Quote Originally Posted by asplundii View Post

You are quite mistaken about these animals losing their ability to sense heat. I do not know why people assume that a lack of the physical "pit" means that the snake suddenly loses the ability to sense heat. The nerves for sensing heat are still present in a scale-less ball python and they still reside in the lip area. Losing the scales that define the pit has no impact on the nerves that are present in those areas. In point of fact the pits are the result of an evolutionary process to allow those nerves to be directly exposed and not be covered by scales while still offering a degree of protection to the underlying exposed skin. The snake in that picture is not "half blind" at all, in fact, if you look back at the picture you can make out the indentation of a couple of pits, on just below the nostril and one just forward of there. It can sense heat just fine.
yes they can still sense heat, just like i can with the back of my hand. But they can no longer sense which direction the heat is coming from. If you have a pit, and a source of warmth in front of you, some areas in the pit will get infrared radiation and other areas of the pit are in the shadow.

.......... <--- two heat sources (please ignore the points ....... couldnt get it done without them, formatting issues)

........---- <--- flat surface

in this case, both heat sources cannot be distinguished from one another. both illuminate all of the heat-sensitive skin.

........... <--- two heat sources

.........\/\/ <--- surface with pits

in this case, the two sources of radiation can be distinguished. when the left heat source is radiating, the green segments will be activated and the red ones will be in shadow. Ball pythons, with their row of 10 heat pits, can do that so well that blind snakes can find and strike a rhodent and hit it. Flatten the surface, and almost all the data is lost. its like having an eye without a lens, that only senses how bright it is in front of the head, without producing an image.

so i do think the heat pit issue is a real issue.