I am VERY new to snakes...
This is my second snake, we'll not talk about what happened to the first one. I hope to have more success with this guy and am excited about him or her. I went to petco and bought a "garter snake", it had no scientific name or common name for the species. I'm now trying to find out what species it is, and I no longer think it's even a garter. silly petco

It looks exactly like the "striped keelback" in this thread
http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/gene...to-thread.html

http://i44.tinypic.com/30vkhft.jpg
he's 20 inches long, not a whole lot thicker than a pencil. He's got thick black stripes down the sides and one thinner one on top, the rest of the top is brown. The bottom has a really striking, bold pattern of black and white stripes. He's a very good lookin' snake

I'm concerned that I researched garters and got a different kind of snake. He spends a lot of time climbing and being in the branches, like an arboreal species. I've had him for just 3 days, and he drinks from his water bowl, but doesn't hang out in it like I thought a garter would.
What do you think? If he's a keelback, what are the differences in care? He's VERY nice and chill, and I hold him a lot, like people say garters are.