Oregon State University zoology professor Robert T. Mason — himself the subject of a children’s book about garter snakes, The Snake Scientist by Sy Montgomery — is in Maine this week to give presentations on our favourite reptiles. The Bangor Daily News has an interview. The paper asks Mason, why garter snakes? “They are the perfect ambassador for the reptile world. You can go out on a sunny day in the spring or summer, and a little stripy snake goes slithering by, and you can pick it up. They don’t usually bite. It would hurt more to pick blackberries. They’re very gentle.”