Food choices include insects, worms, amphibians, reptiles, birds and small mammals. Some snakes display distinct food preferences. For example, eastern hognose snakes specialize in consuming toads and frogs. This snake is unaffected by the distasteful toxins that toads often secrete from their parotoid glands. Black rat snakes are excellent climbers and often forage on small birds or their eggs.
Snakes are an integral part of the food web in any environment.
As a predator, they are important in maintaining the fitness of the animals they prey on. Nonvenomous snakes such as garter snakes grasp prey with their mouths and swallow it whole. Black rat snakes and milk snakes constrict their prey by encircling its body, resulting in suffocation before consumption. Black racers often hold their prey down to the ground by the weight of their body, which also results in suffocation. Venomous snakes capture prey by striking it and injecting venom through two large modified teeth, or fangs.