Contents tagged with snakes

Spring Snake Romance

Tags: garter snake, snake, snakes, year of the snake

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Published On 2/8/2013

With a blanket of snow on the ground we don’t expect to see local reptiles or amphibians but, as the days get longer, we are more likely to encounter our cold-blooded neighbors. In February, you can find spotted salamanders walking slowly under the ice, looking for mates. Later in the month, the noise of woodfrogs, spring peepers, and chorus frogs advertise territories. Amidst this flurry of amphibian breeding, garter snakes begin to emerge from their hibernacula. Though garter snakes relish a frog or salamander meal during the summer, this time of year they have one goal—mating.

Our resident garter snake
Can you find the garter snake?
Keeping an eye on visitors

Male garter snakes emerge first, when the air temperature is still in the 30’s, to prepare for mating. On sunny days you might find one basking on a snowbank. Around March or April, the much larger, stout-bodied females will begin to emerge and will soon be surrounded by skinny males vying for a chance to fertilize the eggs she is carrying internally. Though “breeding balls” of dozens to hundreds of males are famous, in Chicagoland I usually only find 2-6 males per female. Interestingly, some males will behave like females. Apparently this behavior attracts other males who, when they pile on in an attempt to mate, help warm the imposter. At the same time, the ill-fated suitors are more likely to be eaten by predators, providing both a shield and decreasing the number of competitors for actual females.

Once bred, female garter snakes retain their eggs (known as ovoviviparity) rather than lay them in a rotting log, like a rat snake. In this way it is easy for the female to move the eggs from one warm patch of sun to another, even in places where the ground stays very cold late into the summer. This behavior has allowed garter snakes to spread further north than any other group of snakes and ensures that garter snake babies are born earlier in the year than any other snake. It also explains the biology behind all the stories of kids bringing one big garter snake home, only to later find the house full of pencil-sized baby snakes.

Chicago and surrounding couties are home to a particularly striking color form of the garter snake. In addition to the hadsome yellow and olive pin-striping of the standard garter, the Chciago garter has vivid red blotches on the side. If you can't go out looking for garter snakes yourself, you'll find the Nature Museum's resident Chicago garter snake in our Istock Look-In Lab.

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An Icon Returns

Tags: living collections, snakes, venomous

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Published On 10/23/2012

Those of you who visit the Museum on a regular basis will have probably noticed the lack of a key exhibit component in Mysteries of the Marsh over the last few months. At the beginning of this year we very sadly lost our beautiful Massasauga Rattlesnake to cancer and have been trying ever since to find a replacement. Because the Massasauga is such an endangered species they are very hard to come by. Private individuals are not allowed to own listed species but as a scientific and educational organization we have a permit for this snake. Even so, it took us ten months to actually locate one and this past weekend we took delivery of a very healthy three year old female.

So how do you transport a rattlesnake? Well the company that bred her was attending a large herpetological show in Tinley Park so we would be able to drive out and collect her from there. We brought all the correct equipment with us and soon had her transferred into something safe, secure and comfortable (for both her and us!)

We secured the whole tub into the back seat of the car with the seat belt and drove our precious cargo back to the Museum. We never work with a venomous snake when the Museum is open to the public so we waited until the evening to transfer her to her new habitat. Transferring ‘hot’ snakes from one spot to another is one of the most dangerous times for handlers and so total concentration and focus is a must. We ensure that our security team keeps everyone away from the area so that we are not disturbed. Firstly, using snake tongs, we lift the bagged snake out of the tub and slide the snake to the very bottom of the bag. We then hold her in the bottom of the bag so that she cannot get anywhere near to the handlers hands because, of course, snake fangs can stick through a canvas bag very easily.

When the knot is undone the whole bag is lifted back into the tub, again using snake tongs so that at no time do the handlers hands come anywhere near the snake. The snake is then carefully slid out of the open bag into the tub.

From here the final step is to carefully lift the snake, using the tongs and snake hook and lower her gently into her new habitat. And here she is, comfortably positioned in her new habitat after her long and arduous journey.

Once in her habitat, her exhibit was covered for a couple of days so that she could get accustomed to her new surroundings. Pretty soon she was ready for her first public appearance as part of the Mysteries of the Marsh exhibit. Be sure to visit her next time you are at the Museum.

Celeste Troon
Director of Living Collections View Comments