Snakes in the Prairie

Eastern Garter Snake.

Despite choosing to traipse through the prairie while geocaching, my students’ only encounters with fauna were along and on the side of the road.

Now, I tend to be terrible at identifying animals, but only last week I ran into an eastern garter snake so I actually knew something about this meter-long specimen that was stepped on by one of my students while she was running back to the Audubon Center. I convinced the group to leave it alone since these snakes do bite — even though they’re not poisonous — and release a bad-smelling odor when threatened. And this guy was somewhat traumatized.

As for the student. She was somewhat traumatized too, but got over it soon enough. I think she was more put out by the fact that when she told her mom about it that night, her mom’s first response was, “That poor snake.”

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