I've been trying to understand heating problems, with regard to burning snakes, and it appears that I've hit upon a major difference between the more primitive snakes (boas and pythons) and the more recently evolved snakes (colubrids).



I had a number of people warn me about the danger of burning snakes if the floor is too hot (either due to UTH or heat tape laying on the inside floor of the enclosure). Over and over, people shared stories (mostly of ball pythons, but some of the larger boas) just stupidly lying on a hot surface until the snake was badly burned.



What about colubrids?



I adopted a corn snake, complete with the 10 gallon aquarium and UTH which had been its home while with the original owner, and while with an experienced herper in the rescue society. Frankly, the glass was so hot it would have burned me, and I could not keep my hand on the cage floor for more than perhaps 10 seconds until I was absolutely compelled to move by the heat.That's pretty scary, and certainly, that's absolutely guaranteed to burn a snake. Yet, this little cornsnake, subadult, had lived there its whole life without incident.



To be clear, the glass floor was under an inch of wood shavings, and the top of that substrate was only mildly warm, perhaps 90 degrees. However, the snake did burrow, and from what I've seen, colubrids in general really enjoy burrowing. I was worried that the snake would burrow down next to the hot floor and get burned. Yet, over time, the snake consistently chose to use it's hide box, resting entirely on the surface of the substrate. Not one time did I find it resting beneath the substrate. And it never got burned.



However, I got worried after hearing all the horror stories of burned pythons and boas, so I turned off the UTH altogether. The tank now only had the overhead ceramic heat emitter, so the tank remained nice and warm. However, the floor was no longer hot underneath the substrate.



IMMEDIATELY, the snake changed it's behavior. It burrowed into the substrate, and I consistently found it resting beneath the substrate, in direct contact with the floor (now cool), which it seemed to prefer over the hide box.



So that leads me to believe that the snake was well aware of the hot floor, and knew to avoid it. Also, the snake was instantly aware when the floor changed to cool, and began using the substrate immediately. This all speaks to a level of awareness in colubrids that is clealy lacking in the more primitive snakes (pythons and boas).



I did a quick test in another enclosure. In that case, there was flexwatt tape inside the cage, on the floor. It only felt warm to my human hand. The temp gun showed my normal and temperature to be about 94 degrees, and the heat tape to be about 120. I could have rested my hand on that heat tape indefinitely, without harm or discomfort.



I put in a full grown snow corn. There was no substrate in the cage. As the snake explored the cage, it slithered past the heat tape. The heat tape is not quite as wide as the cage (say 11 inch heat tape versus a 13 inch wide floor). So the snake did not need to crawl directly over the heat tape if it just kept to the very edge of the tank. Nonetheless, as the snake crawled by the heat tape, it lifted it's head off the surface. As the head made it past the foot long section of 11 inch heat tape, it again went down to the ground. That left a section of the snake holding the shape of a shallow arch, about 11 inches from end to end, and about one to two inches high in the center. As the snake continued to slither by, the body just continued to move through that arch. The snake was resting on the floor of the cage everywhere else, but it was moving through the arch as if there were an invisible mound on only that part of the cage. It appeared that the snake was well aware of the 120 degree tape, and was intentionally avoiding touching it, even as it slithered by.



I was intrigued. I reached in and pushed the center of the snake, which was lying on the floor, so that the snake was now directly over the heat pad. Very quickly, the snake moved itself to the edge of the heat tape. Note, the tail and the head didn't move much, other than the normal forward slithering motion we all know and love. But the middle section, which was over the tape, moved sideways until it was no longer over the hot tape.



Again, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this snake was instantly aware of the heat tape, and very intentionally took action to avoid direct contact with that tape.



On the basis of these two experiments, I find it almost impossible to believe that a colubrid (at least a corn snake) could EVER get a burn, so long as part of the tank is cool.



In fact, one fellow told me a story about a piece of heat tape that failed, turning black and ruined, burning the melamine, and causing the smell of burnt wood shavings to permeate his snake room. It took him a day to figure out where the smell was coming from, and by then, the tape and melamine were both scorched and ruined. He had a snake in that cage which was entirely unharmed by the incident: it just moved to the cool side of the cage. (Of course, a house fire would have hurt that snake PLUS all the others, so it isn't to be taken lightly.) I don't know for sure what kind of snake that is, but I'd be willing to bet it wasn't a ball python.



I know that putting deep water in a cage doesn't lead to drowned snakes. Even if you put them into a bucket that's 2 inches deep (say, due to snake mites), they don't drown. They just hold their heads above water. What's so different about avoiding getting burned?



I'm now wondering if ALL the horror stories about burned snakes come from pythons and boas. Has anyone ever heard of a colubrid getting burned? The one story I heard was due to a heat lamp of some sort, not a heated floor. How do colubrids get burned, and where on their body?



From the little I've managed to learn, it seems that the heating requirements for primitive snakes is a far more delicate matter than it is for colubrids. The colubrids have evolved the ability to sense heat, and to sensibly avoid it. The pythons and boas will go to sleep on a stovetop burner, by the sounds of things.



Of course, that means that cage design for the primitive snakes has to take into account this lack of ability to protect themselves from burns, whereas the colubrids have a much higher level of self-protection already incorporated into their brain chemistry.



Any comments?



Michael Kraft

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• colubrids versus primitive snakes (pythons) - mkraft, Sat Dec 6 14:21:24 2003
• Temperate vs. Tropical??? - chris_harper2, Sat Dec 6 15:02:37 2003
• couple of other comments... - chris_harper2, Sat Dec 6 15:36:58 2003
• RE: Temperate vs. Tropical??? - mkraft, Sun Dec 7 23:37:31 2003