Birthing or parturition habitat consists of lowland areas or wet depressions surrounded by higher and drier land. Butler Garter Snakes spend much of the active season below ground or under vegetation or shelter of cover objects including logs, rocks, debris on the ground, burrows, ant mounds, old house foundations, and other similar microhabitats. Dense grass cover with a heavy thatch layer is essential to its habitat, as the thatch layer allows this snake to move around in search of food under cover from predators. It prefers short vegetation (<60.1 cm), although they will occupy habitats with taller vegetation, such as wetlands dominated by reed canary grass. This species also occurs along railroad embankments and roadsides and in vacant lots and old dumps in urban and suburban areas. Habitat for this species consists of open or semi-open wetlands, including wet meadows and prairies, marshy edges along lakes, ponds, and streams, and other moist grassy/sedgy areas, and adjacent open/semi-open canopy upland habitats. Their scales are keeled (with a ridge along the length of the scale), and they have a single, undivided anal plate or scale that covers their cloaca or anal opening. Butler Garter Snakes have 19 (occasionally 20-21) scale rows at midbody, and 7 upper labial (lip) scales. This is in contrast to Eastern Gartersnake and Northern Ribbonsnake, which both have larger, longer heads. Their head is small and relatively narrow, not much wider than their body. Their head is black or olive, often with two tiny yellow spots on the large scales at the back of the head. Butler Garter Snakes are characterized by bellies that are pale green or yellow and edged with brown, with black spots and running along the edges. This characteristic distinguishes this species from the Eastern Gartersnake (include scientific name), which has side stripes restricted to scale rows 2 and 3, and the Northern Ribbonsnake (include scientific name), which has side stripes only on rows 3 and 4. The two lateral stripes on the sides of the body are centered on scale row 3 and adjacent halves of scale rows 2 and 4. These snakes sometimes have two rows of dark or black spots running down their back between the central stripe and the two side stripes. The body is black, brown, or olive-brown in color.
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