Evergreen Cemetery
April 26, 2018 Evergreen Cemetery, Portland, ME
My evening walk through Evergreen Cemetery turned up a new and interesting organism for me. While searching through the ponds for turtle, frogs, and insectivore birds, I discovered a flat greenish organism working its way through the leaf litter along the edge of the pond. It went in and out of the leaves moving as in a wave-like fashion. I watched it for a while and was able to get a number of pictures of it. At the time I had no idea what it was. I thought flatworm but it was too big. I also thought leech, but it was so green. I also wondered if it was the larval form of an amphibian.
Once I got home I spend a good amount of time trying to figure out what it was but I couldn't find anything. Finally, I showed the picture to a couple of people and it was suggested to me that it was a leech. So I zeroed in on leeches in Maine. Finally I found this website. With a picture of a similar thing and a scientific name I was able to figure out that it was indeed a leech.
In fact, it appears to be a leech which loves to eat the eggs of frogs. Knowing that those ponds have such a large frog population it isn't surprising to me that there would be something there which eats them.
I also found my fourth Garter Snake in as many days. Interestingly, this one has been identified here as a Maritime Garter Snake. I had thought the subspecies of Garter Snakes in Maine was Eastern. So now I'm wondering if Garter Snake subspecies are location specific or if there are other ways of telling them apart. I'll have spend some time researching this question.
Update---There isn't a lot of information online about Common Garter Snake ssp, but I did find this website which had the following information:
Maritime Garter Snake
Thamnophis sirtalis pallidulus Allen, 1899
A checkered subspecies found in northeastern New England, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces.
Eastern Garter Snake
Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis (Linnaeus, 1758)
Wide-ranging (across most of eastern North America) and variable, with striped, checkered and melanistic populations, and some with considerable red coloration.
Update #2---I reached out to a @billryerson about the differences between these two subspecies of snakes and he writes:
"I use primarily field marks when I am trying to decide, but the two do overlap in NH and Maine. The range maps differ a lot depending on which resource you are looking at.
When I am looking at the two, I use the dorsal stripe and dorsal patterning to tell the difference. If the snake has a bright yellow dorsal stripe, and the dorsal patterning is a pretty uniform color, then I lean towards eastern. If the stripe is pretty faint, thin or gone, then it is likely maritime. Maritime garters also have a fairly prominent checkerboard patterning dorsally, with "squares" being mostly brown and red, but they can be green as well."
Update #3---The observation found here also provides more clues for identifying the differences between these two subspecies.
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