Little Odds and Ends That Lead To A Garter Snake

A couple of months ago I wrote about the Acai Berry natural antioxidant tablets I was taking. Here's an update, they don't make you lose an enormous amount of weight. In fact, I've lost two pounds since January 5, 2009. Maybe in conjunction with occasionally working out, the Acai Berry has the potential to do more. If you're wondering whether Acai Berry natural supplements work, yes they do--as long as you exercise and eat right. I believe I could have lost more weight if I had of just stuck with it...

The raccoons and possums are probably going to be pretty active for the next month or so. Why, do you say? Because I saw my first real live snake today, right in my front yard!

Yep, a garter snake. I knew it was something there when I saw the grass move. Grass cut low to the ground, just doesn't move. Anyway, as frightened as I was of the slithery creature, I was fascinated by its movements. I found myself just standing there watching it try to get away from me. Thank God he was more afraid of me than I was him. But, it looked exactly like the picture I snapped from Wikipedia. This is one thing that I did not want to take a photograph of. My fear of snakes run too deep.

Because I know very little of snakes other than what I see on TV, I decided to do a crash course in garter snakes, because that's what I saw. However, my oldest sister tells me that Missouri has quite a few different species of snakes that live amongst us. Some right out here in the county where I live. Great, I truly have moved out into the wild kingdom!

To put my mind at ease, I clipped this straight from Wikipedia:

Reproduction

A garter snake

Garter snakes go into brumation before they mate. They stop eating for about two weeks beforehand to clear their stomach of any food that would rot there otherwise. Garter snakes begin mating as soon as they emerge from brumation. During mating season, the males mate with several females. In chillier parts of their range, male common garter snakes awaken from brumation first, giving themselves enough time to prepare to mate with females when they finally appear. Males come out of their dens and, as soon as the females begin coming out, surround them. Female garter snakes produce a sex-specific pheromone that attracts male snakes in droves, sometimes leading to intense male-male competition and the formation of mating balls of up to 100 males per female. After copulation, a female leaves the den/mating area to find food and a place to give birth. Female garter snakes are able to store the male's sperm for years before fertilization. The young are incubated in the lower abdomen, at about the midpoint of the length of the mother's body. Garter snakes are ovoviviparous, meaning they give birth to live young. Gestation is two to three months in most species. As few as 3 or as many as 50 snakes are born in a single litter. The babies are independent upon birth.

Venom

Garters were long thought to be nonvenomous, but recent discoveries have revealed that they do in fact produce a mild neurotoxic venom. Garter snakes are nevertheless harmless to humans due to the very low amounts of venom they produce, which is comparatively mild, and the fact that they lack an effective means of delivering it. They do have enlarged teeth in the back of their mouth, but unlike many rear-fanged colubrid snakes, garter snakes do not have a groove running down the length of the teeth that would allow it to inject venom into its prey. The venom is delivered through the Duvernoy's glands.^[1] Whereas most venomous snakes have anterior or forward venom glands, garters have posterior or to the rear of a snake's head.^[2] The mild poison is spread into wounds through a chewing action. The properties of the venom are not well known, but it appears to contain 3FTx, commonly known as three-finger toxin, which is a neurotoxin commonly found in the venoms of colubrids and elapids. A bite may result in mild swelling and an itching sensation. There are no known cases of serious injury and extremely few with symptoms of envenomation.

Yes, just knowing this wonderful information makes me feel safe....yeah right!

Thanks for hanging out in Teasas World, the world just keeps getting smaller...