Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is a series of pics taken two days ago. Its on my site which has lots and lots of hognose. This time of year there is very little surface activity. Which means the snakes are doing what they do, in the ground.
The temps were taken at 9:30 am, you can tell from the shadows. Exactly where hogs live.

Second pic, 2 inches down

Six inches down;

Heres a Mohave rattlesnake sitting in the shade at 4:00 pm. In the shade of a bush in fairly high temps
here is a closer shot showing the snake is has made a pallet, where the snake is slightly in the ground, this is done to regulate temps. The cooler in ground temps vs. the hotter surface temps.
Also the surface of the ground is lite and totally dry, once I dug in a few inches, the ground was moist and dark, you can see that in the deeper pics. As you can see, while our air temps are high, the mass temps are not and anything greater then a few inches is cool. At this time of year, the air humidity is very low. The snakes rarely use the surface until the mass temps warm up and it rains to increase the surface humidity. ITs then they use the surface more commonly. Until then, at this site, they are stuck in an underground existence. Its were they live. Questions the snake pics will be in part 2

While hogs and rattlesnakes seem to have similar looking skin, Crots(rattlesnakes) do spend time on the surface, like in this case, a hunting position. They seem to tolerate drying conditions far better then hognose. Thank you

Hey Frank,
Just out of curiosity, what was the ambient temps that day? It is funny how many people confuse surface basking temps with ambient air temps. Got into a bit of an argument with someone over this. They said that the species they keep comes from an area where the average temperature is 85 degrees and that if they are kept with a basking temperature higher than that, they will not do well. My argument was that they can offer a hotter basking spot well into the 90's and offer them a proper gradient. This will widen the snakes options. As in most cases, it seems to fall on deaf ears and the some of the people involved in the thread refuse to believe that the ambient air temps are that much different from the basking areas and that the snakes would not use those basking areas anyway.

The first set was in the mourning and the temps were in the low seventies. The high that day was 82F.

You are absolutely right, air temps are related but so so very loose to what snakes use. Ground temps in the sun are much much higher then air temps. Ground mass temps in the spring are far lower then in the fall at the same air temps. etc. Also angle to the sun. Many snakes pick winter sites that are angled to the sun, those areas stay warmer longer into the winter.

Your right again, good captive basking/hot spot temps for snakes are between 95F and 105F. As long as the snake can get away from that heat and that heat does not heat up the whole cage. I have seen hogs hotter then that, in the field.
So what species are we talking about?
With varanids, I had this argument a million times and some folks get those numbers in an odd way. Once a fella told me that it does not get hotter then 95F in Australia. And he knew because he read it in a book. I guess that person has never been to OZ. Specially places like Marble Bar and Goldsworthy(Death valley temps or above, 130's and up) Those two places have Red Ackies.