Mark photo periods are natural of what comes into the window.

We've discussed that photo period might have an impact on behavior as well and I think it would be pretty easy to test.

The working hypothesis goes that feeding response is a function what I call total heat or heat X photo period. As an example of how this might work lets say you have a hot spot at 80. If the photo period drops below 8 hours the snake's instinct says not enough total heat to properly digest and curbs intake. We've all seen how many snakes quite often will start to shut down at the end of summer but will take smaller items.

Conversely if the hot spot is at 95 the photo period can drop below 6 hours and the snake still feeds because it senses that there is enough total heat to support proper digestion. When I increased the thermal gradient on my coastal plains milks they kept right on feeding when they had shut down as early as late August in prior years.

The upshot is that given the higher hot spot they kept eating through the winter and though the females were in condition to ovulate the males wheren't in sync with them. The interesting part is that my getula don't seem to have an issue, the coastals are adapting to the protocol but the thayeri have been a bust even with a modest forced cooling period.
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