2 new babies!

[adamanteus]

I'm confused about the classifications of garters. Dog is one species, but there are many breeds. Are garters the same thing, or is an eastern a different species than a wandering?

Yeah, different species, same genus.

[garterchick]

hi, i suck at snake i.d., but is that a plains garter, t. radix?
tina

[adamanteus]

hi, i suck at snake i.d., but is that a plains garter, t. radix?
tina

Your ID skills seem pretty sharp to me! T.radix.

[KITKAT]

Here are some pics of the smaller snake. Can anyone tell the species? I'm no good at it....

Also, I'm confused about the classifications of garters. Dog is one species, but there are many breeds. Are garters the same thing, or is an eastern a different species than a wandering?

Hi there! I understand your confusion... but yes, these are different species. Instead of thinking about dogs, think about birds. Bird hobbyists keep many different SPECIES of birds... canary, budgie, Zebra Finch, Society Finch, to name just a few of the hundreds that are kept.

Garter snakes are like the finch family. They are all related, but there are MANY species of finches, and they do not interbreed... you cannot breed a Cordon Blue to a Society, or a Zebra Finch to a Gouldian Finch.

In the scientific name of the garter snake, you will always find "Thamnophis". This is the genus of the snake... a classification of snakes that are similar but different species. The next word you find is the species... "sirtalis", "radix", "elegans" for some examples.

And the third word in the name - when you find a third one - is the subspecies.

So... T sirtalis sirtalis is the common eastern gartersnake, but T sirtalis similis is the blue-striped subspecies found in northwestern Florida.

You will find a pretty comprehensive list of species and subspecies if you look at Scott Felzer's OLD site: Scott Felzer's Garter Snakes

I will copy the list here for your convenience... but let me explain a bit...

The gold text is a species or a subspecies. However, the blue text below each gold entry is a MORPH... the equivalent of a dog breed for that species.

Looking at our list, you can see that there are some garters with only one "morph"... such as Santa Cruz, Eastern Black-necked, California Red Sided... and so on.

But you can also see some species that have a huge number of available color and pattern morphs, such as the Eastern Garter, with 12 different morphs, or the Plains Garter, with 10.

So... if you want to breed garters, you need to purchase the same species. Two T sirtalis sirtalis (eastern garter). But if you want the fun of producing unusual colors, you purchase two of the same morph, or one from each of two morphs, such as T sirtalis sirtalis "flame", or T sirtalis sirtalis "albino".

Does that make it clearer?


SANTA CRUZ GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis atratus atratus )
One-Striped Morph

EASTERN BLACK-NECKED GARTER
( Thamnophis cyrtopsis )
Eastern Black-Necked

WANDERING GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis elegans vagrans )
Normal Wandering
Melanistic Wandering
Chocolate Wandering

EASTERN GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis )
Normal
Albino
Silver
Granite
Melanistic
Florida Blue
Flames
Flame x Albino
Erythristic (Extreme Reds)
Erythristic x Albino
Snow Eastern
Paradox Leucistic

CALIFORNIA RED-SIDED GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis sirtalis infernalis )
California Red-Sided

BLUE STRIPED GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis sirtalis similis )
True Blue Striped

RED SIDED GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis )
Normal Red Sided
Anerythristic Red Sided
Albino Red Sided
Double Het for Snow Red Sided

PLAINS GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis radix )
Normal Plains
Anerythristic Plains
Axanthic Plains
Albino Plains
Quad Hets
Christmas Albino Plains
Super Christmas Albino Plains
Piebald Anerythristic
Hybino Plains
Snow Plains
MESOAMERICAN HIGHLANDS GARTER SNAKE
( Thamnophis fulvus )
Mesoamerican Highlands

[garterchick]

thanks james, i actually cheated by just comparing the picture to my own snakes. i guess that's how we all start out...
tina

[poissonguppy]

Thanks Tina, James, and Kitkat! I live in Nebraska and so that would fit. Sorry I ask so many questions, I need things explained to me in length sometimes...