Interesting behavior....

[ssssnakeluvr]

I fed my big wandering girl a small mouse today. I have seen them occasionally wrap a coil around a mouse....but this time she wrapped and squeezed!! got a couple awesome pics.

[snake man]

Was it alive?

[Invisible Snake]

Wow that's amazing! Someone should do an article on how some wanderings coil and constrict their food items.

Was the mouse being fed alive or f/t?

[ssssnakeluvr]

it was a live mouse, in the lower pic you can see she had a tight grip on the mouse... he was pretty much unconscious when she moved and started eating him. just a little leg twitching.

[thamneil]

That's really neat! So this isn't a normal behavior when eating live mice? How do they typically dispatch of live mice?

[ssssnakeluvr]

That's really neat! So this isn't a normal behavior when eating live mice? How do they typically dispatch of live mice?

it's not real common, mainly seen in ones that feed on a lot of wild mice. garters just grab their prey and eat them alive. wandering garters have the Duvornoy's gland (gland that produces venom), but only a mild one, acts as a tranquilizer on mice, calming them down so the snake can eat them easier.

[Stefan-A]

Excellent pictures.

[Thamnophis]

Looks to me this is a Pantherophis elegans

Good observation and also good pics. One learns every day something new.

[ProXimuS]

Awesome pics and cool information!

[EasternGirl]

She was pretending to be a boa...lol. I have had my garters constrict around my hands, but I've never seen them attempt it with food. Very cool!