I agree with you in theory; it would be interesting to see exactly what the soil makeup in Mali is...But, natural habitats are much more complex than they appear, or that we could ever reproduce in captivity...what appears to be nothing but hot, dry, sandy soil may have many micro-habitats within it..Conditions such as heat and humidity may be significantly different on the lee side of a sand dune or at the base of a bush or in a pile of rocks, and in the wild animals can move freely from micro-habitat to micro-habitat during the course of a day or over the course of a season...



Common water snakes spend 99% of their time in water or mud, but in captivity if they're kept on a wet substrate all the time they develop nasty skin conditions..At least one factor in this is that in the wild if they move briefly to a drier area the hot summer sun dries them out completely and almost instantly...they may go through half a dozen of these quick dries during a day; so far we haven't been able to reproduce this in captivity and they must be kept on a dry substrate with access to a normal size water bowl to do well...



It's probably most useful to study the conditions under which the successful breeders (as in two or more generations) keep their animals..So far it seems to me that there are a number of different options that work well, with the only constants being hot and dry, with access to slightly more humid hides or burrows..



Just my 2 cents worth (well, maybe more like a nickel)..



SR

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