Keeping snakes without a hotspot

[chairman]

I remember having a similar discussion about tortoises about a decade ago. There was a keeper that kept his tortoises at 85F with no gradient. The practice was justified based on a couple premises.

One is that reptiles exhibit behaviours that suggest thermoregulation. They seek heat when it is cold and retreat to cooler areas in extreme heat. The hypothesis drawn from this observation was that reptiles may seek to maintain a constant body temperature.

Then there were some field studies of wild tortoises in which internal temperatures were estimated using thermal cameras. There was a European species in the Iberian peninsula that was studied, and I believe a separate study of redfoots and yellowfoots in South America as well. All the tortoises had internal temperatures around 85F.

Thus the keeping of a wide variety of species at a constant temperature. The collection was reported to be quite healthy.

It is possible that snakes could thermoregulate to maintain a stable body temperature. They may need to bask when they've had a meal not because they need additional heat to digest, but because that extra mass requires additional heat to maintain their target body temperature.

Hot spots may also be used to induce a "fever" to combat illness, a standard immune response that doesn't necessarily refute the idea that a healthy collection may be kept at a constant temperature.

That all said, providing a gradient with a cool side, warm side, and hot spot is considerably more "idiot proof" than aiming to maintain one temperature. The gradient allows the animal to do all the work, induce fevers, etc. Using a single temperature approach is probably something that should only be done by experienced keepers for established animals. If I used a single temp approach I certainly wouldn't use it in quarantine, let those new animals that I don't know yet combat whatever they need to.

But still, it is an interesting question, that could be studied by an enterprising master's or PhD student with a thermal camera and access to some quality herping locations.