Endangered
Blackbelly garter snake
Thamnophis melanogaster
Blackbelly garter snake is a snake in the family Colubridae — Thamnophis melanogaster, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The dorsal color of these snakes may be brown, olive green, gray, red, orange, or pink. Ventral colors include the same as the dorsal, with the addition of yellow. Dorsal patterns may include stripes and there is typically a black stripe running down the center of the belly, that explains both the common and scientific names for this species.
Range and habitat
It is found on the Central Mexican Plateau at elevations between 1,158 and 2,545 m above sea level. This is a terrestrial species that occurs in temperate habitats. Although it lives on land, it has not been found more than 15 m from a body of water.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Good underwater vision and chemical cues help the snakes find and capture their prey. Blackbelly garter snakes are ovoviviparous.
In crisis
Blackbelly garter snake is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Blackbelly garter snake, Wikidata item Q3519529. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
