Not new to Thams, but new here!

[Mike Spencer]

Wow thanks everyone for all of the great info. I've been breeding snakes (mostly concinnus garters) and lizards and a few amphibians for many, many years but just as a hobby really so I never learned much about genetics, recessive genes, etc. This has been very informative.

@ Mike Spencer. You know, I never even thought about it. I mean, we have T. sirtalis here (like I said, not very common though) that are NOT concinnus but I really don't know what they are. Or at least, they are sirtalis when using ID keys but lack the coloration/pattern of concinnus, and clearly don't fit any other local candidates' descriptions but do fit descriptions of T. sirtalis supposedly only found in the Puget Sound area. I just know that they are sirtalis and NOT any of the other species we have, and that they are NOT concinnus. I suppose I could be mistaken. That's for sure. It's a mess around here with garters. Some are easy to distinquish such as T. s. concinnus and T. ordinoides, but we also have Thamnophis atratus (usually in huge numbers where they are found) Thamnophis elegans, T. couchii, and those are just a few of the top of my head. Jeez, the list goes on. Even more confusing is some of the one's I listed have subspecies living in the same habitat, and there are many individuals that just aren't described or fit a description. It's confusing, that's for sure. Someone at the University of WA suggested to me that our local concinnus having approximately 30% or so with side stripes and almost no red on the sides/head meant that it was likely to intergrade with other sirtalis' but I just didn't agree for some reason I can't think of right now. Oh yeah, now I remember. My pair of concinnus produced a few offspring with lateral stripes even though both parents lacked them.

I did also have a question regarding our local melanistic ordinoides. Is that a trait that can be encouraged/promoted by selective breeding? I don't know how the genes work. I just know that melanistic individuals can be found here, but rarely and that all of my captive bred ordinoides varied greatly in color/pattern even in the same brood.

The female in question might look long and skinny to you too because she just gave birth less than a month ago, and is very skinny. She dropped a pretty big clutch for her size. I'm still working on putting her weight back on.

There should 3 T. sirtalis subs in Washington state, I believe. Concinnus, pickeringi (Puget sound), and Fitchi (Valley garters). Depending on range, there can easily be intergrades between any of them, which will make the snakes either share traits from both subspecies or sometimes one sub will just pull some of the discerning traits from the other, making it seem like a whole new snake. For example, there are some ConcinnusXpuget intergrades that are completely lacking red, and only have stripes, but then there are some lacking all of the red, but retaining the red spots, although they are usually muted.

The elegans sp. that is in Washington would be T. e. vagrans. The wandering garter. The Atratus sp. would most likely be T. a. hydrophilus. The Oregon gartersnake. I don't believe that T. couchii live in Washington, but I'm not positive.

As far as Ordinoides, this if my first year working with them but I have too much going on with them to be able to breed them but I'm giving my pair to a friend so he can breed them out for me, because I am trying to figure out if melanism is, in fact, a breedable trait.

I'm going to send you a PM though and talk to you more about concinnus and the other WA garters.