Common Garter Snake

The common garter snake is a small, gentle snake that many people in North America spot in their gardens and parks. It usually has neat yellow stripes running down a dark green, brown, or black body, a little like the stripes on an old-fashioned sock garter, which is how it got its name. Most garter snakes are only about as long as your arm, though a few can grow longer.

Garter snakes are harmless to people and quite shy. If one gets a surprise, it almost never wants to nip. Instead, it does something much funnier: it releases a stinky, musky smell to say “please leave me alone.” A moment later it will slip quietly away into the grass. This clever little trick lets the snake escape without ever needing to be brave or fierce.

Here is a surprising fact about garter snakes: the mothers do not lay eggs like many other reptiles. Instead, they give birth to tiny, live baby snakes. A single mother can have a big family all at once, sometimes around 10 to 40 little ones. From the very first moment, the baby snakes can wriggle away and start finding their own food, all by themselves.

The common garter snake is a carnivore, which means it eats other small creatures. It loves slippery earthworms, slugs, frogs, and little fish, and it is surprisingly quick at catching wriggly, fast-moving prey near ponds and streams. Because it enjoys so many watery snacks, you will often find a garter snake living close to a pond, ditch, or damp meadow.

Common garter snakes live across a huge part of North America, all the way from sunny Florida up to the cooler forests of Canada. They are one of the most familiar snakes on the whole continent, and they are listed as least concern, which means there are still plenty of them in the wild. Keeping their gardens, wetlands, and streams clean and healthy helps these gentle, striped snakes thrive right alongside us.