Reptile & Amphibian Forums

http://www.startri.com/snakecrime.htm photo essaye of a northern black racer hunting and eating a smaller racer. click on each photo to see the full size image.
snake on snake crime

Wow, that's pretty cool. If I saw that here in VT I think I'd just about pee myself -- Northern Racers are a state endangered species and barely hanging on. We know about one population of 6 recorded adults with pit tags. A few weeks ago the only one still carrying a radio transmitter was killed by some predator. The population shows no evidence of having reproduced successfully in quite some time as the smallest snake we know of is just under 4 feet long. We still don't know where the females go in the summer though so maybe there is hope. When the population was discovered a few years ago there were 9 snakes... so depressing to see a third of them killed, one of which was hit by an ATV, rehabilitated in captivity for 3 months, released, then hit and killed by a truck

nice to see another vermonter, what county are you in? im in bennington.

that sucks about the racers, but at least we have garters. at times it seems like thats all we have. ive cought tons of garters but ive only cought one brown, 4 milks (but i think i caught the same one 3 times) and i think one garter i found was actualy a ribbon. and i saw a red bellied snake once
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jake

my addiction:
0.2 normal ball pythons (lazlo and izzy)
0.1 amelenistic corn snake (maizy)
0.1 blizzard corn (blizz)
1.0 albino cal king (zeus)
0.0.1 wc garter (zim)
hybrid breeders association
hybrid haven

another Vermonter? On kingsnake.com? I'm originally from Shoreham just outside of Middlebury but am in Burlington now attending classes at UVM. I'm mostly interested in field herpetology but just a couple weeks ago my addiction to keeping exotics was rekindled and I'm going to dealve into the wonderful world of keeping (and hopefully breeding) kingsnakes and non-native milksnakes.

And you're right, pleanty of garters! I was fortunate enough recently to discover a healthy population of Greensnakes in the state:
http://www.uvm.edu/~kvbriggs/pictures/SmoothGreensnake/

Where do you think you might have caught a Ribbonsnake? Depending on the town and site I may be able to tell you if a known population is from that area. There are a few good places to find them but all in all they're just so damn uncommon in vt.

the snake that i thought could be a ribbon i found about 6 years ago so i was just a kid.

found it on a rocky river bank in pownal, it had a large tumor like bulge on its head, which could explain why it was so slendor
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jake

my addiction:
0.2 normal ball pythons (lazlo and izzy)
0.1 amelenistic corn snake (maizy)
0.1 blizzard corn (blizz)
1.0 albino cal king (zeus)
0.0.1 wc garter (zim)
hybrid breeders association
hybrid haven

i dont understand why a snake would eat its own kind? weeding out the weaker genes?
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jake

my addiction:
0.2 normal ball pythons (lazlo and izzy)
0.1 amelenistic corn snake (maizy)
0.1 blizzard corn (blizz)
1.0 albino cal king (zeus)
0.0.1 wc garter (zim)
hybrid breeders association
hybrid haven

a professor of mind described cannibalism quite nicely: It's sort of like going to a grocery store with a list of all the food you'll need in a month and right when you walk in there is an abandoned shopping cart full of everything on your list. If you think about it, eating your own kind means that your meal has exactly everything you need in exactly the correct proportions for growth. As long as the odds are that you're not eating your own offspring or as long as you produce enough offspring to offset the ones you eat then there's really nothing to worry about (except in VT where doing that would destroy 15% of a population that probably isn't genetically viable to begin with...)

This has nothing to do with snakes but since it's on topic, a fairly recent study concluded that about 70% of an adult Bullfrog's diet is made up of smaller Bullfrogs. Food for thought...

Here are some pictures of VT Racers. One of them was just fitted with an external radio transmitter. Internal transmitters were being used on males but the worry was that the procedure might be too invasive to use on potentially gravid females so a smaller variety was literally taped to the side of one test snake. It's meant to be temporary as it will come off with the next shed. The idea was for it to stay on long enough for her to lead us to summer female habitat and maybe nest sites. Sadly this one came off too soon and the others had already dispersed so it will have to wait until next year

anyway, pics:
http://www.uvm.edu/~kvbriggs/pictures/EasternRacer/

Cannibalism is common in nature; many snake species specialize on eating other snakes. With farm animals, female hogs will eat the babies; that's why your hog farmers use crates...to keep the sow upright so she won't lay on the babies, and also so she won't eat them! And chickens are probably the most cannibalistic of all! You throw a wounded chicken in with a group, and they will pick it clean in no time! Even different cultures of humans practice cannibalism. Some tribal communities will eat their enemy to absorb their strength, and so on. In the christian influenced American society, it is one of the worst things to do, but in nature it is just a part of life!
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-David

Check out my pet pics at:
http://www.myspace.com/obx_fisherman

1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
1.0 normal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amery. corn snake (Morgan LaFay)
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 snow corn snake (Valkyrie)
1.0 amazon tree boa (Pegasus)
0.0.1 colombian boa (Athena)
0.0.1 albino san diego gopher snake (TBD)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
0.0.1 fire skink (Phoenix)
1.0 dog (Luke)

the wife's pets:
1.0 bearded dragon (Leonidas)
1.1 ferrets (Ares, Enyo)
0.0.1 betta fish (Captain Morgan)
1.2 cats (Galahad, Ripley and Sassy)