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
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.
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Merced to Create Giant Garter Snake Habitat, Snakes Hopefully Will Arrive Later
The city of Merced, California is paying nearly $400,000 to create habitat for the endangered Giant Garter Snake in a location where that species is not currently found, the Merced Sun-Star reports. The purchase and creation of the habitat is meant to offset the expansion of a wastewater treatment plant in an area identified as garter snake habitat. The company building the land bank says that the snakes will come once it’s built.
Three New Mexican Garter Snake Species Described in 2005
Three additional species of garter snake were identified in a 2005 research paper. In their paper, “Species limits within the Mexican garter snakes of the Thamnophis godmani complex,” published in no. 79 of the Occasional Papers of the Museum of Natural Science and available as a PDF online, Douglas Rossman and Frank Burbrink argue that four populations of garter snake in central Mexico previously identified as Godman’s Garter Snake, Thamnophis godmani, are in fact four distinct species. This conclusion is based on the fact that the four populations are apparently isolated and morphologically distinct from one another. New, then, are Thamnophis bogerti and lineri, from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and Thamnophis conanti, from the Puebla-Veracruz border. Entries in the Species Guide for these three species are forthcoming. Thanks to Stefan Allen for the tip.
Some Garter Snake Feeding Problems
When you keep a corn snake, kingsnake, or most other pet snakes, feeding is pretty straightforward. They eat rodents, and almost all of them will accept rodents that have been kept in the freezer and thawed. But even the easiest species of snake can present feeding problems. Baby snakes in particular may take forever to start eating. The mouse may have to be washed, or brained, or wiggled in front of the snake’s nose before the snake will eat it. There are a number of well-known tricks of the trade to get a recalcitrant snake to eat, and you can find them in the better pet manuals.
All of this also applies to garter snakes, but, as usual, garter snakes are a little bit different, and can present a few additional challenges — especially if they haven’t gotten accustomed to eating rodents.1 Here are a few feeding challenges I’ve noticed with my own garter snakes.
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A New Plan for Sharp Park Golf Course and the San Francisco Garter
San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department has proposed a “Solomonic” solution to the fate of Sharp Park Golf Course, owned by the City of San Francisco but contained within nearby Pacifica and habitat for the San Francisco Garter Snake. Environmentalists wanted the golf course restored to its natural state; the Department recommends keeping the course open, but with some modifications to accomodate the snake.
The Best Garter Snake Photos of the Year
Recently, I put together a gallery of photos on Flickr that represented, I thought, some of the best in garter snake photography from the past year. There are 16 photos (so far; I have room for two more), taken from March to October, covering the continent from New England and Quebec to the Pacific Coast. Common Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) make the most appearances, but there are a few Western Terrestrial Garter Snakes (T. elegans) and one photo of Two-striped Garter Snakes (T. hammondii). They’ve been caught emerging from hibernation, eating, and engaging in courtship. Some of the photos you will remember from this article. And lest you think all of these photos were taken by pros with expensive gear, many of these awesome shots were taken with consumer-grade cameras. Enjoy!
Garter Snakes Invade Seniors’ Home in Manitoba
Residents of a seniors complex are complaining about an invasion of garter snakes, which are turning up all over the place in their apartments. The trouble is, the apartment complex is in Inwood, Manitoba. This is a town that has a statue dedicated to the Red-sided Garter Snake (right); it’s only a few kilometres south of the famous Narcisse Snake Dens, and, if my visit there three years ago is any indication, is not exactly short of garter snakes itself. They are, in other words, an acknowledged tourist attraction; I’m surprised the residents didn’t get the memo. CBC News, Globe and Mail, Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg Sun.
Update: The province will repair cracks in the building’s foundation, starting next week.
Q&A: Feeding a Ribbon Snake in the Backyard
Earlier this month, Daryl Frese wrote to me with an interesting story about a snake that kept coming for a visit.
We live near San Antonio, Texas. We have water gardens and fish ponds and have had garter snakes for the last few years that would show up at feeding time for the fish. We have always had fun watching them eat and learning their different personalities. This year, we have one that seemed a little bit more comfortable binging around us. After a few weeks of it coming closer and closer to us, my wife decided to put some food in her hand and see what would happen, and sure enough it came up and took the food out of her hand.
Is it OK to keep feeding her this way? We have started digging up earthworms and letting her (him) have a treat. She shows up about every three days, comes over to my wife and begs for dinner.
I wrote back to say that I couldn’t see any harm in it. While conventional wisdom is that feeding wild animals is a bad idea, I suspect that’s because there are real dangers for both animal and people alike when certain species get acclimated. An animal that becomes used to human contact can be dangerous if it’s a predator, but more generally is less able to fend for itself. I don’t think a wild snake’s ability to survive is going to be impeded by being hand-fed by humans every now and then.
What’s Wrong with My Snake?
A Gathering of Garter Snakes