A 1992 laboratory study found that red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) could recover after brief freezing at −2.5 °C. In exposures of three hours or less, ice made up as much as 40% of the snakes’ total body water. That is not 40% of their body mass, and the result does not mean snakes can remain frozen through winter.
What the experiment found
Thomas A. Churchill and Kenneth B. Storey studied cold hardiness in red-sided garter snakes collected in autumn near communal den sites. In their 1992 abstract, the researchers describe survival trials at −2.5 °C and report a clear relationship between exposure time and recovery.
| Time at −2.5 °C | Reported result |
|---|---|
| Three hours or less | Snakes recovered fully; ice content reached up to 40% of total body water. |
| Ten hours | Half of the snakes survived; ice levels were over 50% at longer exposures. |
| 24 or 48 hours | No snakes recovered. |
The results are from Churchill and Storey’s study, “Freezing survival of the garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis”, published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology in 1992. The accessible abstract reports the outcomes; it does not provide a basis for treating them as a universal limit for every snake species or every freezing condition.
What “40% frozen” means
The study’s figure refers to the fraction of total body water converted to ice. It does not say that 40% of a snake’s physical body, weight, or anatomy froze. “Nearly half of the snake” is headline shorthand for a percentage of its water, not its whole body.
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“Came back to life” is also shorthand. The snakes recovered from brief experimental freezing; the study did not describe dead animals being resurrected. Their recovery depended on a limited exposure window: survival fell with longer time at the same temperature.
Freezing tolerance is not the same as supercooling
Supercooling means a body fluid remains liquid below its usual freezing point; freezing tolerance means an animal can survive ice forming in its body. The study abstract reports seasonal differences in the snakes’ cold hardiness: autumn snakes could supercool to about −5.5 °C, while midwinter snakes began freezing at around −0.8 to −1.2 °C. Those observations are distinct from the survival trials at −2.5 °C.
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What the study suggests about surviving a frost
Churchill and Storey did not conclude that these snakes use long-term freezing as a winter survival strategy. They suggested that limited tolerance could help when snakes are active above ground and encounter an overnight frost. That interpretation fits the short survival window in their trials; it does not support the idea that a snake can safely spend days or an entire winter frozen.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What changed inside the snakes
After five hours of freezing, the researchers reported a fourfold rise in liver glucose and a 50% increase in heart lactate. They did not observe those increases across the other organs they tested. The abstract also notes high pools of free amino acids, including taurine, but does not establish that the snake broadly floods its body with cryoprotectants or shuts down its circulation.
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