Snakes' sense of heat

[C. hortulanus bites]

All the time we hear stories of snakes burning themselves or of someone cooking a snake to death. Why is it that some snakes really have no idea how much heat is too much? If a snake has ample space in it's vivarium, but it will choose to burn itself sitting right on top of an unregulated UTH or basking under the hot spot of a heat lamp when it can easily crawl away and not suffer the health problems associated with burns and overheating is weird to me. We give them plenty of room and conditions so that they can thermoregulate, yet they will sit and cook themselves. Why is that? And no, I not having any roasted snake issues, but some of the recient posts have sparked my intrest in this area. What do you all think?

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[ls1grrrl]

I don't think anyone is absolutely positive about the answer to your question, but here's an interesting article that addresses some theories:

http://www.anapsid.org/warwickthermo.html



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Heather
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[BWSmith]

My understanding is that because int he wild, heat comes from the sun, they cannot gauge very well heat coming from below.
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[eddie]

Let's see if this makes sense.
It is gradual heat rises that can overcome and burn them. A sudden rise is usually noticed and most times causes a reaction.

Like a frog in a pot of boiling wter.
Boil the water and toss in the frog, it will try its best to get out.
BUT, when placed in cool water and gradually heated, the frog will stay unaware of anything until it's too late.
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[Squeezer]

>>Let's see if this makes sense.
>>It is gradual heat rises that can overcome and burn them. A sudden rise is usually noticed and most times causes a reaction.
>>
>>Like a frog in a pot of boiling wter.
>>Boil the water and toss in the frog, it will try its best to get out.
>>BUT, when placed in cool water and gradually heated, the frog will stay unaware of anything until it's too late.

If this is true then I guess it answers my question of Why didn't Feather move away from the heat source when she started getting too hot.
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[JuliusSqueezer]

Take 2 bowls. Fill one with hot water and the other with ice cold water and stick one hand in each bowl at the exact same time. The brain cannot process the conflicting nerve signals at the same time when sudden change is being reported from different nerve endings and averages them out and they both feel warm....weird huh? This may relate to reptiles as well....but Snakes lack sensitive nerve endings that would let them know that they are being burned anyway. The skin is karetin just like your hair and nails and because of their habbits of crawling through rough terrain they seem to be spared of having very sensitive pain receptors in the skin. They don't thermoregulate to warm or cool skin. They do it to warm or cool the internal organs. so if heated too quickly by laying on a hot spot, the skin will sear before the insides are warmed and they even think to crawl away.
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