton, tracking Womas with the help of Australia Zoo)

 

[Lizzy90]

I was holding and stroking a woma last week and he started to wag his tail. First time I have seen it and I must say, whatever reason they do it, its simply the cutest thing to see.

 

[Channaz]

My six month old woma is always very excited just after consuming a meal. I have never seen it wag its tail before or during a feed; only shortly afterwards, like what you mentioned with yours, rvcasa.

I don't have any footage, but my woma's tail wag is different to the one in rvcasa'a video. I was stunned when I first saw it (and I've only seen it a couple of times so far). The tail was moving in a very un-python like way and it was more of an exaggerated flicker than a wag, if that makes sense. For what its worth, the head was reasonably close to the tail at this time.

As for whether womas do engage in caudal luring, I don't have a strong opinion either way, but it's an interesting topic.