中文摘要：

红外视觉作为大自然赋予蛇类的“第六感”，一直是激发生物学家及工程师们探索兴趣的一个焦点所在。在红外视觉的工作机制研究方面，比较普遍的观点是将其归结为这样的过程，即蛇利用猎物发射的红外辐射的热效应，将猎物温度信号转换为自身感官上的温度变化信号，继而激发自身神经作出响应。本文从传热学的角度出发，对这种理论进行了质疑，并试图从红外辐射的另一个本质特性一光学激励出发，结合经典的H—H神经响应模型对蛇的红外视觉进行分析。研究表明，蛇在物体温度为30．93℃的情况下可以达到的温度分辨率为0．19℃，该结果与现有实验比较吻合。

英文摘要：

As ＂the sixth sense＂ nature endues to snakes, the ultrared vision has been a intriguing focus to both biologists and engineers. Among the many previous investigations on the mechanism of ultrared vision, a commonly accepted viewpoint is that snake could utilize the heating effect of ultrared radiation and transform the temperature signal of a prey into the temperature change signal of its sense organ, which then excited the nervous system. This theory was debated from the view of heat transfer aspect. The ultrared vision of snakes was interpreted through combining the optic excitation mechanism, another intrinsic property of ultrared radiation, and the well known H-H neural response model. It was revealed that the temperature detection resolution of snakes can be 0.19℃ when the object temperature is at 30.93℃, which accords well with existing experimental results.