What's my snake?

[cnphilips]

Hi,

I'm looking to get a species ( or subspecies or "breed") i.d. on the attached photos, any thoughts on age, and any other thoughts on body condition or morph. I need a helper for taking sexing pictures so I didn't get them today but they're coming next.

I'm looking for a buddy for this snake. What kinds of garters should I be looking at for buddies? Does it matter if they're exactly the same species, or just whether they'll be about the same size? Thanks,

?12853

[cnphilips]

Second view attached.

[guidofatherof5]

Body structure tells me female. We need an under tail photo with the tail hanging straight down please.

About the same size will do. I'd suggest a T. radix - Plains garter snake. Females can be like a good old dog.;)

[Rushthezeppelin]

With regards to cohabing. Opposite sex only with same species (be prepared for babies) or same sex different species. Never mix species of the opposite sex. When feeding either feed them one at a time out of the viv or cut food up into small bite size chunks to lessen the chance of a food fight developing.

[Rushthezeppelin]

Also a side of face shot will def confirm if it's a radix or not.

[Eddie]

Looks like a male Chicago garter to me but Ive had a few beers. LOL

[BLUESIRTALIS]

It's a chicago garter for sure you can tell by the neck barring, but I don't think steve was calling this snake a radix just recommending one for the second snake. Steve is Bias to radix, lol!
also a side of face shot will def confirm if it's a radix or not.

[guidofatherof5]

I might be mistaken and if I am I apologize but I believe this is Stripes who passed away the other day. The second of the pair.
http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/urgent-care/14375-smelly-red-goop-piles-substrate-3.html#post265740

[cnphilips]

Yeah..... So much for high hopes for a happy future.



So no new photos of this poor soul. I'll see what I've got saved, though.


For anyone interested, I had started posting about possible bloody discharge in my enclosure for 2 snakes re-homed to me, over in Urgent Care. Then one snake got slow, it escalated to true blood from the vent, Vet found an extremely enlarged heart and that snake died soon after. Stripes here was still eating and active, under vet care. However you can actually see the heart swelling starting to show in the above photo. She went For exam also passed true bright blood, had an enlarged heart, and died at vet the same day as the original post.The vet is documenting and sharing everything for me, sending for pathology, trying to figure what happened. And said he wished he had a solid species i.d. for the case...so I guess I would've had this post up either way...


Main question is whether they could have been wild caught in Illinois. Is the Chicago garter wild in, Chicago?

Posting updates on the illness and results over in Urgent Care.

[cnphilips]

Just looked it up..

I drove to Chicago to pick these guys up. Re-homer said they were captive bred and I believed her since they didn't match the wild easterns in my area. Are they common enough for a dummy to have found two wild ones of about the same age?

thanks for the ID. Certainly fills in a missing puzzle piece... Albeit a frustrating one.

[joeysgreen]

I could not find reference to it, but I believe the Chicago sub-species of T. sirtalis is declining/threatened, which isn't hard to imagine with the urbanization of it's native range. With that said, there are certainly places that they can still be found, and anyone living next to them likely has no idea what they are picking up and taking home.

Ian

[guidofatherof5]

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//821/medium/chicago.png