I was curious about people's thoughts or experiences on heat sensing in epicrates. I have an E. c. alvarezi and an E. c. 'guyana', and both seem to have what looks like the beginnings of pits along their upper labials. I know that b. constrictor has extremely heat-sensitive labials in spite of lacking pits, and it seems that epicrates might possess an intermediate degree of heat-sensing organ development as compared to corallus. This might already be common knowledge, but I have not read any discussion of heat sensing in epicrates.

I, for one, have seen what looks like heat sensing in the alvarezi - once while feeding her a room-temperature rodent in dim light she went after my hand, ten inches away from the mouse - something that could happen for all kinds of stupid reasons, of course, but very odd behavior for her.

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• heat sensing - billysbrown, Thu Aug 7 09:14:50 2003
• RE: heat sensing - Jeff Clark, Thu Aug 7 10:18:25 2003
• RE: heat sensing - Christine_Calmes, Thu Aug 7 20:43:04 2003