Quote Originally Posted by DrKate View Post
I should have made a point about the "absorbing UV" thing earlier, but didn't catch it. When a snake is basking, what it's trying to absorb is not UV light but infrared light - heat waves! Like... moving closer to the campfire as the night gets chilly. UV rays are just as harmful to snake skin as to our skin - it's high-energy radiation that can get into cells and mess with DNA. Mess up the wrong bit of DNA and the cell goes crazy and becomes cancerous. It's true that dark pigments absorb more heat, and I honestly don't know if dark snakes are more efficient baskers than light ones. But really we have melanin as protection against UV radiation - because of its chemical structure it can absorb the high-energy ray and kind of dissipate it in a safe way. (The darkest-skinned people are from the places with the strongest sunlight, not the coldest temperatures!)
If the snake just wants heat, why do pet-stores sell both UV light bulbs and heat bulbs? Why would we need the UV bulbs for our snakes if we could just use the plain heat bulbs or even a heating pad?

I'm probably just misunderstanding something again...