Garter snake

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The article is about North American garter snakes. For the unrelated venomous snakes of Africa also called garter snakes, see Elapsoidea.

Garter snake
The eastern garter snake
(Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Colubridae
Subfamily: Natricinae
Genus: Thamnophis
Fitzinger, 1843
Species

35, see text

Thamnophis distribution
Synonyms[1]

Atomarchus, Chilopoma, Eutaenia, Eutainia, Phamnovis, Prymnomiodon, Stypocemus, Tropidonote, Tropidonotus

Garter snake is the

Maritime Provinces and south to Florida, across the southern and central U.S. into the arid regions of the southwest and Mexico, Guatemala and south to the neotropics and Costa Rica
.

With about 35 recognized species and subspecies, garter snakes are highly variable in appearance; generally, they have large round eyes with rounded pupils, a slender build, keeled scales (appearing ‘raised’), and a pattern of longitudinal stripes that may or may not include spots (although some have no stripes at all). Certain subspecies have stripes of blue, yellow, or red, mixed with black tops and beige-tan underbelly markings. They also vary significantly in total length, from 18 to 51 in (46 to 130 cm).

With no real consensus on the classification of the species of Thamnophis, disagreements between taxonomists and disputed sources (such as field guides) are common. One area of debate, for example, is whether or not two specific types of snake are separate species, or subspecies of the same. Garter snakes are closely related to the genus Nerodia (water snakes), with some species having been moved back and forth between genera.

Taxonomy

The first garter snake to be scientifically described was the eastern garter snake (now Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis), by zoologist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The genus Thamnophis was described by Leopold Fitzinger in 1843 as the genus for the garter snakes and ribbon snakes.[2] Many snakes previously identified as their own genera or species have been reclassified as species or subspecies in Thamnophis. There are currently 35 species in the genus, with several subspecies in some of them.[3]

Habitat

Garter snakes are present throughout most of North America. Their wide distribution is due to their varied diets and adaptability to different habitats, with varying proximity to water. However, in the western part of North America these snakes are more aquatic than in the eastern portion. Garter snakes live in a variety of habitats, including forests, woodlands, fields, grasslands and lawns, but never far from water, often an adjacent wetland, stream or pond. This reflects the fact that amphibians are a large part of their diet. Garter snakes are often found near small ponds with tall weeds.

Behavior

The posterior tooth of a garter snake

Garter snakes have complex pheromonal communication systems. They can find other snakes by following their pheromone-scented trails. Male and female skin pheromones are so different as to be immediately distinguishable. However, male garter snakes sometimes produce both male and female pheromones. During the mating season, this ability fools other males into attempting to mate with them. This causes the transfer of heat to them in kleptothermy, which is an advantage immediately after hibernation, allowing them to become more active.[4] Male snakes giving off both male and female pheromones have been shown to garner more copulations than normal males in the mating balls that form at the den when females enter the mating melee. A snake hatch can include as many as 57 young.[5]

Garter snakes use the vomeronasal organ to communicate via pheromones through tongue flicking, which gathers chemical cues in the environment. Upon entering the lumen of the organ, the chemical molecules will come into contact with the sensory cells, which are attached to the neurosensory epithelium of the vomeronasal organ.[citation needed]

If disturbed, a garter snake may coil and strike, but it typically hides its head and flails its tail. These snakes will also discharge a malodorous, musky-scented secretion from a gland near the

Hawks, crows, egrets, herons, cranes, raccoons, otters and other snake species (such as coral snakes and kingsnakes) will eat garter snakes, with even shrews and frogs
eating the juveniles.

Close up of the scales on the back of the common garter snake

Being

brumate
.

Social behavior

A long-term study by the

Ontario Ministry of Transportation has shed light on the social behavior of Butler's garter snakes. The study, conducted in a 250-hectare area near Windsor, Canada, tracked over 3,000 individual snakes over a 12-year period. The findings challenge previous assumptions about solitary snake behavior and suggest that these snakes form social groups and communities. The study revealed that Butler's garter snakes do not wander randomly but instead tend to associate with specific groups of snakes. These groups typically consist of three to four individuals, with some larger groups reaching up to 46 snakes.[7][8]

Diet

Eating a frog

Garter snakes, like all snakes, are carnivorous. Their diet consists of almost any creature they are capable of overpowering: slugs, earthworms (nightcrawlers, as red wigglers are toxic to garter snakes), leeches, lizards, amphibians (including frog eggs), minnows, and rodents. When living near water, they eat other aquatic animals. The ribbon snake (Thamnophis saurita) in particular favors frogs (including tadpoles), readily eating them despite their strong chemical defenses. Food is swallowed whole. Garter snakes often adapt to eating whatever they can find and whenever they can find it because food can be either scarce or abundant. Although they feed mostly on live animals they will sometimes eat eggs.[9]

Venom

Garter snakes were long thought to be non-venomous, but discoveries in the early 2000s revealed that they produce a neurotoxic venom.[10] Despite this, garter snakes cannot seriously injure or kill humans with the small amounts of comparatively mild venom they produce and they also lack an effective means of delivering it. In a few cases, some swelling and bruising has been reported.[11] They do have enlarged teeth in the back of their mouth[12] but their gums are significantly larger and the secretions of their Duvernoy's gland are only mildly toxic.[11][13]

Evidence suggests that garter snake and

co-evolution between predator and prey.[14] Garter snakes feeding on toxic newts can also retain those toxins in their liver for weeks, making those snakes poisonous as well as venomous.[15]

Conservation status

A mating ball
A young garter snake

Despite the decline in their population from collection as pets (especially in the more northerly regions, in which large groups are collected at hibernation),

Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia), however, has been on the endangered list since 1969. Predation by crayfish has also been responsible for the decline of the narrow-headed garter snake (Thamnophis rufipunctatus).[17]
Many breeders have bred all species of garter snakes, making it a popular breed.

Species and subspecies

Arranged alphabetically by scientific name:

Image Name Subspecies Distribution
Thamnophis atratus (Kennicott
, 1860) 		coast of Oregon and California.
Thamnophis bogerti Rossman & Burbrink
, 2005 		Oaxaca, Mexico
Thamnophis brachystoma (Cope
, 1892)		 northwestern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York.
Thamnophis butleri
(Cope, 1889) 		northwestern Ohio, northeastern Indiana, the eastern portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and the adjacent extreme southern tip of Ontario, Canada.
Thamnophis chrysocephalus
(Cope, 1885)		 Mexico.
Thamnophis conanti
Rossman & Burbrink, 2005 		Puebla and Veracruz, Mexico.
Cope's mountain meadow snake, Thamnophis copei Dugès
, 1879		 Mexico.
Thamnophis couchii
(Kennicott, 1859) 		California and Oregon in the United States
Blackneck garter snake,
Thamnophis cyrtopsis
 (Kennicott, 1860)
  • Western blackneck garter snake, T. c. cyrtopsis (Kennicott, 1860)
  • Eastern blackneck garter snake, T. c. ocellatus (Cope, 1880)
  • Tropical blackneck garter snake, T. c. collaris (Jan, 1863)
 southwestern United States, Mexico and Guatemala
Thamnophis elegans (Baird & Girard
, 1853) 		central British Columbia, central Alberta, and southwestern Manitoba in Canada, Central United States
Thamnophis eques (Reuss
, 1834)
  • Mexican garter snake, T. e. eques (Reuss, 1834)
  • Laguna Totolcingo garter snake, T. e. carmenensis Conant, 2003
  • T. e. cuitzeoensis Conant, 2003
  • T. e. diluvialis Conant, 2003
  • T. e. insperatus Conant, 2003
  • Northern Mexican garter snake, T. e. megalops (Kennicott, 1860)
  • T. e. obscurus Conant, 2003
  • T. e. patzcuaroensis Conant, 2003
  • T. e. scotti Conant, 2003
  • T. e. virgatenuis Conant, 1963
 Mexico and in the United States (Arizona and New Mexico).
Thamnophis errans H. M. Smith
, 1942		 Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas States of Mexico.
Thamnophis exsul
Rossman, 1969 		Mexico.
Thamnophis foxi Rossman & Blaney
, 1968		 Mexico.
Thamnophis fulvus (Bocourt
, 1893)		 Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Fitch
, 1940		 central California.
Thamnophis godmani (Günther
, 1894) 		southern Mexico
Thamnophis hammondii
(Kennicott, 1860) 		central California to Baja California, Mexico
Liner's garter snake, Thamnophis lineri[19] Rossman & Burbrink, 2005 Mexico.
Thamnophis marcianus
(Baird & Girard, 1853)
  • T. m. marcianus (Baird & Girard, 1853)
  • T. m. praeocularis (Bocourt, 1892)
  • T. m. bovalli (Dunn, 1940)
 southwestern United States, Mexico, and Central America.
Thamnophis melanogaster (Peters
, 1864)		 Mexico.
Thamnophis mendax Walker
, 1955 		Mexico.
Thamnophis nigronuchalis
Thompson, 1957		 Durango, Mexico.
Thamnophis ordinoides
(Baird & Girard, 1852)		 California, Oregon, and Washington; in Canada, it is found in British Columbia
Thamnophis postremus Smith
, 1942		 Mexico.
Western ribbon snake, Thamnophis proximus (Say, 1823)
  • Chiapas Highlands ribbon snake, T. p. alpinus Rossman, 1963
  • Arid land ribbon snake, T. p. diabolicus Rossman, 1963
  • Gulf Coast ribbon snake, T. p. orarius Rossman, 1963
  • Orangestripe ribbon snake or western ribbon snake T. p. proximus (Say, 1823)
  • Redstripe ribbon snake, T. p. rubrilineatus Rossman, 1963
  • Mexican ribbon snake, T. p. rutiloris (Cope, 1885)
 western United States, Mexico, and Central America
Thamnophis pulchrilatus (Cope
, 1885) 		Mexico.
Thamnophis radix
(Baird & Girard, 1853) 		central United States as far north as Canada and as far south as Texas.
Thamnophis rossmani
Conant, 2000 		Mexico.
Thamnophis rufipunctatus
(Cope, 1875) 		Arizona and New Mexico, and in the Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango
Ribbon snake, Thamnophis saurita (Linnaeus, 1766) Eastern North America
Thamnophis scalaris
(Cope, 1861) 		Mexico.
Thamnophis scaliger
(Jan, 1863) 		Mexico.
Thamnophis sirtalis (Linnaeus, 1758
) 		North America
Thamnophis sumichrasti
(Cope, 1866)		 Mexico.
Thamnophis unilabialis
W. Tanner, 1985		 Mexico.
Thamnophis validus (Kennicott, 1860
) 		Mexico.

In the above list, a

trinomial authority
in parentheses indicates that the species or subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Thamnophis.

See also

References

  1. ^ Wright AH, Wright AA (1957). Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada. Ithaca and London: Comstock Publishing Associates, a division of Cornell University Press. 1,105 pp. (in 2 volumes). (Thamnophis, p. 755).
  2. ^ "ITIS Standard Report Page: Thamnophis". www.itis.gov. Retrieved 2019-07-06.
  3. ^ "The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 2019-07-06.
  4. S2CID 205023381
    .
  5. ^ "Garter Snake facts".
  6. doi:10.1007/BF02036652
    .
  7. ^ Howlett, Joseph (2023-12-15). "Garter snakes make friends, organize their society around females". Science. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
  8. ISSN 1432-0762
    .
  9. ^ "Garter Snake Care Sheet". Thamnophis.com.
  10. ^ Zimmer, Carl (April 5, 2005). "Open Wide: Decoding the Secrets of Venom". The New York Times.
  11. ^ a b Smith, Michael (September 2001). "Duverney's Glands and "Warm" Herping". Cross Timbers Herpetologist. Dallas-Fort Worth Herpetological Society – via Melissa Kaplan's Herp Care Collection.
  12. JSTOR 3891690
    .
  13. ^ de Queiroz, Alan (September 27, 2010). "Garter Snakes". Online Nevada Encyclopedia. Nevada Humanities. Archived from the original on February 18, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
  14. S2CID 18028592
    .
  15. S2CID 14274035
    .
  16. ^ Zimmerman R (2013). "Thamnophis sirtalis ". Kids' Inquiry of Diverse Species. Animal Diversity Web. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  17. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2007.RLTS.T63990A12727179.en
    .
  18. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5
    . (Thamnophis godmani, p. 102).
  19. ^ Thamnophis lineri. The Reptile Database. http://www.reptile-database.org.

Further reading

External links

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