Reproduction in the Brown Water Snake 
105 
SVL (cm) 
Fig. 1. Relationship between SVL and total body weight for male (solid circles) 
and female (x) Nerodia taxispilota from central Georgia. 
of larger clutches, but selection for increased body size in males is weak 
or absent. My data are consistent with this hypothesis, but other 
hypotheses such as partitioning of food resources by prey size are 
possible. The largest male and female examined from central Georgia 
were 86 and 124 cm SVL, respectively, and six of 74 females (8.7%) 
exceeded 100 cm SVL. 
Growth. The age/ size-class structure of the mark-recapture 
population was determined by plotting the SVL of all specimens collected 
during April and May as a histogram (Fig. 2A) and transforming these 
values onto probability paper as described by Harding (1949). Because 
only mark-recapture data can positively age individual specimens, Figure 
2B indicates the most likely age/ size-class assignments based on the 
probability plot. 
Five litters of N. taxispilota, totaling 83 individuals, were born in 
captivity. Newborn snakes had a mean SVL of 23.3 ±0.1 cm and 
weighed 10.9 ±0.1 g. Under natural conditions little growth occurred 
before hibernation, and the following spring this group emerged from 
hibernation with SVLs from 23 to 26 cm. One newborn snake marked 
on 14 September 1976 had grown only 0.4 cm (SVL) when recaptured 
on 16 March 1977. 
