Reptile & Amphibian Forums

While so many here believe a huge percentage die off each year. I have to look at this in another way.

On our site, HKM's and mine. We normally see on any given day, education adults(35 to 50%)(educated=tagged) which leaves, 50% to 65% naive individuals(non tagged) and we normally see, an good division of older adults, young adults and yearlings, and we would see more newborns, but we are old, deaf and blind. Ok, we see those too.(numbers are my guess, Hugh, may want to readjust)

What that means, over the 15 some odd years of watching this population, there has been a pretty even constant replacement rate. Not an exact 33%-33%-33%, but darn close. Hugh may be of help here(he has the records) I believe the oldest recapture was ten years and counting(you always have hope) The average recapture seems to be and Hugh would have a better idea, about 4 or 5 years.

Now consider, these snakes do not have a high reproductive rate compared to kingsnakes. More importantly, they have protection, venom. So they most likely and a very very low turnover compared to colubrids. I would expect a snake like a kingsnake to have a 50% replacement rate or higher.

On the collecting side, I would guess the average snake crossing the road is 2 year olds or less. I would say about 90% or more, would be that age.

Hunting AC you find a little higher rate of older individuals, but a much higher rate of juveniles. Both estimates from 50 years in the field.

So only thinking about how many hatchlings die, is only from a captive point of veiw. As in nature, its all about who survives, not who dies. Until the bulldozer arrives. Cheers

I think a great indicator of survival rate is number of young produced. High egg production, or live birth for that matter, usually indicates a higher natural mortality rate. Lower egg production usually means higher survival rate. Garter snakes need to produce greater numbers to insure the survival of the garder snake. I think nature has provided for that over eons by having this snake evolve into a prolific producer. The breeding eight year olds are no more common than the lower producing types because it all shakes out in the natural balance. You get the same number of sucessful adults from every type probably, it just might take more or less at the start to get there. Interesting to me is how the more prolific kingsnake has developed an immunity to the less prolific, but better equipped for survival (venomous) rattlesnake. A ying for every yang.

Our experience has been different regarding AC. Most of the snakes we find using this method are adult snakes and often very large ones. By contrast we see comparitively few juveniles under AC and when we do it is usually under pieces that are too small to hold larger specimens.

Phil
The Official Black Kingsnake website

hahahahahahahahahahaha I just had a thought, most of my AC work was in Calif. and in all cases heavily collected. A bit skewed, hahahahahahaha.

Looking in natural cover, I can find whatever size I want, by the type of cover. Cheers

No doubt, if you go to places that are heavily collected from this may create a bias. We try to avoid these places and instead create our own sites where we don't have to concern ourselves with so much disturbance. I agree with you on natural cover/ habitat, where you search has a lot to do with the size class that is found.

Phil

I wish I could just go out and find snakes willy nilly like FR, Ohio stinks in my area, half suburbs half country, I should tell my parents its either one or the other lol.