Are Garter Snake harmful

Answer 1

Garters were long thought to be nonvenomous, but recent discoveries have revealed that they do in fact produce a mild neurotoxic venom. Garter snakes are nevertheless harmless to humans due to the very low amounts of venom they produce, which is comparatively mild, and the fact that they lack an effective means of delivering it. They do have enlarged teeth in the back of their mouth, but unlike many rear fanged colubrid snakes, garter snakes do not have a groove running down the length of the teeth that would allow it to inject venom into its prey. The venom is delivered via a duvernoy's gland, secreted between their lips and gums. Whereas most venomous snakes have anterior or forward venom glands, the Duvernoy's gland of garters are posterior (to the rear) of the snake's eyes. The mild poison is spread into wounds through a chewing action. The properties of the venom are not well known, but it appears to contain 3FXT, commonly known as three-finger toxin, which is a neurotoxin commonly found in the venom of colobrids and elapids. A bite may result in mild swelling and an itching sensation. There are no known cases of serious injury and extremely few with symptoms of envenomation.

Answer 2

Yes they are if you answer know what your answering but they cant inject the venom so the bite will just draw blood but they are actually venomous.

the Venom they have is a neuro-toxin, low dose that prevents squirming while swallowing. Garter snakes tend to bite and release humans (if they bite at all) and cannot really use the venom against us, unless you put your finger down it's throat and waited for a while.

the below about newts is also true, but please note that garter snakes are now considered a venomous snake, not a constrictor.

My opinion: Not really. If they bite you, then the most it can do is break the skin. However, you shouldn't eat them because some animals that they like to eat could poison you if you eat the snake.

The short answer is no.

The short answer is not strictly correct however, partly because I suspect that the question was intended to mean: "Are common garter snakes venomous?"

You will read in many places that garter snakes are not venomous, but it now is known that the saliva is in fact significantly venomous, and plays a role in paralysing the animals that they eat, for example some kinds of newts and salamanders. This is not particularly relevant to humans though; garter snakes do not have the kind of fangs that can deliver a significant amount of poison through a human skin. They don't generally bite anyway, and if they did bite, the bite would not be likely to do you any harm. So if you find a garter snake, don't hurt it or bother it unless you enjoy being cruel to animals for no good purpose.

Garter snakes however do commonly eat some kinds of amphibians, such as newts. Some of the kinds of newts that you find where garter snakes live, although they do not produce any poison themselves, do pick up an extremely dangerous poison called tetrodotoxin from certain kinds of bacteria that may occur in the things that they themselves eat. Instead of being killed by it themselves the newts pass the poison on mainly to their liver, skin and so on. Anything that eats such a newt had better not be susceptible to tetrodotoxin poisoning, so don't go playing stupid tricks with newts and salamanders unless you know exactly what you are doing, in which case I would expect you not to want to play stupid tricks anyway.

As it happens, one of the kinds of animals that are not susceptible to tetrodotoxin poisoning is the garter snake. When they eat newts, they store the poison in much the same way as newts do. As a result, most of the things that eat garter snakes but are not adapted to the poison, will die.

In short, you can ignore the venom of garter snakes, and you also can ignore the poison in garter snakes as long as you don't eat them. It is unusual for snakes to be poisonous as well as venomous, but garter snakes are one of the few examples.

Answer 3

No. But they can bite which can be painful.

Answer 4

Techincally, they are. However, their venom is mild and harmless to people.

Answer 5

No not at all. But get too close to one at it will bite you. If it does just wash the wound and bandaid it.

Answer 6

No, but they will bite if handled.

Answer 7

No. No garter snake is poisonous.

Answer 8

no