Odd Natrix natrix behaviour!

[NickCantle]

Hullo,

I was out looking for fungi at the weekend and I chanced upon two grass snakes. There was a large snake and a small snake, but they were physically stuck together. I would presume that the two were parent and juvenile, but I've never seen, nor heard of them being attached by the genitalia. At first I thought I'd seen a two headed snake

[marvin]

hi nick

autumn breeding in grass snakes although rare isn't unheard of. the smaller snake may have been the male and the larger the female. do you think this may have been a what you saw?

tim

[Dogghound]

They were mating by the sounds of it Nick. Copulation like this can last for upto 3 hours, very late in the year though.

Marvin beat me to it.

[NickCantle]

Aha, that might explain it, thank you very much guys

That thought didn't cross my mind due to the massive size difference between the two. The smaller snake was no larger than 25cm and the larger one, roughly double.

[Dogghound]

The larger snake will have been the female the smaller the male. It very common in snakes to have a large size difference between the sexes, a good example of Sexual dimorphism.

[armata]

Autumn mating is not that unusual for grass snakes. What is surprising is how small the males are at maturity. This becomes quite apparent when one witnesses mating balls with a large female at the centre with both large and small males competing.

[Dogghound]

Its highly unusual in populations were I am in North Yorkshire with most breeding occuring between late April and June , but obviously the further South the warmer the temperature is, keeping in mind most of the British population starts to hibernate around late October.

[J Cranfield]

Recording double breeding of grass snakes may be a measure of the effect of climate change. In spain and southern Europe grass snakes mate in the spring and autumn so seeing this occurring in the UK possibly would be an indication of the change in our climate.

Please record your sightings to NARRS and ARG UK

www.narrs.org.uk www.arguk.org

regards


Jon