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. While 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 thermo-electric transduction mechanism that mediates the conversion of infrared heat to processable electrical signals has remained elusive. In principle, the presence of a pyroelectric material would explain many of the idiosyncratic features of the snakes' infrared vision. However, pyroelectricity is a rare material property and restricted to a small set of hard crystalline materials not found in any of the animals with infrared vision. In this work, we quantitatively outline how cells in the snake's pit membrane organ may convert infrared radiation into electrical signals. Despite the exceptional simplicity of our proposed mechanism and model, we are able to explain many of central experimental results pertaining to the transduction process.