• On the Common Garter Snake, each side stripe is confined to the 2nd and 3rd scale rows (except in Texas). (This shows that in snakes the scales don't grow randomly, like hairs on a human body; they occur in rows, and each row is numbered. At the right you see the shed skin of a Racer, Coluber constrictor clearly showing each individual scale. )

• Between the stripes there are often red blotches or a double row of alternating black spots.

• Common Garter Snakes have 7 upper lip-scales. (This shows that in critical places, especially on the head, even individual scales may be numbered! Note the distinct scales in the Racer's head in the photo.)

• Common Garter Snakes have 19 rows of scales. (The Racer in the photo has 17 rows.)

MORE ABOUT COMMON GARTER SNAKES Common Garter Snakes are small snakes, usually only a couple of feet long, but capable of being much longer. Long stripes extend from head to tail, so they don't look at all like any venomous species in North America. Though they are peaceful creatures content to eat frogs, toads, earthworms, mice and, if they can, fish, if you mishandle them they'll bite your hand. If you manage to hold one's head so it can't bite, it wraps its body around your arm, smearing you with a very disagreeably smelling musk.

• Garter snake have keeled scales, which means that each individual scale has a narrow ridge running down its middle. (This is an important feature when identifying groups of snakes. Garter snakes and water snakes have keeled scales, rat snakes have weakly keeled scales, and king snakes and racers have "smooth" scales.)

• Garter snake anal plates -- the large scale or scales next to the anus, at the end of the broad belly plates -- are single. (Anal plates are also important when identifying groups of snakes. Garter snakes, king snakes, and pit vipers, for instance, have single anal plates, but in the water snakes, racers, and rat snakes, the plates are divided.)