Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I tried getting to this point before, but somehow got banned. So I will skip all the drama and get to it.

I posted a kingsnake in a crevice. I did so to show a snake thermoregulating. The problem was, everyone seemed to get it backward. That is, they thought the rock was warm and thats why they were in there. Hmmmmmmmmm totally and 180degrees wrong.

The rock is the mass, its the base temp the snake works from. The mass is commonly in the 50's to 60'sF range Never above 75F. The reptiles then move towards the surface to heat up, and back to cool down.

So when some here thought you should put a fake crevice or retes boards under the lite or Heat emitter, they were totally off to how a snake or other reptile uses this type of heating.

Here are some reptiles using cracks. Enjoy

Now if the comments go well, I have another series showing some actual temps in the field. I would post them now, but my fingers are tired. Cheers

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~Maggie~

"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious."
1.1 Cal Kings (Spot and Fry)
1.0 Florida King (Gamble)
1.0 Ball Python (Mitch)
0.1 Red Belly Piranha (Fluffy)
1.0 Australian Shepherd (Spooky)
1.0 Springer Spaniel/Beagle mix (Snoopy)
0.1 Cat (Ecco)

My neighbor threatened to put a boot up my crack once, lol! We have hard pack clay soil down here, the herps move down to the bottom to cool and up under surface cover to heat up, it is moist under the boards, rocks, etc., with most shedding done under ground.
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Todd Hughes

Very cool pictures. Haha, I was about to ask about those temps when I read the last line.

How far into a crack changes temp and how far back do you need to go to get that constant temp?

Is that a green rat in the 3rd from the last pic?

Also, I am not sure why but whenever you post pics not all of them show up at once. I checked them out this morning and then just looked at them again and a few pictures loaded that were not there this morning. Weird.

I have no idea why the pics do that.

And yes, thats a greenrat. My partner and I have done some surveys on them. They are very very common. One of the most plentiful snakes in their habitat. They have habitat across much of southern Az and it covers lots of land. The problem is, they live in areas where roads are hard to make, so few roads cross their habitat.

I also produce them yearly. Thank goodness they do not have lots of eggs.

What is odd about greenrats is, the type of shelter that I see them in is rock, instead of trees. My bet is they use both and the ground, like everything else. I hope to do some more work with them this year.

Lyresnakes which are thought of as rock dwellers also use trees. Hmmmmmmmmm what do they know?

Your questions about temps is very specific and each case above has different conditions. So the answer to each would be different.

I will post a sample of temps soon. Cheers

I love those Yarrow's Spiny Lizards.

Out of curiosity, Frank, when you say that folks are misguided by putting a Retes' Stack under a heat source - what do you mean? How do you create a gradient without heat?
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Diego

SWCHR

With snakes, the stack is the base temp and a side or only the top layer is the heat source, which means a very small heat source.

The stack or mass has to include the cool mass. Folks here, heated the whole stack and then wonder why it doesn't work well or at all. The stack or group of crevices, are suppose to have a range of temps from cool to warm, not warm to hot.

In practice, this is so very easy to do. Just use small heat sources and try heating one side. There is a scale to this, the hiding areas need to be fairly large. At least large enough to include a range of temps.

One example posted here had a tiny stack under a large heat emitter. Exactly backwards of what it should be. Anyway, thanks for the great question. Cheers

Hey Old Man, show these guys the photo of the white/Tan Rattle snake that you found in a crack a few years back. If I remember right that was an AWESOME photo. Take Care, Franks Non Biologist Partner! Marty.

FR wrote, "I have another series showing some actual temps in the field. I would post them now, but my fingers are tired. "

I am looking forward to these pics. Your fingers must be tired from digging up all the Varanus eggs!

That ringneck is way cool! It looks like it has a ring around the neck. The ones I have seen in SE AZ did not have a ring.

Those Green Rats may be common, but they are so hard to see, at least for me. I hope you will report on them as you learn more.

FR,
I was the guy who posted the heat emitter over the crevices, with the goal of getting the snake to use the rocks

You are correct about the outcome. Snake (small pyro) didn't even go near the crevices.

So my dilema: I didn't want to heat them from below, because that was against the goal. Heating from above didn't coax the snake into the rocks, at least not with too wide of a heat beam that covered the stack.

Then I thought, what about the side? But nobody does that, do they? What the heck, nothing to lose.

I mounted a heat pad to the side of the cage and pushed the rock stack against that side. That simple. Most of the stack is essentially ambient temp except for where it meets the heated side. Now what I see is the snake in there, often with just a small portion of its body pressed against the heater. Sometimes his head and neck, sometimes more midbody.

Rocks are cooler, crevice edge is warm. So that is when they use crevices. If the rocks are warm as a whole, exposing themselves in a crevice is not necessary if they seek warmth. So obvious. I even knew this from my zonata sightings, and yet the application escaped me at home for captives.

I guess I can do the same thing with the heat emitter, but the rock stack needs to be large enough so most of it is away from the wide heat beam if I expect to see a snake using a crevice. Will be great to try on adults.
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Mark

Mark, I would love to see pics of this if you are willing to share.

Thanks!
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1.0.0 Lampropeltis getula holbrooki
0.1.0 Lampropeltis getula californae
0.0.1 Lampropeltis getula nigra
1.0.0 Lampropeltis mexicana thayeri
2.3.0 Eublapharis macularius macularius
0.0.2 Rhacodactylus ciliatus
0.1.0 Gerrhosaurus major major

Of course. I will take some soon. Hard to see the snake most of the time because in my case, the snake exposes himself against the heated side of the cage, so not obviously visible like the snakes in FRs pictures.

I learned something about these animals by experimenting with the cage setup reinforced by FRs posts. These kings really do use "cool" as their base. And given just a small basking area (side of cage only for them to but up against), they have to be and are selective about which part of the body they heat. I have seen the food bolus heating about 3 or 4 times now in this little cage. And the head heating is interesting too, and I have seen that enough times to know it is purposeful.
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Mark

There you go Mark, your starting to get it. What you saw in the field can be duplicated in captivity, If you understand what the animals are doing.

My last picture is of a banded rock rattlesnake heating up a food bolus. Notice, every part of the snake is in shadow, except the food bolus. Hmmmmmmmmm how tell tail is that?

Snakes work from cool or cold to warm, and in most cases do so regionally. That is, a part of the body is heated, the part that needs heat. You know may see(start to understand) the snakes do this for several reasons, security is one, but conservation of energy is another. They are so attuned to conservation they do not heat up the whole body. So no energy is wasted. This also depends on the type of snake. Snakes that are daily feeders in nature, like waters, racers or garters, can effort to waste energy to a point and heat the whole body.

Actually my field partner uses side heat alot. He keeps montane rattlesnakes and he keeps them in tanks. He uses a small lite aimed at the side of the cage. That gives a small heat spot and a decent temp range, in a relatively small cage.

This is the point that really gets me. In order to duplicate what these snakes do in nature, you must have a decent understanding of why they are doing it. Yet, some biologists, claim these animals do not do these things, and cannot in captivity. So they dimiss the snakes abilities. Hmmmmmm no respect for nature I guess.

For instance a key trait with montane kings that use cracks is, they must have the ability to enter and exit the crack without coming out. Hmmmmmmmmmmm why would that be important? Cheers

Thank you FR for all the info and for prodding me to re-think my approach. This is just energizing - seeking to understand the snakes and duplicate even just a little in captivity. And another wonderful thing, I can try this stuff with a $25 pyro that nobody wanted (lots of black on the dorsum) just the same as with some expensive morph. So the meaning of morphs (for me) just got more meaningless, in other words my desire for morphs wasn't really about understanding the snakes at all, and that is somewhat liberating (and will save lots of future $$).
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Mark

I love pretty snakes and morphs and even crosses. But I appreciate them and enjoy them as snakes first.

I really like to see how these wonderful animals exsist and what makes them, THEM. Cheers