...Anyway, in an incident that goes with the theme of your post, I have a friend in the southern tier of NYS that purchased an old farmhouse with a crumbling foundation, built into a hillside. One winter I came to visit. He showed me his boiler room and told me to look at the walls closely. Upon inspection, the cracks in the walls revealed dozens of eastern milk snakes. Most of the snakes were moving around, albeit slowly. The temps along the wall were in the low forties (as per temp gun) and it appeared from the writhing masses that many of the snakes were courting or copulating. They were doing so in temps that most of us would be hesitant to utilize for brumation for fear that they would be too low. Yet these snakes were active and the females were clearly growing follicles and producing breeding pheromones. At the time I said "But their brumating?!?", however clearly they weren't. It took me a while to figure out that it was my perception of the situation, not the situation itself that was screwed up.

We need to understand that the rules and terms that are developed in this hobby are to help in our understanding of these animals. The fact that they cannot always explain a situation shows us that they should not be taken as gospel, but merely loose guidelines that should be considered fluid and evolving, not written in stone.

Thanks Man,

Geat post.

Will

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