What Species?

[Gyre]

Ok, here's a topic that has been bugging me for years. I live in upstate NY, and one summer I was playing in my yard, when I found nest of tiny, newborn garters. There had to have been nearly a hundred and fifty, so I knew that it must have been two litters, but half were your typical, common garter and the other half was entirely black, with a small yellow ring on the neck.

They were the same size as the for-sure-garters, and they all scattered before I could even think about picking one up. To this day, I have no clue what they were. Any ideas?

Hannah

[Stefan-A]

Ringnecks (Diadophis punctatus)? D. p. edwardsii maybe, judging by where you found them?

[GarterGuy]

Sounds like they were Northern Ringneck snakes (Diadophis punctatus edwardsi)..they will often be found in the same places as young garters and actually the adults will eat baby garters.
Roy

[Gyre]

Thank you both so much. That has been bugging me for a long time.

Hannah

[Tori]

Garters and Ringnecks are known to winter together, along with brown snakes. Garters will also eat baby ringnecks.

Tori

[OregonHerpaholic]

Garters and Ringnecks are known to winter together, along with brown snakes. Garters will also eat baby ringnecks.

Interesting "friendship" they have.. Adult ringnecks eat baby garters and adult garters eat baby ringnecks.. all they need to do is interbreed and they can eat themselves...

Perfect balance of nature.

Billie

[Stefan-A]

Ringnecks are a genus that I would like to give a try at some point, they seem interesting. Even their diets are fascinating; earthworms, salamanders and frogs, lizards, other snakes.. Sometimes even fish. And they are supposedly mildly venomous.

Does any of this sound familiar to the rest of you?

[GarterGuy]

Yeh, I've always really liked Ringnecks myself, but it's actually the diet thing that's kept me from keeping them. Even though they "seem" to have a broad diet, a lot of people that I talk to who work with them say that they can be really picky eaters, sometimes only eating certain prey during certain times of year and many of the really nice large ones, are very big snakes eaters....feeding primarily on ground snakes and such. This might be 'cause most of them are wild caught and are hard to switch to different dietary items? Like I said, never worked with them myself, just stuff I've heard about them from those who have.
Roy