Posted by:
mkraft
at Sat Nov 29 14:05:58 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by mkraft ]
I'm interested in any specific information anyone has about snakes getting burned by laying on surfaces that are too hot.
I'm interested in corn snakes, king and milk snakes, small pythons and small boas.
I know the conventional wisdom: hot rocks burn snakes because they have hot spots; snakes don't have a way to sense heat coming from below and thus sustain burns; reptiles react to things differently than we warm blooded mammals do.
What I'm interested in is finding out if anyone has specific information, rather than third hand generic conventional wisdom.
For example, if a snake were to lay on a surface temperature of exactly 80 degrees for two hours, would that create a burn? What if the surface temperature were exactly 90 degrees? Or exactly 100 degrees? or exactly 110? or 120?
Is there a temperature that will absolutely guarantee a burn? For example, red-hot steel would produce a burn, almost instantly I'd think. What about boiling temperature, say around 200 degrees? Would that guarantee a burn? What about 180, or 150?
Another issue is thermoregulation. I understand the need for a temperature gradient. It assumes that the snake will instinctively move from a hotter area when it needs to be cooler and from a cooler area when it needs to be warmer. I've even heard about watching the snake: if it spends all its time in the warm end, the tank is probably too cool overall; if it spends all its time in the cool end, the tank is probably too warm overall.
Would a snake continue to lay on an overheated surface long enough to burn, or would it move away, seeking a cooler part of the tank, due to the instinctive need to thermoregulate?
Of course, that relates to the issue of burning by adding a time element. If a snake is unlikely to remain in an overheated spot after its central body temperature rises (it will thermoregulate by moving away), then the real issue becomes one of timing. How hot must a surface be in order to create a burn in the skin of the snake before the overall snake body temperature warms up enough to cause the snake to move away?
I would think that a particular concern could be pinpoint hot spots, such as the infamous malfunctioning hot rock, or an exposed incandescent light or ceramic heater than can touch the snake on one small spot. In that case, the heat energy might build up to create a pinpoint burn long before the snakes body temperature would rise enough to trigger movement due to thermoregulation.
If the snake is lying on a large overheated surface, the snake might well move away before the time interval that would be required for a burn. That is, perhaps 120 degrees could cause a snake to sustain a burn IF the temperature were applied to a small spot for at least 20 minutes, but no snake would ever remain on that sort of overheated surface for 20 minutes at a time. (I've made up those last numbers for illustration purposes only.)
So, does anyone know the actual limits or specific behavior in these circumstances?
Finally, has anyone ever had a snake get burned? What caused it? Was it an incandescent lamp, a ceramic emitter, a hot rock, an undertank heater, or something else? Do you know the surface temperature of the item that caused the burn?
Thanks for sharing anything you know.
Michael
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 burning a snake - mkraft, Sat Nov 29 14:05:58 2003
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