The problem with statements like, "
No studies of the longevity of giant garter snakes have been conducted" is that even if the researcher conducted exhaustive research into ALL the literature, the statement can become outdated in a single day... as new studies get published. The study to which you're referring (link below) appears to have an "information cut-off date" for its publications of 1999, which was actually the draft recovery plan for
T. gigas. The rest of the references range from 1952 to 1997 with a mode somewhere in the mid-to-late 80s. Thus, the information in this report is rather outdated, considering the fact that
T. gigas has been on both the California and Federal "threatened" species list since 1993. Listing a species on the threatened species list
mandates that life history research be conducted. It's amazing that estimates for their true lifespan seem to be so elusive. Finally, the point of my original post was that
longevity and fecundity vary from species to species. This point is incontrovertible
.
http://www.cocohcp.org/hcp_nccp_cont...ke_1-18-05.pdf