Latest Articles
- The Snake Scientist
- Aimed at readers aged 9 to 12, Sy Montgomery’s children’s book about garter snakes doesn’t insult the intelligence of older readers.
(March 16, 2010) - Some Garter Snake Feeding Problems
- There are many reasons why captive snakes won’t eat in captivity. Garter snakes have a few more.
(January 25, 2010) - Garter Snakes in Spring
- Photographers capture images of garter snakes emerging from hibernation.
(April 26, 2009)
Recent Entries
New Research into Red Garter Snakes
When it comes to bright red garter snakes, the so-called “flame” garters from the Montreal area, bred in captivity now for many years, may be the first thing that comes to your mind. But bright red garter snakes are found elsewhere; I’ve heard stories of red garters from the Timmins, Ontario area — and a few years ago there were reports of red garters from northern Manitoba, near the zone of intergradation between Eastern (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) and Red-sided Garter Snakes (T. s. parietalis). As far as I knew there were no implications in terms of new subspecies, just another example of the variability in pattern and colour you could get with Common Garter Snakes, especially Easterns.
A study on extreme colour morph variation in garter snake populations in northern Manitoba and Isle Royale, Michigan, has just been published in Copeia. The study found extreme red-colour variations in three of eight populations studied, plus melanistic snakes in several of the populations, and suggested that because of this variability of colour, “subspecies of T. sirtalis based on color are of questionable validity.” Which I take to mean that if red populations show up here and there all over the place, then relative reddishness is not grounds for declaring a local population a distinct subspecies. Whether this will have implications for western subspecies such as the Red-spotted (concinnus), California Red-sided (infernalis), Valley (fitchi) and even San Francisco (tetrataenia) remains to be seen, but that’s what I infer from that statement.
The Winnipeg Free Press reports on the study in lay terms.
The Cost of Evolving Toxin Resistance
More from Carl Zimmer on the evolutionary arms race between rough-skinned newts, which have evolved a powerful toxin, tetrodotoxin or TTX, to deter predators, and the predators — including garter snakes — that have evolved a resistance to that toxin.
[Biologist Butch] Brodie’s son, Edmund, grew up catching newts, and today he’s a biologist at the University of Virginia. Father and son and colleagues have discovered that snakes have independently evolved the same mutations to their receptors in some populations, while evolving other mutations with the same effect in other populations. They’ve also found that both newts and snakes pay a cost for their weaponry. The newts put in a lot of energy into making TTX that could be directed to growing and making baby newts. The evolved receptors in garter snakes don’t just protect them from TTX; they also leave the snakes slower than vulnerable snakes. They’ve studied newts and snakes up and down the west coast of North America and found a huge range of TTX potency and resistance. That’s what you’d expect from a coevolutionary process in which local populations are adapting to each other in different environments, with different costs and benefits to escalating the fight.
Previously: Three Evolutionary Routes to Newt Toxin Immunity; Garter Snakes Win Arms Race with Newts.
Two-Headed Albino Garter Snake Steals Basel Show
A two-headed albino Checkered Garter Snake is the star of an exhibition of odd animals in Basel, Switzerland, the Sun and Metro UK report. There are only eight bicephalic snakes in the world, the snake’s owner claims, and this is the only albino.
Idaho House For Sale, Free Garter Snakes Included
A house north of Rexburg, Idaho that is “infested” with hundreds if not thousands of garter snakes is on the market again, the Rexburg Standard Journal reports. The house is currently listed for $109,200; without the snakes, it would have been worth around $175,000. It’s been on the market twice due to foreclosures. The snakes are believed to have gotten in during a remodelling five years ago. It’s a pity the real estate agent can’t turn a snake-infested house into a selling point: I can think of some people, myself included, who wouldn’t be at all bothered by the presence of so many garter snakes — quite the opposite.
Update: More coverage from Reuters, Gawker, the Daily Mail and many, many other places.
A Note on Questions Answered Elsewhere
Occasionally I get a question through this site that is technically about garter snakes, but the answer covers a lot more ground than just garter snakes. Or they think it’s about garter snakes, but it isn’t. In such cases, I’ve decided to post the answers on my personal blog under the Reptile Questions category. I’ve posted two answers so far: one about hibernating and transporting snakes, and one about releasing snakes as a form of rodent control.
Newfoundland Garter Snakes
Officially, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is free of reptile species (unless you count sea turtles). That includes snakes. But, according to CBC News, garter snakes have been found breeding in the southwestern corner of Newfoundland. Biologists are worried that the introduced snakes might predate on the island’s unique subspecies of meadow vole, but it’s important not to overestimate the snakes’ reliance on mammal prey: if I’m not mistaken, mammals can be a substantial part of a large adult female’s diet, but that’s not necessarily the case with younger or male snakes, which are considerably smaller. They’re more likely to feed on the five frog and toad species that have also been introduced to the island.
Manitoba Garter Snakes in Autumn
As part of a series in which every provincial park in Manitoba gets visited, the Winnipeg Free Press’s Neil Babaluk pays a visit to Inwood, Manitoba and the Narcisse snake dens. Travelling north from Inwood, Babaluk discovered something gruesome: “Very quickly, we could tell that a mass snake migration was underway. The highway between Inwood and Narcisse was littered with the flattened bodies of snakes who were not lucky enough to make it across. Carcasses were literally everywhere.” As for the dens themselves: “Only two of the dens appeared to be active, with snakes slithering down the rocky edges into the pits. Most congregated together on the rocks to absorb the heat of the sun. We could see some of the snakes moving deeper into the dens, preparing for their winter of semi-hibernation.” See my article, The Narcisse Snake Dens in the Off-Season.
Spring Photos of Garter Snakes, 2010 Edition
Garter snakes’ spring emergence largely depends on how early spring comes in their area. Sometimes it’s as early as February and March, as you can see from this Flickr gallery, which I’ve assembled from some of the best garter snake photography so far this year.
I’m still waiting for photos — or any word, actually — from the Narcisse Snake Dens in Manitoba. Henk von Pickartz paid the dens a visit last weekend, and took lots of photos, but reports that the snakes have yet to come out in great numbers.
Nine New Species Pages
I’m working on a complete revamp of the Species Guide, which has been in a permanently unfinished state since this site went live nearly six years ago. I’m making an effort now to get that fixed, with completely new species pages that include full descriptions, range maps, and (where available) photographs.
I’d given some thought to working on all of them behind the scenes and launching them all at once, but now I think that would delay things too much. Better to share with you what I have, as soon as it’s ready.
So I can announce that new species pages are now live for nine species (out of 34): the Bogert’s, Short-headed, Golden-headed, Conant’s, Mexican Wandering, Exiled, Godman’s, Liner’s, and Rossman’s Garter Snakes. More are at least partially finished and should be ready soon. I’ll announce them when they go live.
There will be some broken links here and there, and the new state/province search page is pretty rudimentary at the moment, so we’re a long way from finished. But I think you’ll agree that what has been done so far is already an improvement.
(Photo of a Short-headed Garter Snake by Jennifer Schlick, who was kind enough to let me use it on its species page.)
The Snake Scientist
The Snake Scientist is a children’s book about garter snakes that does more than just talk about garter snakes. Author Sy Montgomery, who has since written a number of children’s books about wildlife (as well as titles for adults), focuses on the amazing phenomenon of the Narcisse snake dens in Manitoba, where Red-sided Garter Snakes hibernate by the tens of thousands, and on the research conducted on them by Oregon State University professor Robert Mason.
What’s Wrong with My Snake?
Garter and Water Snakes