It has been about a year since I found this site and this has been a wonderfully fun and informative, so I was just thinking about some of the things that I have learned over the last 12 months. Just as a disclaimer, you have to remember that I probably don’t know what I am talking about, but that never stopped me before, so here goes. I remember first looking through this site and seeing all of the beautiful snakes that people had, red sided, San Francisco’s, checkered etc, and all I ever saw were plane old easterns Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis (they don’t call them “common” garters for nothing). I have since changed my mind. I have seen a bunch of snakes this past year, and I don’t think that I have seen two that were alike, and the color variations were really incredible. I grouped “my” snakes into three descriptive catagories: (1) “normal” eastern (distinctive unbroken dorsal stripe, large distinct spots), (2) “combo” easterns (dorsal stripe completely broken by spots), and (3) “maybe” maritime garters (no or very faint stripe, smaller spots merging together to almost form stripes across the back). Below are some photos to show what I am talking about.

Eastern: this is my Big gravid eastern from last summer, she is a classic eastern, showing the distinctive dorsal stripe and spots, below her is a beautiful darker classic eastern that I found out by the pool.






Combo: This little snake shows classic eastern stripe, but the stripe is broken by spots.



Maybe: These are really nice little snakes. I have found four of these. The first is my blue garter, and the second is a little guy with mahogany colored spots and no stripe (below). The third is Chloe, now residing with Rhea the fourth is big green (in this months photo contest). When I saw ASLB’s “golden hypo” I thought, wow that pattern looks a lot like my “Maritimes”. I am now wondering if this may be a recessive genetic trait within the eastern population. The other thing that is interesting about this group is the color variation. Chloe and "big green" were green, the blue was of course blue, the other was brown, and then there was the gold that ASLB found.



Anyway I just thought i would toss this out to start some discussion. Other pix would be great.