Study on how garters bask properly and under what parameters.

[Rushthezeppelin]

So I'm wanting to stucture a study of what the important parameters are with regards to basking temps (aka air temps, surface temps or a combo of the two). First off I don't think I have enough snakes (only 3) to do a true proper double blind study. Next hurdle, anyone know the best way to accurately measure air temps? Would a digital probe thermometer be adequate? What do you guys feel would be the upper range I should limit myself to with regards to temps (obviously if I'm over 90 on one I am to be well under 85 with the other). I just want to find out the best way to definitively provide the best possible basking setup for my girls. Maybe I'm trying to re-invent the wheel here but I'm never satisfied with just knowing something works, I have to know HOW :P If anyone knows of any published studies on this though, that would be great to link as well.

[BUSHSNAKE]

There is no one correct answer. There many different factors...species, gravid or not, male or female, small or large, humidity etc. Another thing is the animals that your keeping will let you know what they need just by observing them

[Taso]

Those laser or infrared thermometers are great for surface temps. And the classic-red-liquid-stuff-ones are good for air temps. Just my two cents :D

[Simland]

It's true that you don't have enough snakes, but then again, I don't think you want to shoot for a scientific-paper grade experiment. Just controlling all the other factors would be a nightmare.

If what you have access to (in addition to your Flir camera) are everyday temp measuring devices (vs high end scientific ones) I would probably use a couple different one. For air temperature, alcohol (red liquid) and mercury based thermometers are probably the best option because that concept is, essentially, how the measuring of temperatures started, so the scales we use (C and F) are based on the liquid's reaction to the temperature (to be more precise, I think mercury is actually the one it was started with).... not sure if any adjustments have been made to the scales, though. I'm also not sure how well the companies are reproducing the rubes, but it seems fairly straightforward/easy. It definitely seems more reliable than a lot of the other systems.

Knowing a bit more about your intentions might help others offer suggestions. Are you going to be doing something like measuring how long it takes the snake to warm up on a cool/cooling/heat sink basking spot.

It's going to be tough to get something meaningful, but maybe something like this could work: Set one of the temperatures at the one you want your snake to reach, set the other one quite a bit lower, measure your snake's temperature before it starts basking, then see how long it takes it to reach the desired temperature. Reset the experiment, use the same temps as before, but reverse them (the air temp from the first go becomes the surface temp), take the same measurements. Then divide the increase of the snake's temperature for each go by their respective "warm up" time. That should tell you which one has the faster effect. (Do all of this with the same snake and in the same terrarium, etc.)

I'm not sure if it's possible to control these temps well enough, though. You'd need a surface temperature that won't increase because of the air temperature, and vise versa. The snake might also not want to bask on the "cold/cool" basking surface, either... maybe have the whole terrarium floor at the same temp?

Thoughts?

[BUSHSNAKE]

I think you would have to do your study on wild snakes in nature and then apply what you learn to captivity

[Rushthezeppelin]

Wish I had time to do field studies. That would most certainly be the ideal way to really best do this is just find out how the do things in nature.

[Rushthezeppelin]

BTW sim to answer your question on the other thread. My flir camera gives me a crosshair in the center of the screen that gives me spot temps. And yes it is an expensive way to monitor temps lol. I'm lucky though as I'm a home inspector and got this through my job. The one I have is actually an iphone addon that costs about $250. There is also one for android from another company that is like $200 (not sure if it does spot temps). The iphone one also has a regular camera that it blends with the thermal image so you can get definition of what you are looking at instead of colored blobs : P

[Simland]

Cool (about the camera).

If you want to know which temperature affects the snake more (the surface temp of your basking area or the air temperature), here's another suggestion: you could set up a terrarium / container where the entire floor is made up of the same material as your basking area, heat the substrate up to a proper basking area temperature, get some cool air in there (say, at a proper cool side temperature), make sure your snake is at a temp that's close to half way between the two temperatures, then put it in there and see which way its temperature goes, then reverse the experiment. You could do a crude version and not take note of the changes in the temperatures of the surface and the air or you could record all three temperatures and then work out the maths to make sense of them. But if your air and surface temperatures can remain different enough for a long enough time, you should get some results even with the crude version.

But if you're using a heat lamp, don't discount direct heating by the electromagnetic radiation, that's probably the biggest part of the equation in many cases. That's what you feel when you put a heat lamp over your hand (or any incandescent bulb, for that matter). In nature, the snakes don't really care, they just find whatever warm enough spots they can when they need them, but if you get any results out of this I'd be interested to know. It could have an impact on how much I'll rely on a temperature gun.

[joeysgreen]

Rush, as with any scientific exploration, you want to first begin with a literature search. Often times the answer has already been found. If it hasn't, perhaps it has in another species, or if it has, but you disagree with the way the research was done, then you can adjust your materials and methods in order to come to a better conclusion or application of the results. By digging through the related literature, you may find similar studies where they explore the Preferred Operating Temperature Zone (POTZ) and how they define this for a species. Let's say the have done this for brown snakes, and the design seems sound. Then you can recreate their study for your target species (T. sirtalis?). Now that you have a good baseline data for your species' preferred temperature you can create additional experimental designs that explore different means of basking and measure how quickly your test subjects reach their POTZ in said basking temperature.

For literature searches, a great start is www.scholar.google.com (http://www.scholar.google.com). It has an incredibly massive database.

The downfall of improper research (a lot of "real" research is deemed improper once it's torn apart by the peer review process) is that the results are questionable and can potentially lead you down the wrong path after the results are misinterpreted. For instance, lets say you have one snake in a tank with a 80F basking spot and one snake in a same sized tank with a 90F basking spot. The 90F snake basks for 15 minutes and goes and sits in his water dish. The 80F snake basks all morning then goes into his hide box. How do you interpret this result? Small numbers of snakes don't allow for individual variation/preference to be statistically worked out. What if one snake was hungry or thirsty, the other wasn't? Variance in shed cycle? One was a male, the other female. ... you can see how coming to the conclusion that a 90F basking spot is ideal to reach POTZ cannot be substantiated.

I do encourage critical thinking and understanding with all pets. Definitely do that literature search, even if you don't end up doing a study of your own. Also read herpetology textbooks (I recommend Herpetology by Vitt and Caldwell, but Pough's might be good too), field guides, and document your own field observations. Bring a thermometer with you to see how hot their basking sites are; write down how long you see them basking and/or what times of the day and what weather they are observed in.

I hope this post helps give you some direction or ideas on how to proceed :)

[Simland]

I may be wrong, but I think he wants to figure out the importance of the different parameters (surface and air temperature and other sources of heat), not the POTZ. In other words, is the snake's temperature more affected by the temperature of the basking spot's surface, the temperature of the air, the electromagnetic radiation, etc.?

About thermometers. I just had a look at an array of different types in a store and I don't know if the temperature in that aisle was 20C, 22C, or 24C. Even thermometers of the same model often disagreed. So, you can disregard what I said about the liquid-based thermometers, they disagreed with each other a lot too.

[Rushthezeppelin]

Ya I need to go digging through google scholar for sure. I'll also check out the recommended book for sure. While we are kinda on the subject what are yalls views on actually giving a basking spot over the recommended tops of 90? As long as you have gradient going down to 75-80 I'm guessing there is no danger as long as I'm not reaching temps that will actually burn them before they realize it. I know people always say they will burn themselves on say a heat rock or something as their dermis gets really hot before they feel the heat in their core. What is the temp that's generally considered where they burn themselves? I just want to give my girls the ability to thermoregulate on their terms. I have read a paper a while back mentioning with other herps that providing higher than POTZ was possibly beneficial (increased activity levels) at least in a zoo exhibit setting. Not sure how the dynamics of that work in a viv though. Any thoughts?

[BUSHSNAKE]

Your snake would dehydrate and turn into a piece of beef jerky. Mmmm yum...thats my thought

[BUSHSNAKE]

I have an idea for you...look up retes racks. Its a multied layered unit developed by frank retes that you can build yourself. Its kinda like a shelving unit that goes as high and close to your basking light and has different levels all the way down to the bottom cage allowing your animal to chose how close it wants to get to the heat of the basking lite

[joeysgreen]

I agree with the use of Retes' racks, or a concept along those lines anyhow. It should be noted that the very essence of those racks is to allow for basking temperatures that are unheard of in general herpetoculture. The goal is to fit in as huge of a thermal gradient as possible into the confines of a limited enclosure.

Nonetheless, the basking spot should always be higher than the POTZ. Otherwise, they will never get comfortably to their POTZ, or at the very least, they won't be able to leave the basking spot. In a 10 or 20 gallon tank, limit your garter basking temp to 85-90F, but in a 40 gallon or larger (what I like to think of as minimum standards for such active snakes) you can easily offer basking spots that they will encounter in the wild. Spend 15 minutes at 100F (like a Floridan sirtalis for example) and you're good to go fishing for the rest of the morning. So long as you have a full gradient, and a well set up enclosure so that your snake can utilize the entire gradient should it desire, you can't go wrong.

Ian

[Rushthezeppelin]

Thanks man. I figured that was the case. I have also noticed that if I give RIGHT at 85 for basking temp then they stay there most of the damn day but if I go up to 90 they at least become more active. I will definitely incorporate this into my husbandry, active snakes = happy keeper :D