Why do bp's need humidity?

[spider_ball]

Aren't ball pythons native to West Africa? Why do we need to keep them at such a high humidity?

[BoostedMX3]

They are from africa yes.. But not all of africa is dry..

The humidity helps with sheds and they also absorb moisture thru the humidity in the air I think

[BHReptiles]

Ball pythons are not from the desert. They require humidity to help them shed.

[barbie.dragon]

Ball pythons are from the sub tropics/tropics (refering to climate zones) of Africa. They have a dry and wet season. The dry season only comes during the winter and rain during the summer. The humidity isn't terrible in the area. Ball pythons are regularly found in some sort of hole underground which has pretty good humidity and they most likely come out at night, which have colder temperatures and higher humidity. They need humidity like any other animal. If we loved in an area with 0% humidity we would get bloody noses, get dehydrated quickly and so forth. Ball pythons also periodically need higher than average humidity for shedding
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[The Serpent Merchant]

The average humidity in the parts of Africa that BP's come from is 80%... much higher than most of us keep our cages. Humidity is very important to BP's. They need it to shed properly, it helps to prevent RI, and overall is beneficial to their health.

Climate info for Ghana:

• Altitude; 68 m (223 ft).
• The average temperature in Ghana is 26.5 °C (80 °F).
• The range of average monthly temperatures is 4 °C.
• The warmest average max/ high temperature is 32 °C (90 °F) in January, February, March & April.
• The coolest average min/ low temperature is 21 °C (70 °F) in August.
• Ghana receives on average 787 mm (31.0 in) of precipitation annually or 66 mm (2.6 in) each month.
• On balance there are 77 days annually on which greater than 0.1 mm (0.004 in) of precipitation (rain, sleet, snow or hail) occurs or 6 days on an average month.
• The month with the driest weather is January, August when on balance 16 mm (0.6 in) of rainfall (precipitation) occurs.
• The month with the wettest weather is June when on balance 193 mm (7.6 in) of rain, sleet, hail or snow falls across 14 days.
• Mean relative humidity for an average year is recorded as 81.0% and on a monthly basis it ranges from 77% in February & March to 85% in June & July.
• Hours of sunshine range between 4.6 hours per day in July and 8.0 hours per day in November.
• On balance there are 2377 sunshine hours annually and approximately 6.5 sunlight hours for each day.
• On balance there are 0 days annually with measurable frost and in January there are on average 0 days with frost.