The eastern garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) is common across Kentucky, and found in a wide variety of habitats in rural, suburban and urban areas.
Garter snake is the common name for small to medium-sized snakes of genus Thamnophis in the Family Colubridae, the largest snake family in the world, with individuals found on every continent except Antarctica.
The eastern garter snake was the first garter snake identified in the scientific literature, and is one of about 35 recognized subspecies.
Swedish biologist, physician and naturalist Carl Linnaeus first described the Eastern Garter Snake in 1758, the year of the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, which classified 4,400 species of animals and 7,700 species of plants from all over the world.
Size and coloration
Adult eastern garter snakes can grow to 26 inches and longer. Young are typically 5 to 9 inches long.
They have large round eyes with rounded pupils, a slender build, and normally three yellow stripes down their backs, but the stripes can vary in color. Occasionally, the stripes may be virtually absent, replaced with dark spots occurring more or less in rows down the back.
The belly is greenish or yellow, often with two rows of dark spots.
Females are typically larger than males.
The eastern garter snake is non-venomous, but sometimes bites if picked up and can spray a smelly musk from glands in its tail.
Range and distribution
The eastern garter snake is present across the eastern Lower 48 states, as far north as southern Ontario and Quebec, south down the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico, and west to the Mississippi River.
Habitat
In Kentucky, the eastern garter snake can be found in grassy or shrubby fields, abandoned farmland, and around barns and outbuildings. Piles of discarded sheet-metal provide warm, moist hiding places.
The snake also has a preference for old stone fences, and along wet corridors such as lakeshores, creeks, rivers, ponds, and drainage ditches.
Closer to town these snakes are present in habitats that include city parks, old cemeteries, and suburban yards and gardens.
Eastern garter snakes often conceal themselves under logs, stones and other debris that allow them to bask in the sunlight and quickly seek refuge from predators.
Food habits
Their diet includes mostly earthworms, but also amphibians such as spring peepers, northern cricket frogs, leopard frogs, and green frogs.
They are opportunistic predators, and will readily consume almost any creature they can swallow. Other prey records for this subspecies include caterpillars, the eastern meadow vole and small sparrows.
Reproduction
Eastern garter snakes are ovoviviparous, which means that they give birth to live young, as opposed to their young hatching from eggs.
Their young are typically 5 to 9 inches long at birth.
Of the 32 snakes found in Kentucky, only four are venomous, and most of the 32 species have a fairly limited range across the state. The Eastern garter snake is one of the most common of the eight species of non-venomous snakes found statewide.
