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Thread: Labial Pits
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Old 03-Mar-03, 06:11 PM
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almaron almaron is offline
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Yes G-man, these are known as supralabial pits, as opposed to infralabials referring to labial pits below the jaw.

I quote the following from 'Pythons of the World Vol 1: Australia' by Barker and Barker. This is specifically referring to diamond pythons.

Supralabials vary 11-14 in number; 2 or sometimes 3 supralabials are in contact with the orbit, usually the sixth and seventh or the seventh and eighth. The rostral is pitted with deep oblique pits; the first and second anterior supralabials are deeply pitted; the third usually carries a shallow indentation. There are 17-20 infralabials; the series of 7-8 pitted infralabials begins in front of the eye, usually on the eighth infralabial.


In answer to your question, yes they have the same function as the infralabials. That is, they are infrared heat receptors. There may be exceptions to this, so don't bank on it, but as far as I know, if a snake has infralabials, they also have supralabials. Some are certainly more obvious than others. They show up real well on green tree pythons, and scrubs if you can find some good close up face pictures of them. At least the ones right up front. Note that the ones you are referring to are pitted, but that is not always the case. There are more there, even on diamonds, but they aren't real obvious because they aren't pitted like that and/or because of the color of the surrounding scales. Sometimes they look just like ordinary scales anyway.
 

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