Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Garter Snakes

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

Garter snakes aren’t scary, they’re pretty great! Learn all the reasons why in this episode! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there sitting

in for Dave who's editing this. Hey, Dave. Hey, Dave. And this means say, hey, Dave, everybody. No, Dave's not allowed to talk either. We can't play favorites. No, no, I'm telling the listeners to say hi to Dave. No, don't even curse that. Okay, well, let's just forget all that and just start with this short stuff about the harmless garter snake who is not only harmless, is actually helpful, especially if you garden. That's right. I love garter snakes. I love it when I happen upon them. I love to pick them up and hold them for a second. Yeah. Before I release them back into the wild very gently. Do you nuzzle them? Sure. I had one bite me once. It's really where? Just like on the finger. You know, it's cute. It's an adorable little

attempt at a bite. This one was really little and I was just like, look at you. You think you're all tough and acted like I was scared. I was like, oh, and I put it down just so it felt good about itself. Wow, that was really kind of you. What a benevolent human you are. They will, a little harmless garter snake will try and bite you because that is a snake is going to snake. But for many, many years, they thought like they had no toxicity whatsoever. Right. But they actually do have toxic neurotoxic venom. It's just, it's adorable because it's so little of it and it's so mild that it doesn't even harm a human. Right. Now, if you're like a little tiny mouse, a field mouse, you probably don't find it very

adorable because it'll mess you up. But yeah, as far as humans are concerned, unless you have a very rare and specific allergy to garter snake venom, even then from what I saw, I think the worst you're going to face is a skin irritation at the bite site. Yeah. But for the most part. I played that part up too. You did. You're like, oh my gosh, this allergy. My hand is 10 times as formal size. Yeah. The snake was like, puked his little chest out. He's very happy. So yeah, for the most part, they're just not going to hurt you when they're, when, if you're a human. But even, even more than that, garter snakes are notoriously shy. They don't want to have anything to do with you. They don't want to try to get near you. They don't want to try and hurt

your pet or your kid or anything. They just want to kind of coexist peacefully and remotely from you in your yard and your garden. And again, to kind of help you out. Yeah. And it says in here, and we'll talk about where they got their name, but it says that there are sometimes erroneously called garden snakes. I don't think that's erroneous. I think that can just be a sort of a common name for them since you find them in the garden. I don't think anyone thinks that's the official scientific name. Do they? Well, I will tell you who thinks it's wrong. Doug Welser, Wexler. Yeah. Wildlife biologists who says, who gives the most improbable explanation for the name garter snake I've ever heard actually. Which one is improbable to you? The fact that the

stripes resemble the garters that men used to wear as sock garters. Used to? I've got sock garters on right now. It's like Krusty the clown. He's trying to be relatable. He's like, yeah, when your butler doesn't get all the schmutz off of your socks garters. And Jay Leno said, oh no, not quite that. Yeah, that, I guess it does seem a little improbable. I think the other one makes a little more sense is that the German word for garden is Garten. And it might have been just a different or, you know, corruption, I guess, of that German version. Yeah, which would make sense. Because again, these are like a gardener's best friend. In the United States, sometimes they're called gardener snakes anyway. So I would find that more likely than the sock

garter story that Wexler's peddling. Agreed. And you know, it's not like he wrote a book called Garter Snakes. Oh, wait a minute. He did. He did. I feel bad if this gets back to him. I'm sure it's a great book, Doug. Yeah. And well done. Yeah, you can get it. It's published by Power Kids back in 2001. And it's probably basically evergreen. Plus, it's not like he's just a slouch too. He's with the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University in Philly. So he's not just some guy, you know, it's just promoting a terrible, terrible explanation for where the garter snake gets its time. Should we take a break? I think so. All right, let's do it. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikala, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses,

Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Here's what surprised me about the Garter Snake is that it is the state reptile of Massachusetts. That is very surprising. Did not know that. And they're all over North America, from Canada to Florida. Probably one of the most abundant and common snakes in North America.

Yeah. And it's particularly abundant in the Eastern US, but it goes all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It's just everywhere. It's America's snake. And they're very frequently in places that you have no idea. Again, they kind of try to stay away as much as possible. They're fairly small. They usually are about anywhere from 18 inches to 54 inches, which is under five feet. They're very light. They weigh less than half a pound typically. They're just tiny little snakes. And then they've got these three stripes that if you see it, you're like, gosh, that looks just like a sock garter. Yeah. They have the one, I think one stripe down the back and then a couple on each side of the belly. But there are 35 species. So they're

different kinds. There can be spots on some and the colors can range from kind of olive to brown to black to gray. The fact of the show for me, I don't know how I got to 50 years old and never knew that Alaska didn't have snakes. Right. Did you know that? I did not. For some reason, it's ringing like the most minute bell in my head that we've covered it before somewhere. I just, that was shocked by that because I just figured like any huge natural woodland paradise, there would be snakes everywhere, but there are no snakes in Alaska. Yeah. I think it's just generally too cold up there, but in 2005, somebody found a garter snake that had been killed on the road and the Journal of Herpetology published a study by researchers who studied this thing,

tried to figure out where it came from. So they studied its DNA and they said that it's either from a relic or remnant population or it was a recent natural colonization or a fresh introduction. And if you take all these explanations together, you see that they say, we have no idea how this snake got here is what we're saying. Take your pick. Yeah. It's funny. I was like, is there literally one other possibility of how that snake got there, unless you talk about like, you know, it fell from outer space. Right. Dropped by the hand of God himself or herself. Exactly. Or themselves. Yes. That's right. So these snakes are very active. They're active during the day. They're active during the night. If you are a gardener at your house,

that's where you're probably going to find them. If you're doing some weeding or something, all of a sudden one will just go, yeah. And you'll see them slithering away as fast as possible. That's exactly what they do too. But they do, they are good for your garden. You know, they'll eat pests, they'll eat little rodents, they'll eat insects. Slugs. Sure. Get rid of the slugs. Snails. Yeah. Grasshoppers. Like all of these things are things that like eat your garden and the garden snake, sorry, garter snake eats these things for you. So it's like a natural pest clear. That again, doesn't want to hurt your dog. It doesn't want to hurt your dog or your kid or whatever. And in fact, it can be a really fun way to introduce your kid to snakes and let them

hold a garter snake because they're, you know, they're kind of fun to hold in it. You can get rid of some of that fear of snakes that we tried so hard to dispel in our snakes episode. Right. It's a good starter to teach your kid how to create their own like freaky thing. It's like their thing that they're known for throughout high school. It's a starter snake. I love it. Sure. You can't have them as pets, but they say if you find one in your garden, don't just, just let it go. Don't take that thing inside and try and keep it as a pet. It's a wild animal. It may even be against the law depending on where you live, but also they actually do breed garter snakes as pets. And I would guess it's probably better for the garter snake to be born in captivity and kept in captivity

than raised in the wild and brought into a 30 gallon aquarium, you know? Right. The other thing about garter snakes that you'll notice too is again, they're venomous, but they're harmless to humans. And one of the reasons people thought they were non-venomous for so long is because their head is about the same size as like the rest of their body. And that's usually a big differentiator, just as a rule of thumb, a thumb that you want to keep away from whatever snake you're sizing up to that moment, that if the head is about the same size as the body, it's probably not venomous. Yeah, here in the United States for sure. And there are no, you know, I've seen a lot of erroneous, hard and fast rules that aren't really always hard and fast, but definitely if you see a snake that

has a big sort of, you know, diamond shaped head, give it some space. It would just be my advice. It might be fine, but give it space anyway. Especially if it's making a rattling sound with its tail. Yeah, that's a dead giveaway. There's one other thing about garter snakes too that you should know that if you are going to get curious and pick it up, which is mean, again, they're very shy. They don't want to have anything to do with you. And they certainly don't want to be picked up. It may not only bite you on the finger like the one bit chuck, but it also could emit a foul smell. They're very well known snakes generally do this, but garter snakes are well known for basically spraying poopy and musk combo out. And that

makes you want to drop it because you're just like, ugh. Yeah. And you should play that up too, because they like getting props for that too. Like, oh my God, the smell. I can't take it. That's very nice Chuck. I love it. You got anything else? I have nothing else, sir. Well, and that's it for short stuff. Everybody hope you enjoyed. Be kind to garter snakes. I think that's the big takeaway from this one, which means short stuff is out.