Diet: Milk snakes are a species of king snake and like other king snakes, are known to be ophiophagus, snake eaters. While most king snakes feed on other snakes throughout much of their life, the eastern milk snake tends to consume other snakes during their juvenile stage. Once hatched, young milk snakes feed largely on insects and other invertebrates. As they age, they move on to larger prey such as other snakes and eventually, in adulthood, will begin feeding on rodents and birds instead. This diet makes them beneficial to humans as they feed largely on pests from the insects that feed on garden plants and crops to the rodents that can spread diseases, parasites and infest homes. Milk snakes along with other king snakes have adapted a resistance to viper venom, allowing them to prey on copperheads, cottonmouths and even rattlesnakes. Their blood has shown to be resistant to the effects of hemorrhaging and proteolysis, often associated with viper venom. King snakes do not however, have much resistance to coral snake venom. This is likely due to coral snakes having also evolved to be ophiophagus.
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Sources:
"Milksnake." Ontario Nature, 2021, ontarionature.org/programs/community-science/reptile-amphibian-atlas/milksnake/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. Rowell, Jeffrey C. The Snakes of Ontario: Natural History, Distribution and Status. Winnipeg, Art Bookbindery, 2012. Weinstein, Scott A., et al. "Variability of Venom-Neutralizing Properties of Serum from Snakes of the Colubrid Genus Lampropeltis." jstor, Journal of Herpetology, 1992, www.jstor.org/stable/1565123. Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. |