Unusual Garter snake found in OR

[snowfyre]

Hi, this is my first time here and I would like to pick your brains. I work at a petstore and I often get called to ID or evaluate snakes brought into the store. This snake was found at an apartment. <pretty sure not its native environment> It is a black snake. I had to search around to figure for sure if it was a garter snake. I am guessing that this is a melanistic garter snake. After looking at some of the usual snakes for this area, I'm leaning toward the western terrestrial snake due to the pattern I can see behind the black. Either way, any help would be appreciated! Here is a link to the album I made for the snake. If there is any other information I can help supply, I'll do my best.

Location:Hermiston, OR

Blackgartersnake pictures by Snowfyre - Photobucket


Apparently the snake does a great job of playing dead or so the apartment owner says.

[kibakiba]

I don't know what species it is, I was thinking maybe northwestern, but the head shape is a little off. Terrestrial would make sense. I wouldn't feed it a pinky like that. Having substrate all over it can cause it to become impacted. If you want it to eat, try offering night crawlers or a slug (a striped one would be best, brown slugs secrete harmful slime that can choke the snake.)

[guidofatherof5]

Needs a nice water dish and Chantel's advice on feeding is spot-on. Substrate can cause a blockage.
Head looks to big to be a Northwestern.

[ssssnakeluvr]

wandering garter, thamnophis elegan vagrans. it's a hypermelanistic (or chocolate as Scott Felzer calls them). they naturally eat mice in the wild. it could be a captive bred one. I also find them occasionally in the wild here in Utah. you can put live feeder fish in his water bowl also. he looks to be in good health also. they do range into Oregon.. have a pretty large range

[Steveo]

Beautiful. I love how the color of the head matches the eyes. Totally black head.

Most of my herping escapades this year have been in search of aberrant garters. I'd love to find a completely melanistic wandering garter.

[snowfyre]

Well He or she ate the nightcrawler that I found in my yard. As for slugs, he's out of luck I've lived here 10 years and have never seen one around my house. of course this is also the first garter snake i've seen here. Something about them being tasty to the gopher snakes. And that was not the container i planned on keeping him in. That's what they brought him in to me in. No bedding, just some water at the bottom of the container for him to sit in and heavily taped. They were afraid it was a Mamba. <snicker!!!> My friend wants me to release it down by the river. Told her it was a one in a lifetime snake! Either way, still debating what to do with it. I might have to ask some of the local kids to catch me some garter snakes so i can photograph them and then have them release the snakes for comparison.

[guidofatherof5]

The care sheet is always a good read.
Also, be sure to introduce yourself in the "Welcome Lounge"

Garter Snake Forum - Garter Caresheet
Welcome Lounge

[snowfyre]

When i lived in Philadelphia i used to catch lots of garter snakes and northern brown snakes. This is just the first time I've been around a garter that's so unique. We have a cute little baby checkered garter at the petstore. He likes his fishies. I might let this guy run around my cornsnake cage since my two snakes are visiting the petstore for the moment. My female corn laid 23 eggs. I'm incubating them at the petstore. The customers get a kick out of watching the babies hatch. The cornsnake cage is a 45 with aspen in it, antlers to climb on and a very large bowl that I'll be able to stock with feeders tomorrow. It also has a good size hide in it.

[katach]

Very cool wandering. You definitely should keep it. Be sure to do a thorough quarantine too. You may not want to put it in your corn's cage unless you are going to completely clean it before and after.

[Invisible Snake]

You should definitely quarantine that snake just to be on the safe side.

Feel free to post some corn snake pics in http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/gart...scussions.html