Hi Mike,

Not all keepers have the same goals. If your goal is like my goal - to learn a bit more about the snake's business of living while keeping them in captivity - then there are benefits. Otherwise, no benefit at all, except maybe #1 below.

1. With the heater on the side, there is virtually no possibility of overheating. The snake has the entire cage to escape the heat, and this means the cage doesn't have to be as large to get the gradient.

2. Behavior observations: When I kept bottom heat at 82 deg, the snakes would spend by far most of time sitting over the heat. I thought that meant 82 deg was all they want to handle. But I was wrong. With this side heat in the 90-95 deg range, I see different behaviors.

I now see purposeful use of cool temps most of the time, and rather selective use of warm temps some of the time, much warmer than 82 deg. Sometimes I do see the snakes about 1/2" away from the heater in a crevice where their external body temp is around 80 deg. Point is, I see different scenarios now.

Maybe the snake ultimately desires the 80-82 deg F temp internally and employs the selective usage of higher and lower temps to get there. I'll let the field guys like FR determine if that is the case. However, if different needs require different temps for optimum performance (I think it does), then a different approach to keeping them, different than an average, may result in better breeding, more robust hatchlings, longer life, etc.
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Mark

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