Absolutes in Reptile Care

[rabernet]

But they don't all live in termite mounds! I think this fallacy got started because the gravid females tend to seek out burrows and termite mounds as a safe place to lay their eggs, and the collectors of WC ball pythons know to look there for an entire clutch. These snakes live in shrubbery and mangroves also. Given this, I think a several degree temp gradient (around each average high and average low) is appropriate...

That's interesting - where have you read about them staying in shrubbery and mangroves?

I don't find any mention of that in my copy of Pythons of the World, Vol. 2: Ball Pythons by Dave and Tracy Barker.

p.7

The information that is available to us about the natural history of ball pythons is derived primarily from observations of ball pythons in Ghana (Cansdale, 1944, 1955: Gorzula, 1998; Sprawls, 1989, 1992; Noah, pers. coml) Because of the general similarities of topography, climate, plant community associations, prey and predators, we think we can safely extrapolate, however, that what is known about the species in Ghana should be at least generally true elsewhere in its range.

It is the rainy season that mark the passing of time in this area of the world. Throughout the range of ball pythons, from mid to late autumn until early spring, it is hot and dry. Gorzula (1998), Aubret et al. (2003), and Noah (pers. com.) comment that during this time, ball pythons are relatively inactive and are found predominately in underground refugia, mostly in burrows excavated by rodents, tortoises, and monitors; ball pythons are often found in burrows in the bases of active and inactive termite mounds.

According to Noah (pers. com.), during November through January, collectors find male and female snakes together in burrows - sometimes in paris, sometimes in small groups. Also according to Noah (pers. com.), the snake collectors refer to this as the time of barabara, a colloquial term for the breeding season.

In late winter, in the middle of the dry season, professional snake hunters begin to collect. Hunting is a matter of going to a likely are, most often in or near pasture and croplands, and walking through the area, looking closely for burrows. Ball pythons are rarely encountered above ground, but evidence of their nocturnal movements is apparent at the mouth of the burrows they inhabit (Greer, 1994: Gorzula, 1998).

Great post Dan
Here's some food for thought about the temperature/gradient issue. You hear much thrown around like, 92 hot side, 82 cool side, etc. Does anyone know the average temperatures for the area in Africa that balls come from?(Togo, Benin, Ghana). Here's a link to average temps for that region over the entire year:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/trave...omnav_business

As you can see temperatures vary quite a bit. The AVG daytime is upper 80's - meaning it could be warmer or cooler. The AVG nightime is mid 70's or so - meaning it could be warmer or cooler. And during the winter there it only gets to the low 80's and at night can get below low 70's - yet the seem to survive and thrive quite well under these conditions.

Not taking any sides here, just throwing out some different ideas.

Of course I had to come back to this once I got home and could reference this book:

p. 6

We investigated several sources for relevant climate data and decided to use Qwikcast (http://www.qwik-cast.com) for the following data on temperatures and precipitation. This website presented thorough data in a way that was easy to interpret (for each data point it indicated the period of time on which the average is based), and it included data from many localities throughout the range of P. regius.

To simply summarized the climate in which ball pythons are found, it could be said that because of weather, most localities are not popular tourist destinations. Most ball python localities are hot and humid in the day, temperate and even more humid at night. Daytime temperatures in the 90s (degrees F) are not uncommon during most of the year. During the hottest and driest six months of the year, temperatures exceeding 105 degrees to 115 degrees F (40.5 degrees to 46 degrees C) are recorded at many localities.

For comparison to the average annual temperatures of localities in the range of ball pythons, one should consider that the average annual temperature of San Antonio, TX is 69 degrees F (20.5 degrees C) and of Phoenix, Arizona, is 73 degrees F (23.5 degrees C). Even the warm average annual temperatures of 76 degrees F (24 degrees C) in Miami, Florida is cooler on average than the coolest locality in the range of ball pythons for which we can find record.