Red-Sided Garter Snake

When you watch those old movies when a princess is meeting potential suitors and they all line up in an orderly fashion to lavish her with praise and gifts, hoping to be chosen to be her prince charming? Yea, this is nothing like that, female red-sided garter snakes don’t get such a fairytale.

When the female is ready to mate she can have up to 100 male suitors hoping to be the lucky one and no one wants to wait about to find out if they will be. The will all swarm her in what’s called a ‘mating ball’ and not one with pretty gowns and elaborate masks.

They will all try and mate with her at the same time and once one of the males is successful the female will roll around on the ground just to get the rest of the males off her. Sadly for her, if she is not in peak condition, this sudden free for all can actually kill her.