Seeing wild animals in the woods and streams can light the spark of wonder in us all. We must guarantee that future generations can savor that wonder not just gaze on creatures like the extinct passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet preserved in a museum. John's research on winter ecology of cottonmouths can be applied to cold weather responses of other reptiles. During the winter cold, snakes and most other reptiles cannot remain active enough to do all this, so they snuggle into a hole until spring. Snakes do not eat during winter, so they rely on the food energy stored in their bodies in the form of fat.
Winter is a dangerous time for a reptile.
If the animal freezes, ice crystals can burst body cells. A cold, sluggish snake may be unable to escape from a predator that digs it up. But there is also a cost to being warm. If a snake stays too warm, it uses up stored fat and starves to death before spring. If such behavior did more harm than good, these basking snakes would not survive long enough to mate and pass the genes for this behavior to their young.