Yesterday before Matty, Rick and I headed over to my parent's house for Easter dinner (yum--very good, Joni), we went to the Little Miami for a hike. We wanted to see how high the river had climbed, and I wanted to revisit a stand of Jack-in-the-Pulpits to make sure they weren't under water. At one point, Matty saw a Garter Snake slithering through the grass, and when I looked down I found this beauty curled up in the leaves by my feet. At first I photographed him with the long lens, but he was so comfortable with my presence I switched to the short lens! At times I was less than a foot away...it was very cool to say the least.
A close-up of an Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) shows his beautiful scales.
...an Eastern Garter Snake's pattern is easy to identify. It has three light stripes with a dark background. I just read in "Ohio's Reptiles" (a free guide written by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife) that a Garter Snake's name "derives from the longitudinal stripes on the body which resemble the design on once-stylish sock garters." Who knew?
...the beautiful and colorful keeled scales of a Garter Snake. Some snakes have smooth scales, while others have "keeled" scales. A keeled scale has a longitudinal ridge on it.
Curled and coiled in the leaf litter, there is no denying his beauty.
A snake's scales are made of keratin, just like our hair and nails. They are formed out of the skin. The skin between the scales is soft and stretchy, which comes in very handy when a snake swallows a mouse or frog! You can see this in the photo above...the scales on the left side of the photo are compact and overlapping, while the scales in the middle have a space between them. Those black and white areas are the skin...stretched to accommodate his latest meal. As a snake grows, he doesn't grow more scales...they just get larger.
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