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on the subject of nature melanistic garter snake on the subject of nature a blog about the natural world around us whether it be birds insects plants geology or more tuesday may 19 2015 melanistic garter snake for half of this summer i ll be living up in northern ohio helping with some salamander research as a field assistant it s only been 2 weeks so far but we ve found so many interesting and wonderful things the best find of last week came from one of the field sites on south bass island in lake erie olivia brooks who is the one behind the nature oriented twitter account wild earth is the other field assistant we re always on the lookout for snakes and while in the middle of trying to find salamanders olivia yelled snake we ran toward olivia and were met by a very young eastern garter snake i ve covered eastern garter snakes before and you might notice that this one doesn t really look like a garter at all the coloration is all wrong right garter snakes aren t black this is indeed an eastern garter snake thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis but it is an individual with melanism melanism is essentially the opposite of albinism while albinism is the absence of melanin a dark colored pigment found in skin melanism is the overabundance of melanin leading to an individual with an abnormal amount of black coloration melanistic eastern garter snakes can be found along the western basin of lake erie and on some of the lake erie islands some populations can be up to 50 melanistic in this area meaning there will be a mixture of normal looking and melanistic individuals within one area the photo above shows what a normal eastern garter snake looks like this normal colored individual was found at the same exact location on south bass island as the melanistic individual we found i have no clue as to what the exact ratio between the two types is but it would be very interesting to do a survey and get an estimate so why is there such a high concentration of melanistic garters in northwest ohio mutations that lead to melanism can arise randomly in any animal that has melanin however mutations that cause melanism and albinism are very rare this leads to sporadic occurrences of the color abnormality that randomly occur across multiple populations for a trait like melanism to build up in a population there must be something else going on more specifically being melanistic must benefit the individual in some way if the trait was bad for the individual it would quickly be selected out of the population if it had a neutral effect individuals with the trait would only exist in very small numbers adaptive melanism can be adaptive for many different reasons for example in black panthers which are actually just melanistic jaguars melanism leads to better camouflage as these predators hunt in the dark of night in the eastern garter snake being melanistic makes it easier for an individual to warm up when basking in the sun the color black absorbs all the wavelengths of the white light of the sun resulting in the black individual gaining relatively more heat energy than the predominantly brown individuals snakes are ectotherms cold blooded this means that they do not hold a constant internal temperature like we do but instead rely on the ambient heat of the environment to regulate their internal temperature for a snake to be able to hunt successfully their body temperature must reach a certain threshold by being able to reach that threshold quicker and easier melanistic garter snakes have an advantage in being able to find and eat more food than the normal individuals who have to wait longer for their temperature to reach that threshold posted by kyle brooks at 10 48 pm email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels nature ohio photography parks herpetology herping snakes location south bass island put in bay oh usa 5 comments unknown july 23 2018 at 4 22 pm hi kyle i stumbled across your post while trying to confirm what i found there appears to be a small colony of meleninistic garter snakes on toronto island i ve spotted 3 in the past 3 years each smaller than the last cheers jeremy reply delete replies kyle brooks september 16 2018 at 9 11 pm i just looked around and it looks like toronto island is well known in the herp community for harboring a population of melanistic garter snakes how neat http canadianherpetology ca species species_page html cname eastern 20gartersnake delete replies reply anonymous june 30 2024 at 11 00 pm i saw a melanistic western garter on vancouver island today very blue eyes and very fast there were plenty of wall lizards to eat but they are too fast for most predators delete replies reply reply anonymous june 1 2024 at 4 39 pm do they have a white belly reply delete replies reply anonymous june 27 2024 at 5 27 pm i was just on south bass island we were at the lighthouse when i saw a large black snake in the grass then it disappeared into a rotted out wood hole on the left side of the stairs of the white barn facing the lighthouse i believe it was a melanistic garter reply delete replies reply add comment load more newer post older post home subscribe to post comments atom about me kyle brooks view my complete profile about this blog the natural world is filled with incredible and intriguing plants animals and places on the subject of nature aims to highlight such interesting subjects and talk about the science and the issues surrounding them this blog will cover a wide range of topics from the obscure to the mundane the tiniest insects to earth altering geologic forces the latest scientific trends to the most basic natural history and beyond check out my twitter account kyle from ohio on twitter blog archive 2019 2 january 2 2018 8 august 2 june 2 march 1 february 1 january 2 2017 18 november 1 october 1 september 2 august 2 june 4 may 4 march 2 february 1 january 1 2016 16 october 2 september 3 august 1 june 1 may 3 march 2 february 1 january 3 2015 34 december 3 november 4 october 7 september 5 august 3 july 4 june 2 may 3 cecropia moth melanistic garter snake luna moth april 1 march 1 february 1 2014 36 december 2 november 2 october 2 september 2 august 1 july 7 june 6 may 3 april 5 march 4 january 2 2013 24 december 2 november 3 october 2 september 2 august 2 july 1 june 2 may 2 april 1 march 2 february 5 2012 5 october 3 september 2 search this blog labels acadia national park 1 adams county ohio 11 allegheny plateau 2 american southwest 4 amphibians 9 anthropology 1 apache county az 1 arachnids 5 arizona 3 arthropods 4 athens county 3 athens county ohio 19 atlantic ocean 2 backpacking 1 beaches 2 beetles 1 behavior 1 bird banding 1 birding 33 birds 26 birds of prey 3 botany 25 butterflies 5 camping 1 caterpillars 6 caves 1 champaign county 1 coastal plain 3 conservation 3 delaware county ohio 1 deserts 2 dragonflies 2 endangered species 1 erie county ohio 1 fact check 1 fairfield county ohio 5 fayette county ohio 1 federally 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