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Posted by Dr. Phil on April 03, 2002 at 20:30:55:
Just got more precise data on the temps inside the burrows where the indigos reside most of the time, especially in winter. This data comes from Jerry Johnston' master's thesis (University of Miami ; 1996). He gives temperature data for spring,
summer, and fall at depths of .5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 meters. Over a 24 hour period, temperatures vary from 21.8-26.1 C in spring and at a depth of .5 meters; at 3.0 meters in spring temperatures vary from 22.3-22.6 C. In summer temperatures vary from 26.7-29.4 at .5 meters and from 27.3-27.6 at 3 meters. In fall, temperatures vary from 21.7- 27.2 C at .5 meters and
24.9-25.6 C at 3.0 meters.
So in short, the temp at the bottom of the burrows never seems to go much lower than 70F even during the colder months, and doesn't reach any higher than 82F during the summer either. So therefore the need to cool them down below 70F during the breeding season is probably not warranted, even if it doesn't seem to harm the process much, as the snakes can obviously take it in stride. But what effect that could do is prolong the period of ovogenesis as the growing egg follicles would probably take longer if the mean physiological body temp of the female was lower overall.
On the ohter hand, that would seem to indicate that exposing the females to higher temps than 79F might lead to the cellular deterioration of stocked sperm in the oviductal walls during the period separating the last mating and ovulation stage per se, thus impeding the fertilisation process. Knowing how sensitive the embryonic tissues are to even slight and temporary hikes in temperature, the same is probably true of sperm cells in this species. If it only takes a single day over 80F to debilitate most of the stocked sperm, this could easily account for the many instances where a breeder thought he kept the exact environmental parameters as in previous years when he'd had good success, and get the awful results we have all experienced at some point, as this kind of slight/temporary temp hike is easy to miss, and often occurs in most herp rooms for all kinds of reasons.
So maybe the "recipe" for D.c.couperi might just be to keep females between 70 and 79F at all times starting after the last mating until egglaying, and then also keep the eggs well under the 80F thermal "barrier" until they hatch. Just maybe..
Dr. Phil
