Actually, that quote came from Pythons of the World: Vol II: Ball Pythons by Barker and Barker.

If you are truly looking for the most up to date literature on the care and husbandry of ball pythons, then I encourage you to pick it up.

From the back sleeve:

Dave and Tracey Barker are graduate biologists with more than 65 years of combined experience with reptiles and amphibians. They both have expansive herpetological backgrounds, including work in zoo herpetological collections, museum collections, and field research. Herpetoculture is the main interest of this husban and wife team, and their cojmbined interests and experiences range fro dart poison frogs to ridgenose rattlesnakes. David and Tracey own and manage Vida Preciosa International, Inc., one of the largest and most successful collections of pythons in the world.
Do you have any documentation on the fact that their dorsal scales are more sensitive to heat than their ventral scales are? I'm very curious about this.
Since you missed it the first two times I posted it, I'll post it again:

Quote:

Pythons of the World Vol II: Ball Pythons by Barker & Barker, pp. 25-26:

As long as it is possible for the snake to move to a cooler area, we have never observed a ball python to allow itself to be burned on its dorsal surface from a radiant heat source that is too hot; however, over the years we have seen a number of ball pythons with severly burned ventral surfaces, caused by the snakes' voluntarily sitting too long on electrically warmed surfaces such as substrate heaters, under-cage-heating pads, or heated fake rocks. From this we deduce that ball pythons have less ability to detect and determine critical temperatures on their undersides than on their upper sides.