SREL Reprint #1988

Nerodia taxispilota (brown water snake) diet

Mark S. Mills and Chris J. Hudson

Department of Zoology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA
Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Drawer E, Aiken, South Carolina 29802, USA

Introduction: Nerodia taxispilota feed almost exclusively on fish, primarily catfish (Ictaluridae) (Camp et al. 1980. J. Herpetol. 14:301-304; Ernst and Barbour 1989. Snakes of Eastern North America. George Mason Univ. Press, Fairfax, Virginia, 282 pp.). Food items were collected as part of a long-term study on the natural history of N. taxispilota in the Savannah River adjacent to the Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken and Barnwell counties, South Carolina, and Burke Co., Georgia (for exact location, see Gibbons and Semlitsch 1991. Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of the Savannah River Site. Univ. of Georgia Press, Athens, 131 pp.). Here we report two genera of fishes (Lepisosteus and Morone) not previously reported in the diet of N. taxispilota.

SREL Reprint #1988

Mills, M.S. and C.J. Hudson. 1995. Nerodia taxispilota (brown water snake) diet. Herpetological Review 26:149.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).