Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Female albino red plains garter. This is offspring from the wild one I caught in '02.
Not a conda but I don't care. lol
Arik

If you look to the right and slightly out of focus you can see the male looking at whats going on.lol
Arik

` Good pic. I hear them things is rear fanged and venomous, be careful. LOL
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No DFR, they are not a "rear fanged venomous" but close. They, unlike the hognose (specifically heterodon platyrinos) do not have hollow rear fangs to inject their toxin. They both have what used to be called duvernoys glands and I have heard this was changed to simply venomous since it is simply a modified saliva gland just as a venom gland is. The garters have this gland but are too far back in evolution to inject it (maybe some day...like 2008). Now it is just contained in their saliva and causes the irritation and swelling. I also heard of a 6 year old girl who was a hemopheliac has died from a garter snake bite..but I was not given information to back that up. I dont know if you were just joking and I look like a fool for restating this (I know you know a lot about snakes so my guess is you knew this already and I didnt catch your joke) but to anyone else reading this thread that did not know this...there ya go. Garters are venomous.

` I've just gotta quit trying to be funny, almost always blows up in my face.

` Anyway, as far as garters, read up: www.anapsid.org/duvernoygland.html

` Opisthoglyphs may or may not have grooves. Enlarged teeth, fangs, same idea. www.venomous.com/venom.html

` "Venomous" does not mean deadly. Bees have venom so, they are venomous, no?

` I don't know about "anyone else", but the joke was that this is the big bad Anaconda forum, and that's a tiny little venomous snake.
`
` You can't be expected to censor all your thoughts to the point that the lowest common denominator out there won't misunderstand and start the rumor about the sky falling.

` I put LOL at the end of my post. LOL = laughing out loud. Means joke. I guess if it's not funny, saying that it is doesn't help a bit. LOL
`
` I'll be more careful, next time.

` Oh yeah, garters are venomous. Especially, if you're a fish, an amphibian, or a slug.

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I got that it was a joke...my comment was that you said "rear fanged venomous" garters do not fall as "rear fanged" but hognose snakes do. I have read mellisa kaplans page before on many snake species. I am not sure exactly what your latest post is saying. I get the big bad anaconda joke..the joke I did not get was if you were aware they were no rear fanged and thats why you said "I heard" ...like people think that and you were being sarcastic knowing they were not...but they were toxic containing duvernoys glands or venomous..just not rear fanged. Does that make sense?