‘America’s rarest snake’ hatches at Tennessee zoo. Why it was ‘a year to remember’

The hatching of the 107th tiny, wriggling snake at a Tennessee zoo marks the end of another year of efforts to save one of North America’s rarest snakes from extinction.

The Memphis Zoo is celebrating the final Louisiana pine snake hatchling of the season.

The zoo breeds the snakes to be released back into the wild as the species faces declining numbers, due largely to habitat destruction, wildlife experts say.

In their native state of Louisiana, the snakes are listed as imperiled.

“This successful last hatch, paired with Memphis Zoo’s achievement of the first reptile offspring to be successfully produced using frozen semen and artificial insemination, has made this a year to remember,” the Memphis Zoo said Sept. 22.

Three of the snakes hatched this year were particularly important because they were created from frozen sperm, described a “world-first” achievement by the zoo, McClatchy News previously reported.

Since 2010, the Memphis Zoo has been working with an array of other conservation organizations to breed and release the species, which the zoo calls “America’s rarest snake.”

In the wild, the snakes largely feed on pocket gophers, which are also affected by the decline of the longleaf pine ecosystem, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

The nonvenomous snakes lay the largest eggs and produce the biggest hatchlings of any snake species in the country, with baby snakes measuring nearly two feet long, the state agency says.

The Memphis Zoo’s first pine snake of the season hatched in July from 114 eggs laid, which marked the most in a single season at the zoo, McClatchy News reported.

Not all of them ended up hatching. Seven eggs laid by snakes inseminated by frozen sperm didn’t successfully hatch, Steve Reichling, the zoo’s director of conservation and research, told McClatchy News.

The reptiles are expected to be released in the spring of 2025.

This story was originally published September 24, 2024 at 3:44 PM with the headline "‘America’s rarest snake’ hatches at Tennessee zoo. Why it was ‘a year to remember’."