THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Natricidae  

Checkered Gartersnake
Thamnophis marcianus (Baird and Girard, 1853)
tham-NO-fiss — maar-see-AI-nus

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 Myers et al. (2017, Journal of Biogeography 44: 461–474), using mtDNA data, detected divergence between Chihuahuan and Sonoran Desert populations, which correspond to a previous taxonomic split based on morphology determined by Mittleman (1949, Bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 8: 235–249). However, with genome-scale data, Myers et al. (2019, Molecular Ecology 28: 4535–4548) showed that this divergence was unclear at the intersection of those deserts.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2024.11.12.08.16.05)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.31 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Arizona California Kansas New Mexico Oklahoma Texas

First instance(s) of published English names:
Marcy's Garter Snake (Eutaenia marciana: Yarrow, Henry C. 1876. List of Skeletons and Crania in the Section of Comparative Anatomy of the United States Army Medical Museum for use during the International Exhibition of 1876 in Connection with the Representation of the Medical Department U.S. Army. Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C. pp.); Marcy's Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans marciana: Brown, Arthur, E. 1902. Report of the Board of Directors. Pages 5-22 in Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia. Allen, Lane, and Scott, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. pp.); Marcy's Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus: Strecker, John K., Jr. 1922. An annotated catalogue of the amphibians and reptiles of Bexar County, Texas. Bulletin Scientific Society of San Antonio (4):1-31); Marcy's Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus: Van Denburgh, John. 1922. The Reptiles of Western North America: An Account of the Species Known to Inhabit California and Oregon, Washinton, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, British Columbia, Sonora, and Lower California. Volume I. Lizards. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. 556pp.); Marcy's Snake (Thamnophis marcianus: Taylor, Edward H. 1929. A revised checklist of the snakes of Kansas. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 19(5):53-62); Checkered Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Marcy's Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Marcy's Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus marcianus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Checkered Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus marcianus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Western Checkered Garter Snake (Thamnophis marcianus nigrolateris: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1853 Baird, Spencer F. and Charles Girard. Catalogue of North American Reptiles in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Part 1. Serpents. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 2(5):xvi + 172
1908 Ruthven, Alexander G. Variations and genetic relationships of the garter-snakes. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (61):1-201
1946 Smith, Hobart M. Hybridization between two species of garter snakes University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural History 1(4):97-100
1949 Mittleman, M. Budd. Geographic variation in Marcy's Garter Snake, Thamnophis marcianus (Baird and Girard). Bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 8(10):235-249
1961 McCoy, Clarence J., Jr. Thamnophis marcianus in central Oklahoma. Journal of the Ohio Herpetological Society 3(2):23-24
1972 Rossman, Douglas A. An unusual specimen of Thamnophis marcianus from Veracruz, Mexico. Herpetological Review 4(5):169
1972 Baker, Robert J., George A. Mengden, and James J. Bull. Karyotypic studies of thirty-eight species of North American snakes . Copeia 1972(2):257-265
1978 Miller, Larry L. The status of the Checkered Garter Snake in Kansas. Kansas Herpetological Society Newsletter (27):6-8
1985 Lawson, Robin. Molecular studies of Thamnophiine snakes. Dissertation. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. 191pp.
1994 De Queiroz, Alan and Robin Lawson. Phylogenetic relationships of the garter snakes based on DNA sequence and allozyme variation. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 53:209-229
2002 de Queiroz, Alan, Robin Lawson, and Julio A. Lemos-Espinal. Phylogenetic relationships of North American garter snakes (Thamnophis) based on four mitochondrial genes: How much DNA sequence is enough?. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 22(2):315-329
2011 Miller, Larry L. and Suzanne L. Miller. 2010 Investigation of the Checkered Garter Snake in Kansas, with Notes on Other Amphibians, Reptiles, and Turtles Encountered. Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Pratt. 20pp.
2016 Myers, Edward A., Michael J. Hickerson, and Frank T. Burbrink. Asynchronous diversification of snakes in the North American warm deserts. Journal of Biogeography 44(2):1-14
2017 Bezy, Robert L., Philip C. Rosen, Thomas R. Van Devender, and Erik F. Enderson. Southern distributional limits of the Sonoran Desert herpetofauna along the mainland coast of northwestern Mexico Mesoamerican Herpetology 4(1):138-167
2017 Myers, Edward A., Michael J. Hickerson, Frank T. Burbrink. Asynchronous diversification of snakes in the North American warm deserts. Journal of Biogeography 44(2):461-474
2019 Myers, Edward A., Alexander T. Xue, Marcelo Gehara, Christian Cox, Alison R. Davis Rabosky, Julio Lemos‐Espinal, Juan E. Martínez‐Gómez, and Frank T. Burbrink. Environmental heterogeneity and not vicariant biogeographic barriers generate community‐wide population structure in desert‐adapted snakes. Molecular Ecology 28(20):4535-4548

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Thursday 12 June 2025 20:50 CT