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| This snake is not likely to be confused with any other snake, as it is unpatterned and bright, brilliant green above, white to pale yellow below, with scales that are smooth and the anal plate is divided. It ranges from 30 to 55 cm in length and is non-venomous. The Smooth Green Snake is found in a variety of habitats such as grassy, moist meadows, bogs, marsh edges, and clearings in coniferous pine forests of the Algonquin Highlands. Active during the day, green snakes feed on a variety of crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles, spiders, centipedes and millipedes. It is one of the few species of snake that is entirely insectivorous. Green Snakes emerge in April or May and mate in the late spring or summer. Eggs are laid from June to September, perhaps in two clutches of 4-6 eggs. Females probably incubate the eggs inside their bodies before depositing them in rodent burrows, sawdust piles, mounds of rotting vegetation or rotting logs. As a result, the eggs hatch 4-23 days after they are laid, a short period of time relative to other snakes. Along with habitat destruction, pesticides have undoubtedly reduced these snakes to the isolated populations they now exist in. |
(Family Colubridae)
Opheodrys vernalis
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