Just a showing for those that think they are smarter....................

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

I'm glad you rescued her! :) glad she's in the hands of a caring owner. But I do have a question that plagues me every time I see a snake with a burn. Actually I just don't understand something that maybe you guys can help me understand. I don't want to start any kind of argument. I am just very confused about how ball pythons thermoregulate, now when they get to hot and move to a cooler place to cool down then move back to a warm place once they get to cool to warm back up. So they understand hot from cold right? It sounds stupid but I just don't understand why they wouldn't move from the heat source once they got too hot. Now if the heat source was across the whole underside of the tank and they couldn't escape from the heat I understand that. I don't know maybe I'm just dumb lol.


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I'm not positive but I believe physiologically their bodies do not recognize heat over a certain temp. Like most monitor lizards, if their ambients are too cold on the cold side they will not realize that they are too cold to move, then it becomes too late, and they spend too long in the cold and literally cannot move to the warmth. I forget the temp but it's something like 72° and they just stop feeling it.


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Originally Posted by Expensive hobby

I'm not positive but I believe physiologically their bodies do not recognize heat over a certain temp. Like most monitor lizards, if their ambients are too cold on the cold side they will not realize that they are too cold to move, then it becomes too late, and they spend too long in the cold and literally cannot move to the warmth. I forget the temp but it's something like 72° and they just stop feeling it.


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That may be true and I can understand that as well. I've heard that many times that they can tell hot from cold but not too hot from too cold. So with that being said don't they still register pain? Like if you put your hand in a fire you immediately pull away because it hurts. So even if they couldn't recognize heat over a certain temp wouldn't they still be able to realize that that extreme temp is causing them pain and try to move away from what's hurting them? Idk if you've ever put a ball python in a tub of just warm water to maybe clean them if they get nasty but most of the time they completely freak out and try to get out of the warm water that's not even hurting them. Why wouldn't they move away from a heat mat that's 100 degrees or more and causing them pain? It just doesn't make sense to me.


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Wow that's crazy!

Usually by time they get off the heat it can be too late.

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

That may be true and I can understand that as well. I've heard that many times that they can tell hot from cold but not too hot from too cold. So with that being said don't they still register pain? Like if you put your hand in a fire you immediately pull away because it hurts. So even if they couldn't recognize heat over a certain temp wouldn't they still be able to realize that that extreme temp is causing them pain and try to move away from what's hurting them? Idk if you've ever put a ball python in a tub of just warm water to maybe clean them if they get nasty but most of the time they completely freak out and try to get out of the warm water that's not even hurting them. Why wouldn't they move away from a heat mat that's 100 degrees or more and causing them pain? It just doesn't make sense to me.

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The bath water freak out is more a reaction to the water than temperature. They are terrestrial/non-aquatic animals after all.


Don't quote me on this because I could be totally wrong. Maybe they're even myths or speculation, I'm not sure.
But I've heard that it takes them a longer time to register pain compared to mammals. Kind of like a delayed reaction. And by time they do register that burn, it's too late.

And I've also heard something about pain receptors in the belly are not as sensitive?????? :confusd:

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Originally Posted by satomi325

The bath water freak out is more a reaction to the water than temperature. They are terrestrial/non-aquatic animals after all.


Don't quote me on this because I could be totally wrong. Maybe they're even myths or speculation, I'm not sure.
But I've heard that it takes them a longer time to register pain compared to mammals. Kind of like a delayed reaction. And by time they do register that burn, it's too late.

And I've also heard something about pain receptors in the belly are not as sensitive?????? :confusd:

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They're always in their belly, so wouldn't they naturally have something of a callus, or a translation of that occurrence on the belly scales?

Seems only natural to me.

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

I'm glad you rescued her! :) glad she's in the hands of a caring owner. But I do have a question that plagues me every time I see a snake with a burn. Actually I just don't understand something that maybe you guys can help me understand. I don't want to start any kind of argument. I am just very confused about how ball pythons thermoregulate, now when they get to hot and move to a cooler place to cool down then move back to a warm place once they get to cool to warm back up. So they understand hot from cold right? It sounds stupid but I just don't understand why they wouldn't move from the heat source once they got too hot. Now if the heat source was across the whole underside of the tank and they couldn't escape from the heat I understand that. I don't know maybe I'm just dumb lol.


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This is debatable, so far there is only a rough consensus that some captive animal will stay in an area they prefer even if the heat is too intense simply to avoid stress. I have seen this in some of my retics, I have a GC that stayed in his hide even when a thermostat malfunctioned last week, the heat went up to 105F, that machine was promptly returned and replaced; however, his intended mate and clutch mate are right beside each other in identical set ups and when I was testing out her thermostat, she avidly moved from it when the heat got to around 95F. I highly doubt pain reception is less intense in the abdominal areas...think about some of the places we find snakes, scrap yards, in farm equipment, near/on, thorn covered bushes, I doubt they would last long if that was the case, however I am also not saying with 100% accuracy.

Man that scar is nasty looking even now was she stitched back together ? cause some of those marks look like stitching scaring too. I remember when I started out I had a ( home made ceder cage with rat wire front and was told a hot rock was enough. I figure out real fast to use different heating( the ceder was never a issue for me ( but I replaced it with plywood cages when I needed room for larger snakes. I since moved to racks and wish I could get more for I know we will never stop getting new children lol( bp are our kids)

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Originally Posted by mechnut450

Man that scar is nasty looking even now was she stitched back together ?

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Nope, just burn

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Originally Posted by satomi325

But I've heard that it takes them a longer time to register pain compared to mammals. Kind of like a delayed reaction. And by time they do register that burn, it's too late.

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I don't know, if you've ever had to give a snake a shot of antibiotics, you can tell they register that discomfort PDQ!