Well I had a nice long reply where I quoted the text I got the info. from and ect., but was booted off and lost all of it. So here it is, short and sweet.....the text was from Audubon Soceity Guide to North American Repitles and Amphibians. I also found reference to the scale counts (17 for ordinoides and 19 for sirtalis) in a Golden Guide A Guide to Field Identification: Reptiles of North America. So it looks like we got blue phase Northwestern gartes and not blue phase Puget Sound garters. Thanks ssssnakeluvr for bringing this up....would have probably never known. Doesn't much matter to me, still love them and am excited about actually working with another species of garter, besides all the T.sirtalis ssp. Also gives me some incentive to try out the really nice red T.ordinoides that I've seen for sale a the local reptile show.