Pit-bearing snakes (vipers, pythons, and boas) have the extraordinary ability to “see” and accurately locate their prey and predators in total darkness. These animals use the infrared radiation emanating from objects that are warmer relative to the background environment to form a thermal image. Although enormous progress has been made to identify the key physiological features that enable the infrared vision of these snakes and a few other animals, the precise thermoelectric transduction mechanism that mediates the conversion of infrared heat to processable electrical signals has remained elusive. In this work, we quantitatively outline how cells in the snake's pit membrane organ act as apparent pyroelectric materials and convert infrared radiation into electrical signals. Despite the exceptional simplicity of our proposed mechanism and model, we are able to explain many central experimental results pertaining to the transduction process.

带有坑的蛇（毒蛇，蟒蛇和蟒蛇）具有非凡的能力，可以在完全黑暗的环境中“看到”并准确定位其猎物和掠食者。这些动物利用相对于背景环境较热的物体发出的红外辐射形成热像。尽管在识别使这些蛇和其他一些动物具有红外视觉功能的关键生理特征方面取得了巨大进步，但是介导红外热转换为可处理电信号的精确热电转换机制仍然难以捉摸。在这项工作中，我们定量地概述了蛇的坑膜器官中的细胞如何充当明显的热电材料，并将红外辐射转换为电信号。尽管我们提出的机制和模型非常简单，