New Garter Snake Poster

[drache]

There are lots of red or dark orange striped one's (on a dark background) around here. The kids call them "red racers". Some are are marked with lot's of "flecks" of the same color too. They are among my favorite morphs and are pretty common.

I am so happy to find out they're not rare
I just love the dark orange/red stripes, and if they have orange flecks - that's really cool

[Spankenstyne]

I got the Polymorphism poster

[ConcinusMan]

I got the Polymorphism poster

Awesome. I'm still workin' on it.

[ConcinusMan]

Not rare locally anyway. In the summer, around here, if you encounter a garter at all, it's very likely to be a drab colored ordinoides. Nothing special.

If you're lucky enough to stumble upon their den sites in spring or fall, when hundreds are gathering,(and breeding) it seems that at least half of them have brilliant orange or red stripes around here.

[reptileparadise]

Gotta love ordinoides!

[Stefan-A]

Gotta love ordinoides!

Bah, they're vagrans food.

[reptileparadise]

ugh, vagrans...They make me sick!

No seriously....Would any of the yanks be able to make such a poster for T.s.parietalis? I would be very/extremely gratefull!

[ConcinusMan]

oops. mistake post.

[drache]

you'd have to have to live where they are, to find that kind of variety
I'd love one for T.s.sirtalis for sure, and for that one would have to live all over the place
but for us on the forum - we could pool our resources (garter photos) just like when they did the thamnophis picture poster project

[ConcinusMan]

This is what I was talking about before. We can't possibly cover every variety even if the poster is only ONE ssp. when it comes to certain garters. I got this idea, and that idea, and...

Well, T.s. concinnus is variable by location, but not enough to fill a poster unless you have large high-res pics. And then there's T.s. sirtalis. Now that might have enough variation to fill a poster.

So here's an idea: Let's start collecting pics of of ONLY T.s. sirtalis morphs.
Then we can head west and make more posters (as necessary) of various T.s. sirtalis from different parts of the country as we head west, placing the northermost morphs at the top of the posters, and the southernmost morphs at the bottom, roughly. If we fill a poster, continue west with a new poster. Just a rough idea. Buyers of the posters can collect to make their wall complete.

Another variation of the idea could be to make posters heading east to west, and make the posters to include any thamnophis (except for ribbon snakes) which are most common in each section of the U.S.A. So, T.s. sirtalis morphs for east coast poster, T. radix for the midwest, then continue...

Bah, they're vagrans food.

I must admit, they are so plentiful, and so "ordinary" I have also used them as food for other herps. I've even seen American Robins (a bird) feasting on the young (as they were being born) of ordinoides in late summer near the dens.