BHB gives info on some scaleless concerns

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

Well, with the sensitivity of the subject, claims need to be substantiated.

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sensitivity? lol and im sorry I didn't record or video tape my conversation with Eugene in Daytona. not something I do every day.

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Originally Posted by zach_24_90

sensitivity? lol and im sorry I didn't record or video tape my conversation with Eugene in Daytona. not something I do every day.

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So, you had a single conversation?

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

thats basic physics and geometry, based on the fact that any kind of skin or flesh is intransparent to infrared, even otherwise transparent eyeballs are intransparent to it.

and ill let Richard Dawkins explain the geometry issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEKyqIJkuDQ (of course the part where the lens comes in no longer applies to heat pits; the lens would be intransparent to infrared so the pit has to stay open.)

and a physics article about it:
http://phys.org/news76249412.html

http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/2006/Snake.jpg

you can find many more articles that mention the importance of the geometry of the pit and explaining that the snake figures out the direction by feeling which parts of the pit heat up and which dont. you can find it in physics, biology and herpetology articles.

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I've actually been able to find precious little about the pit organs of boas and pythons, which are a little bit different from pit vipers. The idea is general the same though, IIRC. It does make me wonder how scaleless rattlesnakes have fared though.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

So, you had a single conversation?

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No. That's just the last time I saw him and we spoke about it. Supposed to be going out to the farm soon. What has you so upset man? Like who pooed on your pancakes to piss you off lol is this THAT Important to you?

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

thats basic physics and geometry, based on the fact that any kind of skin or flesh is intransparent to infrared, even otherwise transparent eyeballs are intransparent to it.

and ill let Richard Dawkins explain the geometry issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEKyqIJkuDQ (of course the part where the lens comes in no longer applies to heat pits; the lens would be intransparent to infrared so the pit has to stay open.)

and a physics article about it:
http://phys.org/news76249412.html

http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/2006/Snake.jpg

you can find many more articles that mention the importance of the geometry of the pit and explaining that the snake figures out the direction by feeling which parts of the pit heat up and which dont. you can find it in physics, biology and herpetology articles.

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I completely understand how pit organs work.

What I don't understand is how you run with the conclusion that just because the beta-keratin layer on a scaleless ball python is thin (it's not completely absent, hence it still sheds) it somehow loses its directional heat sensing capability.

Find this article in your college library:
Campbell, A. L., T. J. Bunning, M. O. Stone, D. Church, and M. S. Grace. 1999. Surface ultrastructure of pit organ, spectacle, and non pit organ epidermis of infrared imaging boid snakes: a scanning probe and scanning electron microscopy study. Journal of Structural Biology 126: 105-120.

It posits that boids don't just rely on the pit holes, they have micropits that are like pores that reconstruct infrared signals into an image. It supports the claim in the article you linked to that the 2 pit holes in pit vipers are more limited than say, a ball python that has several labial pits. If the beta keratin layer was so thin that a maximum array of signals hit the micropits, then you get better infrared vision. But that's just my opinion.

The bread of this butter can be evidenced by the ability of the scaleless ball python to find the head of the rat. Well, it would be great if Brian would actually give it a live one in the dark so we can see if it can track the rat and strike it on the back of the head. I'm betting that it can.

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Originally Posted by zach_24_90

No. That's just the last time I saw him and we spoke about it. Supposed to be going out to the farm soon. What has you so upset man? Like who pooed on your pancakes to piss you off lol is this THAT Important to you?

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Just trying to get the facts here.

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Originally Posted by anatess

I completely understand how pit organs work.

What I don't understand is how you run with the conclusion that just because the beta-keratin layer on a scaleless ball python is thin (it's not completely absent, hence it still sheds) it somehow loses its directional heat sensing capability.

Find this article in your college library:
Campbell, A. L., T. J. Bunning, M. O. Stone, D. Church, and M. S. Grace. 1999. Surface ultrastructure of pit organ, spectacle, and non pit organ epidermis of infrared imaging boid snakes: a scanning probe and scanning electron microscopy study. Journal of Structural Biology 126: 105-120.

It posits that boids don't just rely on the pit holes, they have micropits that are like pores that reconstruct infrared signals into an image. It supports the claim in the article you linked to that the 2 pit holes in pit vipers are more limited than say, a ball python that has several labial pits. If the beta keratin layer was so thin that a maximum array of signals hit the micropits, then you get better infrared vision. But that's just my opinion.

The bread of this butter can be evidenced by the ability of the scaleless ball python to find the head of the rat. Well, it would be great if Brian would actually give it a live one in the dark so we can see if it can track the rat and strike it on the back of the head. I'm betting that it can.

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I only managed to get the abstract of the paper, but the abstract in no way says that these micropits provide any directional heat sensing. they merely amplify signal strength by concentrating the thermal effect of the infrared radiation to those points where the heat-detecting cells are. The abstract says: "Pit organ micropits averaged 319 nm in diameter and 46 nm in depth and were spaced an average of 808 nm from each other". So its not deep enough to be a cup camera, and the size of a single cell is comparatively too large, so i just dont see how it could provide directional information.

Heat pits are between one and a few millimeters in size. The micropits you mention are too shallow, and also 319 nanometers is equal to 0.000319 millimeters. Thats off by like 3 orders of magnitude. I say these structures merely make existing heat pits more effective, but do not have the right size or geometry to provide directional sensing on their own. That is, if these structures even exist in a scaleless BP.

finding the head seems to be more of a tactile task.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

I only managed to get the abstract of the paper, but the abstract in no way says that these micropits provide any directional heat sensing. they merely amplify signal strength by concentrating the thermal effect of the infrared radiation to those points where the heat-detecting cells are. The abstract says: "Pit organ micropits averaged 319 nm in diameter and 46 nm in depth and were spaced an average of 808 nm from each other". So its not deep enough to be a cup camera, and the size of a single cell is comparatively too large, so i just dont see how it could provide directional information.

Heat pits are between one and a few millimeters in size. The micropits you mention are too shallow, and also 319 nanometers is equal to 0.000319 millimeters. Thats off by like 3 orders of magnitude. I say these structures merely make existing heat pits more effective, but do not have the right size or geometry to provide directional sensing on their own. That is, if these structures even exist in a scaleless BP.

finding the head seems to be more of a tactile task.

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Do you have access to any of the college libraries? It would be great if you can peruse the entire article. The paper goes more in depth on the studied functions of micropits. And, the micropits don't just receive signals from the pit holes either as they are found all over the head and body of the boid.

Finding the head in the dark tells us a lot about the infrared image the snake is receiving as striking in the general direction of the rat may not tell you what the snake "sees" but more what the snake hears/feels. So, if it can still target the head of the rat with that thin beta-keratin layer over the pit membrane, then it's an indicator that the absence of the visually-normal pit holes is not in any way providing a handicap.

When I sit down later, I'll see what I can dig up by way of the full article. The worst I can do is get it printed, scanned, and post the pdf in like Dropbox or something similar.

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P.S.
From what I know of pits, they do not function like photo receptors on a camera lens because they don't function with light. Instead they function through heat. So it is this heating of the pit holes that trigger nerve signals. Now, whether these nerves rely solely on the thickness of the scale around it and the size of the hole or if it still functions with a variation of thickness and hole size is the question (do the scaleless still have the labial holes?). Not one scholarly article in structrual biology addresses it. Probably because Brian is the first guy that figured out how to produce one.

You know, I'm going to shoot Brian an email and see if he can run this experiment with his scaleless. It would be a great science project for my kid. This could also provide very critical knowledge on the function of the labial pits because, even to today, that's still an evolving science.