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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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I'm no dendrologist, but:
BECAUSE cold blooded: it means that they need external heat sources ~~or food~~ to raise their body temperature rather than producing their own heat like mammals and the like do.
Wearing a sweater is basically the equivalent of basking on a rock somewhere sunny as I understand it
I don't think the food raises their temperature, though I'm no expert in this either. Warm blooded animals use a portion of our metabolism to maintain body temperature (endothermic) while cold blooded animals (exothermic) have to get most of their heat from outside sources. This is why they bask in the sun and look so happy.
They need heat the same reason we do, to allow our bodily functions to operate as our organs expect them to. Things like metabolism slow or cease when required temps can't be maintained.
When I was on the airboat gator tour in Florida, the guy was saying the gators sort of ferment their food to help break it down, so they need that heat (73F, I just googled) as a minimum to actually digest. He said otherwise food can end up rotting in the stomach and they can get sepsis and die.
While we have to eat and metabolize more to maintain our core temp, but that lets us go into hotter or cooler climates and have a chance to keep surviving as long as our bodies can balance out our temp by burning calories and sweating.
Other than lower required caloric intake, I can't think of any advantages of being cold blooded.
It is a SHOCKINGLY lower caloric intake is why. Like TEN TIMES. Warm blooded animals are always ready to go but we have to eat continuously to maintain that. Meanwhile snakes eat once a week to once a month despite growing throughout their lives.
Very true, and a huge beneft! Many times the sun or a burrow can be a lot more reliable than finding a meal.
And there are some cool warm blooded animals that try to have some of the best of both worlds by hibernating or by going into torpor.
Hmm I can think of one. It makes you harder to spot by heat-seeking animals like vipers.
But this only works for warm blooded animals. We produce heat, it gets trapped because of our clothing and keeps us warmer.
That woollen sock thing is the same temperature as the room, and the same temperature as the snake. Unless you maybe put it in the microwave first to warm it up slightly (the sock, not the snake).
If that sock isn't pre heated, it's doing nothing to warm the snake because there no heat to trap as I understand it
I imagine snake is coming from its terrarium with a heat lamp so it is currently storing that lamp's heat in its body. If the room's temp is lower, snake will lose that stored heat to the air, but by adding an insulator around it, that heat will radiate much more slowly, no?
Like when the food delivery person puts the hot food in that insulated bag, the food isn't generating new heat, but the bag is keeping that stored heat from dissipating as quickly as it would otherwise.
Ok. Cold blooded doesn't mean their blood is actually cold. It just means they can't produce excess heat to regulate temperature. They do still produce heat, so a sweater is quite useful.
Absolutely crucial distinction ๐
All animals produce heat via their metabolism. If you were to look at a snake with a FLIR camera it would be slightly warmer than the room. If you Google "FLIR camera snake" you will see exactly that.