Contsant VS Gradient Temps
There's always been a debate in "recreating natural environment" vs providing constant heat. While hobby enthusiasts experiment with each of those options, most beginner keepers are advised to create a heat gradient with "hot" and "cool" spots. However, breeders (especially large scale breeders) will heat a room or building to the desired temperature with relative success.
I found an interesting study that touches on this subject with rattle snakes below:
https://jeb.biologists.org/content/222/22/jeb208645
If you're TLTR kinda person, you can probably read the introduction and discussion portion of the experiment and get the gist. I also posted the discussion portion of the experiment that I found interesting:
"Changes from fluctuating to constant temperatures do not seem to cause the stress response in C. durissus under the experimental conditions used in this study. In this sense, it is possible that the constant temperature used (30°C) was close to the optimal for this species and, perhaps, exposure to the constant regime at lower or higher temperatures could have resulted in a stress response (see Dupoué et al., 2013; Jessop et al., 2016). In contrast, the transition from a constant thermal regime to a fluctuating thermal regime increased plasma CORT levels in rattlesnakes. We suggest that this response might be related to the departure from the snake's preferred body temperature under the fluctuating thermal regime."
Just like providing a constant food source that our BPs expect on a specific schedule (to the point where they stick their head out on feeding day), can providing constant temperature eliminate "anxiety" for BPs?
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