Thoughts on an early wild breeding season

[guidofatherof5]

This coming Tuesday morning they are calling for temps on the low 30's.
I think the garters will be fine as this isn't going to be a prolonged freeze.

[ConcinusMan]

Somehow I think they will manage. Garter snakes have survived on this planet how long now? Well, I'll bet it's long enough that this isn't their first spring freeze. Sounds like they're all still staying near the dens. I'm sure they have enough sense to come in out of the cold. The really smart ones will just go to Steve's house.

With the weather we're having in western WA and OR, I think it's going to be another very low reproduction year. Record rainfall and low temperatures are putting a serious damper on the breeding season.

Same thing happened last year. Very few females got gravid at all and summer weather lasted barely long enough to incubate offspring for those that did. We're talking barely 80 days active period before they were forced back underground.

[Stefan-A]

Somehow I think they will manage. Garter snakes have survived on this planet how long now?

Since at least the Middle Miocene, 10-15 Ma. If I'm reading my book right, the earliest vertebrae that can be identified as belonging to a Thamnophis species have been found in layers that date that far back.

At that point in time, what would become the orangutan lineage was just splitting off from our own.

[ConcinusMan]

So yeah, a while.