Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis

[cremer]

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[rami59]

Nice

[guidofatherof5]

Great bunch of photos. Beautiful snakes.

[CrazyHedgehog]

Please help, I am confused....
I have some of these that I thought were just common red sided garters, ( Thamnophis Sirtalis?) they have the same small red stripe
I have Parietalis which are almost total red sided, are they in fact the same sub species?

[CrazyHedgehog]

parietalis or sirtalis?

[chris-uk]

parietalis or sirtalis?

Hard call. My parietalis had almost no red at all, so the red isn't any guide as to whether it's a parietalis. My opinion based on your photos is that they aren't parietalis (I looked at a lot of photos of parietalis when I was trying to work out what my girl was).
I'm not best placed when it comes to T. sirtalis spp. (I only have infernalis and tetrataenia now) but my first impression was that I was looking at T. sirtalis sirtalis (Eastern Garter Snake).

On the names, common names vary depending where you are. I think I'm still right to say:
Common Garter = T. sirtalis
Red-sided Garter = T. sirtalis parietalis
Eastern Garter = T. sirtalis sirtalis
Unfortunately, I think that the snakes sold in the UK as T. sirtalis are the "Northern Garters" you find in some shops. From the experience of several garter keepers in the UK they could be an unidentified sirtalis species or even radix... The problem with identifying many of the sirtalis subspecies is that knowing where the snake was found is necessary because natural variation of morphology and identical scale counts makes ID tough.

[Zdravko092368]

It's really hard to tell but like I said, due to where the red is(in between the dorsal and lateral stripes) and the way it shows in between the black squares it makes me think parietalis, it is identical to the standard parietalis colouration. When sirtalis have red it is usually belowhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/) the lateral stripes.

[CrazyHedgehog]

It's really hard to tell but like I said, due to where the red is(in between the dorsal and lateral stripes) and the way it shows in between the black squares it makes me think parietalis, it is identical to the standard parietalis colouration. When sirtalis have red it is usually belowhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/) the lateral stripes.

Does anyone own both? is there any chance someone could post a pic of both together, so I can see the difference. My Pariatelis is bright red, lots of it so quite different

[Zdravko092368]

I'm actually starting to lean towards them already being hybrids... that's why in your litter it looks like some are pure sirtalis and some look pure parietalis.

[CrazyHedgehog]

I know the breeder of these parents, but they would have come through the UK pet trade initially many decades ago, so that is probably true. I will keep them separate regardless just in case, don't want to make matters worse!

[joeysgreen]

They wouldn't be hybrids, as both are the same species. Intergrade might be more appropriate.

Red can be found most anywhere on the eastern subspecies; it is where the most of the morphs like flame's etc come from. It is a highly variable subspecies.
You really need locality data (or of course a large DNA database to comopare to which probably exists as T. sirtalis is one of the most studied squamates in NA) to determine with a high degree of confidence.

In my experience, this is not a T. sirtalis parietalis from Canada. I've been surprised by variations found in the states before, but agree this is a T. s. sirtalis if not an integrade between the two; which is very much possible.

Ian