Giant+Garter+Snake

media type="custom" key="3680723"Giant Garter Snake By Matt W.

The giant garter snake is a fantastic species of the the garter snakes. The giant garter snake is the largest of its kind. The adults can grow up to 36-65 inches and babys 8.5-11.5 inches. Its appearance is olive to black or brown, and it usually has a yellow stripe down its back. The snake is very aquatic and is very active (day and sometimes night). If threatened,it will drop into the water or release a bad-smelling musk. Its primary food is aquatic animals, like fish or frogs. Its mating season is in the middle of spring. The mother snake will carry the live young in July all the way through till September. The snakes mostly live in California because of its wetland. Many of its habitats are marshes, sloughs, draginage canals,and irrigation ditches. They mostly live in rice fields. The scientific name for the giant garter snake is Thamnopsis gigas. Thamnopsis means "bush snake" and gigas "giant". Each snake lays 10 to 46 young per year,which bull frogs eat when they get a chance. The many predators of the giant garter snakes are hawks, foxes, oppsossums, skunks, raccoons, northern harriers, egrets, and many more predators. For a giant garter snake, a winter refuge is a small mammal burrow, which allows the snake to hang out during very cold winters. 98 percent of its former habitat in California San Joaquin is being completely destroyed. Over 28-million-acres of vernal pools, wetlands, and grasslands (where most giant garter snakes live) are being destroyed. The giants garter snake is on the endangered list because of its loss of the snakes habitiat, like wetlands. Also, many of its prey are being killed by pesticides and fertilizer running off croplands. All of the things that are endangering this species is man's fault and need to learn from our mistakes to help this snake and other animals.