Meeting Abstract
The thermal imaging system of Burmese pythons is a unique sensory modality that detects and images thermal stimuli in the environment allowing the snakes to effectively detect and acquire prey, detect and avoid predators, and seek thermal refugia to meet thermoregulatory requirements. Special facial structures called pit organs detect thermal stimulus information that is processed in the brain to function with vision or alone in complete darkness when visual input is limited. Behavioral assays of the thermal imaging system provide information regarding the sensitivity of the system to environmentally relevant stimuli; conditioned discriminations of stimuli eliminates complicating effects of other cues and habituation often encountered in natural behavior studies. We report the first results of thermal sensitivity using pit organ-based thermal discrimination training in wild caught Burmese pythons. Pythons trained to perform left and right choices to 24°C and 37°C stimuli exhibited a mean percentage of correct choices (76%) significantly greater than chance (50%). During behavioral sensitivity trials, the trained pythons were presented with randomized temperature differentials ranging from 0.5°C to 12.8°C. The pythons continued to perform at significantly greater than chance levels (mean = 61%), even when presented with the 0.5°C differential. This is the most sensitive value for behavioral responsiveness yet reported for the thermal imaging system of a boid snake. These results produce a more complete understanding of the functional relationship between the brain, behavior and environment and its role in python survival and ecological success in a changing environment.
