Can You.......

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

The main reason for not crossing garter snake subspecies is because the only real thing that separates garter snakes are their coloration and pattern... scale counts and all aside... lets face it, if we had a pure white garter of every subspecies we would not be able to tell what one was which subspecies. having said that... there is no way to make anything more exciting by corssing types of garter snakes. They are already as impressive and beauitful in their natural form as they will ever be. Mixing up two is going to give you a snake that, in the hands of the inexperienced, will be passed off as either one or the other and will end up muddying genes down the line. The problem is that a lot of people (as in not the ones on this forum) treat garter snakes as all the same. Often at shows you will see a garter snake labeled just that... "garter snake"... with no regards to its species or coloration. hybrids of garter snakes will look so similar to one species of the other that they will end up being mislabeled and their true identity lost. Then as they get passed around the trade... they will be introduced to pure animals and pure animals would become increasingly rare... kind of like carpet pythons. It's rather hard to find a truly PURE diamond python, or even a true carpet python... they have been intergraded so much that now most of the carpets out there have diamond python in them somewhere. Heck the carpet python I bought years ago was half diamond (Still have her, Kisses is a pet of mine). When you cross animals that look the same aside from their actual coloration... it is very hard to tell when the resulting animals are hybrids or intergrades. When you cross a ball python to a burmese python... well... you know what you are looking at! And I have got to admit, some of those crazy crosses, as unnatural as they may be, are extremely intriguing and beautiful creatures. So I would not say that they are altogether worthless. In fact, whether something is worthless or not, is totally one's opinion... as in:

I totally consider any cross between subspecies or species of garter snake "worthless". While I do not believe the animals need to be euthanized, I do not agree with intentionally producing them for the reasons stated above.

I do not consider all hybrids worthless... the ones that are such obvious crosses it is impossible to mix them up with a pure species I find to be quite awesome, unique, and deserving of their own little niche in our hobby. The carpondro (carpet x green tree) is easily my favorite.

[ConcinusMan]

Very well said. All the good points covered. ^^^

[Stefan-A]

The main reason for not crossing garter snake subspecies is because the only real thing that separates garter snakes

...is the deoxyribonucleic acid they're made of.

[Spankenstyne]

We're pretty fortunate as such a niche area when it comes to snakes. Because there isn't the widespread popularity and big bucks flying around when it comes to garters we haven't seen a lot of hybridizing and generally you can still assume you're getting pure subspecies when dealing with them. You only need to look at how muddied some things are in the Pituophis world to realize we need to remain vigilant about breeding. Once that road is traveled it quickly puts a lot into doubt.

[Snakeknot]

There's a lot of similarities between this argument and crossing breeds of horses. Some people are so dead set on the purity of their breeds they refuse to hear anything else. And then there are the people who like their warmbloods, sport ponies, and cobs. Personally I believe both are good--depending on the situation! If you go too pure then you end up with something like the Dutch Friesians horses; absolutely, drop-dead, GORGEOUS, black horses with not a whole lot of sense. I know someone badly injured by one. And then there are horses that make such wonderful outcrosses that they forget to leave a line pure and almost lose the breed itself, like with Cleveland bays.

Sorry to sound like I'm getting off the topic but the similarities are so in my face in this respect.

Devon

[Stefan-A]

There's a lot of similarities between this argument and crossing breeds of horses. Some people are so dead set on the purity of their breeds they refuse to hear anything else. And then there are the people who like their warmbloods, sport ponies, and cobs. Personally I believe both are good--depending on the situation! If you go too pure then you end up with something like the Dutch Friesians horses; absolutely, drop-dead, GORGEOUS, black horses with not a whole lot of sense. I know someone badly injured by one. And then there are horses that make such wonderful outcrosses that they forget to leave a line pure and almost lose the breed itself, like with Cleveland bays.

Sorry to sound like I'm getting off the topic but the similarities are so in my face in this respect.

Devon

In my opinion, breeds are a completely different matter. As far as I'm concerned, you can cross them all you want, they are already almost as messed up genetically as dogs.

[Spankenstyne]

There's a lot of similarities between this argument and crossing breeds of horses. Some people are so dead set on the purity of their breeds they refuse to hear anything else. And then there are the people who like their warmbloods, sport ponies, and cobs. Personally I believe both are good--depending on the situation! If you go too pure then you end up with something like the Dutch Friesians horses; absolutely, drop-dead, GORGEOUS, black horses with not a whole lot of sense. I know someone badly injured by one. And then there are horses that make such wonderful outcrosses that they forget to leave a line pure and almost lose the breed itself, like with Cleveland bays.

Sorry to sound like I'm getting off the topic but the similarities are so in my face in this respect.

Devon

It's really apples & oranges though. Breeds are another story altogether. The equivallent in the snake world to a breed would be line bred snakes. Breeds are the same species, artificially selected for certain traits and share common ancestors. What you're asking about in snake terms would be like crossing a horse with a zebra, or in the dog world to crossing a dog with a coyote.

[ConcinusMan]

Exactly.^^^

Hybridizing two different garter snakes is NOT the same as crossing two different horse or dog breeds. Those are already NOT pure and NOT wild type.

If you want to use the dogs as an example, crossing those two garters would be like breeding a pure wolf to a pure coyote. Not good since all we want is the best coyotes and best wolves we can get.

[Napta]

Puget and similis are T.sirtalis any two.Your example is not appropriate for me.

[infernalis]

Puget and similis are T.sirtalis any two.Your example is not appropriate for me.

I hope I understand this statement correctly....

Puget sound Garter Snakes & similis do not even share the same body/head structure.

Puget sound snakes are narrower and have smaller heads, Similis are stout and have very broad heads.