Opinions needed

[Tori]

Ok, I thought he was just talking but I guess he meant it. I had 6 garters show up at my house today in the mail. 6 W/C redsided garters. One of them has me confused though. It has no red at all, not a speck. But the other markings are right for a redsided garter and they all came from the same general area. Is it a genetic thing or is it a cross with with a puget sound which are also local there? Sorry, I left them large on purpose.





I have them in a 55 fallon tank for now until I can build new cages.

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Where did these 6 W/C's come from again? You said they were supposed to be Red-sided Garters (T. s. parietalis); if they are, then the oddball black & white can't be a Puget Sound Garter (T. s. pickerengii), for the two subspecies do not intergrade naturally. They are separated by hundreds of miles of Valley Garter (T. s. fitchi) territory. If you meant that these were W/C Red-spotted Garter (T. s. concinnus) {and they look kinda like low-red examples}, then the oddball could very well be a Puget Sound. Does the belly have any blue-ish gray tints? You might possibly consider a species check as well - could be a "clean-cut" variant of the Mountain Garter (T. e. elegans)

Time to count scales....

Let me know what you find out...

Steven

[Tori]

T. s. concinnus does not have the bright side stripe that these have, though the area does have T.s.fitchi and T.s. pickeringii. I did some checking and you were right, there are no red sided garters in that area. Is there such a thing as a valley garter with no red?

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

T.s. fitchi, infernalis, parietalis, and concinnus are all known for having the typical red spots (or what I call vertical bars); Similarly patterned indentations (depends on what a person calls foreground or background!) are prevalent in many garter species. Even pickerengii has indications of these.

I personally have not seen any "no-red" fitchis, but they have a large range, so variability, hyper-melanistic mutation, all of that could be possible knowing garters. You still have not mentioned where these came from. WA? OR? What part? West, East??? I am still trying to ascertain if another species might be possible.

I do not see any noticeable spotting anywhere in the black field (sometimes it shows up as dark black spots on black [heh? ]

Have you counted supra-labial scales? Scale rows (neck, mid-body, and caudal counts)?

[Tori]

Washington - Olympia area

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

There are anerythristics red-sided garters available in the captive trade. I have no experience with this mutation in the wild, but that does not mean it does not exist. Has to start somewhere!

[Tori]

The red ones have cream colored bellies with no striping and a thin black stripe under the yellow side stripe. Some have red spots on cream colored cheeks and some have red almost to the top of their heads. The one without red has a slight blue cast to his belly, no striping.

[infernalis]

I had 6 garters show up at my house today in the mail. 6 W/C redsided garters.

Sounds like BOB

Check them for mites really well. Whenever multiple WC animals are packed together, if one has mites, they all will have mites.

My Puget boy Sky came from the same place. I wound up treating mites, then 2 of the mite bites got infected.

The vet prescribed oral antibiotics and pain killers, the bill was a hundred bucks, so my "affordable" Puget got expensive fast.

Those are some very handsome critters by the way, NICE

[Tori]

These didn't come from Bob. A friend of mine found a couple of young boys carrying them around in a 5-gal bucket near his house. He bought them for $5 bucks each and then sent them to me. I have looked most of them over and haven't found any signs of mites or ticks, but I am keeping them away from my other snakes for a while yet.

Bob has started selling other garters besides pugets?

[infernalis]

Bob has started selling other garters besides Pugets?

Bob has some reds in the classifieds lately.

Now that is a cool deal, I wish someone would find me a kid with a bucket full like that