Update: The province will repair cracks in the building’s foundation, starting next week.

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.

Things got more interesting when Daryl sent along a couple of photos of said snake begging for food (note the finger the snake is chewing on in the second photo).

Because that’s a Red-striped Ribbon Snake, Thamnophis proximus orarius, one of six subspecies of Western Ribbon Snake, and that snake is doing what I don’t normally expect ribbon snakes to do. As I’ve written before, ribbon snakes are not necessarily the tamest snakes out there. They’re certainly active and inquisitive, but normally nervous. Of course, as I went on to say in that article, I had my own experience with a calm Northern Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis sauritus septentrionalis) and her babies, which challenged my expectations of how ribbon snakes behaved.

A wild ribbon snake that is so accustomed to the presence of people that it can take food from a person’s hands also challenges those expectations. (The fact that the snake is, in the second photo, biting the hand that feeds it does not matter: I’ve seen plenty of bites like that from tame, but ravenous, snakes in my care. A nervous wild ribbon snake would be more likely to thrash and musk than to try to eat your finger.)

The other thing that surprised me was that the snake was being fed earthworms, which I didn’t think ribbon snakes ate; I thought they specialized in amphibians and fish. So I checked my books. Alan Tennant mentions foraging for earthworms on land in his listing for Red-striped Ribbon Snakes in his field guides,¹ but he’s the only one. In an article published in the Texas Journal of Science in 1954,² M. J. Fouquette, Jr., found that in Texas, amphibians made up 82 percent of the Western Ribbon Snake’s diet; neither Ernst and Ernst (2003) nor Rossman, Ford and Seigel (1996), who cite Fouquette’s article, mention earthworms as part of a ribbon snake’s diet. Nor, for that matter, do Rossi and Rossi (2005) or Werler and Dixon (2000). Ribbon snakes are widely seen as snakes with narrow prey preferences.³

But, as my late friend Mike Rankin would say, snakes don’t read books. Which makes Daryl’s backyard encounter with this Red-striped Ribbon Snake very interesting indeed, on several levels.

Notes

1. In Tennant (1998), p. 78, and Tennant and Bartlett (2000), p. 122.
2. Here is the reference, though I have not seen it: Fouquette, M. J., Jr. (1954). Food competition among four sympatric species of garter snakes, genus Thamnophis. Texas J. Sci 6:172-189.
3. With regard to Eastern Ribbon Snakes, Thamnophis sauritus, Rossman, Ford and Seigel (1996) report that earthworms were refused in one study; Rossi and Rossi (2005) say that earthworms “are not thought to be taken by most populations of this snake” (p. 389).

Bibliography

Previously: Garter Snakes Win Arms Race with Newts.

I recently found two small garter snakes while hiking in a nearby forest. My fiancé and I decided to catch them and take them home. I read through your articles on caring for garter snakes and it has helped a lot helping me meet the needs of my snakes, although I am having trouble finding food that they will eat.

Before I read your article my fiancé swore they ate crickets though I know now that is not true.

I also tried small goldfish (alive in a rock bowl) but there was no reaction to them. One of the snakes poked its head in the water and went right past the fish. One of the fish died so I cut it up right away and tried to serve it to them that way and still nothing.

Someone also said they do not eat very often so I thought that may be why I couldn’t get them to eat anything.

I have not yet tried earthworms; the pet store was out of them when I tried to pick some up and pinkies are so expensive I was afraid I would spend money on them and they would be ignored as well.

I’m a little concerned that my snakes will die if I don’t find something they will eat soon. I have had them for about three and a half days now, and as far as I could tell they have not had anything to eat.

The pet stores in my area have been having problems with getting their shipments of fish in so no one has guppies and one place had minnows but refused to sell them when they heard it was for snake food.

I am all out of ideas other than drowning my lawn for worms.

Catching wild snakes involves a host of considerations that buyers of captive-bred snakes don’t usually have to face; the biggest of these is getting a recently caught snake to feed. (This is one big reason why most snake keepers recommend getting captive-bred animals wherever possible, incidentally.)

Not every wild snake settles down in captivity; some resolutely refuse to eat. For example, Eastern Milk Snakes in my area are notorious for refusing all food and starving themselves to death (although I did keep one for a few years that would eat). Now, before Liz gets any more alarmed, I should mention that it takes an adult snake several months to starve to death, so her two garter snakes are in no danger of immediate starvation.

Actually, garter snakes have a pretty good reputation for eating in captivity, so long as the right food is offered — and fortunately, most of them aren’t very fussy. By trying to find every food item that might be of interest to a garter snake, Liz is definitely on the right track.

Liz did not say where she lives, so I don’t know which species (or subspecies) might be at play here. If she has a Butler’s, Northwestern or Short-headed Garter Snake, she might do better with earthworms than fish; if she has an Eastern or Western Ribbon Snake, she’d do better with live fish than worms. Common Garter Snakes should eat both.

It’s of interest to me that the snakes aren’t showing any interest in live fish; most species would gleefuly attack and devour any live fish that were offered. But there are always exceptions: individuals and local populations that aren’t interested in what their species normally eats. Or maybe she has a worm-eating species.

Her best bet is to try to locate some earthworms, which most garter snakes will attack with relish; I’ve often thought of earthworms as comfort food for garter snakes. If pet stores don’t have them, she should try a bait shop, making sure to get nightcrawlers rather than red wigglers. I rather suspect that her two snakes will eat if she gives them some worms. (She should be very careful to feed them separately; I’ve had to intervene when two garter snakes attacked the opposite ends of the same worm!)

If they don’t eat earthworms, and they’re not ribbon snakes or some west coast aquatic species of garter snake, then something might be up. What might that something be?

1. They may not have adapted to captivity yet. There’s a rule of thumb among snake breeder that says that once you bring your new snake home, you should leave it alone for three days, without trying to handle it or try to feed it, so that it can get used to its new surroundings. And that’s with captive-bred snakes; wild snakes are going to be even more stressed out by being captured and put into a cage. Liz has only had these snakes for three and a half days, so they may simply have not settled down yet.
2. There may be a problem with the cage. Liz should make sure that there’s a source of water, that they’re warm enough (but not too warm; we’re talking 75-85°F/25-30°C, no more), that there’s enough room (but not too much room; a 25-gallon tank would be the upper limit for two garter snakes), and that there are places for the snakes to hide.
3. They may not be hungry yet. My snakes get fed every week or so, though garter snakes can be opportunistic gluttons that gorge themselves at every opportunity. Even so, this may also be a possibility.
4. They may be too shy. Some of my snakes won’t eat in front of me. I have to leave them alone and wait overnight for them to eat.
5. They may not be garter snakes. Let’s assume that Liz has identified these snakes properly, but not everyone does. I’ve seen green snakes, gopher snakes and rat snakes tagged as garter snakes; it seems that in North America, some people think that every harmless snake is a garter snake. If these aren’t garter snakes, they’ll want something else to eat.

In the end, though, if they continue to refuse to eat, or she can’t provide them with something they will eat, she should probably release them, within a week or two, where she found them, so that they can go and find something they want to eat, and on their own terms.

Two days ago I was wandering around in a bush lot and came across what I believe is an Eastern Ribbon snake (dark grey with light yellow stripes, very long tail and no patterning) taking up some sun on a leaf-covered rock pile. While I was busy admiring this fellow who seemed content to let me do so I didn’t notice that my dog had found another snake a few feet away and was ashamedly harassing it. By the time I got hold of his collar and pulled him off, the poor snake was sort of balled up with mostly belly showing, half covered in the leaves.

I didn’t want to handle the snake and add insult to injury but I did at least want to make sure he was still alive. I gently rolled him over (he was still all balled up, belly up) and he slowly unwound and headed for cover under the leaves.  At first I thought it was another ribbon snake but the belly was a very bright yellow-green color, more like a garter snake.

My question is threefold. Firstly, do you think it was a garter snake or a ribbon snake that suffered at the nose of my dog? Secondly, given how long it took him to right himself do you think he was OK? I’d hate to think my dog caused him any harm. And lastly, the snake did get a chomp in on my dogs nose. I’ve been told that garter snakes can emit a mild toxin when they bite and/or eliminate a musky fluid. Could either of these cause a dog or any other animal to become mildly ill?

My bad boy sort of came down with what I can only equate to mild flu symptoms later that evening. (Yep — serves him right.)

The short answer is that it does not seem likely that either the snake or your dog came to harm as a result of the encounter. I could be wrong, but if your dog got sick later that evening, it’s probably not a result of anything a garter snake did.

But to answer your three questions in turn:

1. Was it a garter snake or a ribbon snake? I’ve already written an article on how to tell the two of them apart, but, in my experience, belly scales aren’t something you can use to tell the two kinds of snake apart. I’ve seen garter snakes whose belly scales are almost black, and others that have belly scales as bright as what you describe — and these were the exact same kind of garter snake!

In the same area, garter snakes and ribbon snakes have the same kind of colouration: the two snakes I used to show the difference between garter snakes and ribbon snakes were only found a few feet apart. Similarly, in Florida, Blue-striped Ribbon Snakes, Thamnophis sauritus nitae, and Blue-striped Garter Snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis similis, are found in the same area. Their local habitat has a big impact on their colouration: it’s why so many snakes in the mangrove swamps of the Everglades are bright orange, and why snakes on the prairies are all in similar shades of browns and greys. In a word, camouflage.

In the end, though, garter snakes and ribbon snakes are closely related enough that it doesn’t matter for the purposes of your other questions.

2. Was the snake okay? I think so: the fact that it crawled away is a positive sign. I’ve encountered snakes in the wild with huge gashes in their sides or who are missing half their tails (unlike lizards, snakes don’t grow their tails back) — snakes that have had run-ins with birds or other large predators and have still managed to survive. If you didn’t see a significant dog-inflicted wound on the snake, my guess is that it will probably live to musk another day.

So what was it doing when it was “sort of balled up with mostly belly showing”? It was playing dead. Biting and excreting musk aren’t the only defenses in a snake’s arsenal: sometimes they curl up to protect their head while offering their tails as a lure; sometimes they flop over and play dead. Eastern Hognose Snakes, Heterodon platirhinos, are the most famous for doing this, and they do it better than any other species of snake; take a look at this short video of a hognose snake playing dead by Benny Mazur:

Garter snakes have also been known to do this (Gibbons and Dorcas 2005, p. 80); it has been quite well documented, for example, in the Plains Garter Snake, Thamnophis radix (Ernst and Ernst 2003, p. 415). My guess is that this, or some other kind of defensive behaviour, is what was going on.

3. Could a snake’s bite or musk cause a dog or other animal to become mildly ill? Only mildly, if that. Garter snake musk is pretty pungent, enough that it could make you gag a bit if you’re a bit sensitive to it. (I’ve been exposed to it since I was eight years old, so I’m pretty blasé about it, but yeah, it’s kind of strong.) But it’s not engineered to be toxic, just foul. Getting zapped by a skunk would almost certainly be worse.

As for a garter snake’s bite, their saliva has been described as slightly venomous, but that’s not normally a cause for concern. Ernst and Ernst (2003) have documented reactions to garter snake bites that they describe as “envenomation”: one boy suffered swelling in the hand and lymph nodes and required hospitalization; Carl Ernst himself has developed a hyperallergic reaction to garter snake saliva (Ernst and Ernst 2003, p. 436).

But it’s important to keep that in perspective: most people who have been bitten by a garter snake have suffered no ill effects whatsoever. My girlfriend gets bitten by garters all the time, and was once bitten by our female Wandering Garter Snake, Thamnophis elegans vagrans, considered one of the more “venomous” garter snakes. I watched — a little too eagerly, she said — to see if any reactions occurred at the bite wound; none did.

The bottom line is probably that some people can have an allergic reaction to the bite of even harmless snakes — and even if their saliva has some toxic properties, garter snakes are still harmless to the vast majority of the population.

Still more perspective: Tennant and Bartlett (2000) report that “animals as small as cats” survive envenomation by copperheads (p. 478), which, even if they have the mildest venom of any North American pit viper, are still several orders of magnitude more dangerous than garter snakes.

I’m not a veterinarian, and I can’t be 100 percent sure, but my guess is that your dog is probably fine — at least as far as his encounter with the snake is concerned.

References