Reproduction
Reproduction in eastern ribbon snakes takes place after they emerge from hibernation in the spring, in April or May. Mating occasionally takes place in the fall, but the female will delay fertilization and development until the next spring. The average gestation period is three months. The average number of young is around 12, but can range four to 27. Females give birth in late summer or the early fall. After birth, no parental care is involved; the young are left to fend for themselves. Most young reach sexual maturity after two years, but most usually wait until the third year.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Ribbon Snake
Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
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—Joanna Cole (20th century)