>>Cooling a snake or any reptile for that matter reduces the metabolism of that animal. We all agree on this of course. What it does NOT reduce is the animal's awareness of what is going on. Just because they look asleep doesn't mean that they are. Cooling is not a method of anesthesia or analgesia.

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>>Have any of you ever experienced frostbite?



it's important not to forget mammals react to cold differently than reptiles (warm vs cold blooded). Have you ever seen a turtle or snake shiver as temps declined? Nope. But in mammals the body fights hard to resist the cooling body temps (something that would seem to be inocuous to reptiles). In mammals the muscles under the skin twitch in an effort to generate heat to fight the cold. We shiver, shake, and in general experience a reaction to cold that's at the least unpleasant and at the worst agonizing--because we're fighting it, because we must, for survival. A reptile on the other hand goes thru this dropping of body temps annually, in varying degrees depending on location. I can't lprove it, but i cast my lot with those here who believe the gradual cooling creates a condition of stupor that eventually passes into total shutdown of the systems (and death).



terry

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