Coloring Questions

[katach]

I would love to get both of those posters. Two things are stopping me though. The money and I have no wall space to put them up. Maybe if we get a bigger place.

[ConcinusMan]

Thanks so much Steve, I remember Richard showing that, But I couldn't find it.

Sadly the "purchase" link on the site is broken. I would love one of those in my snake room.

Try going to the main page. There's a message there stating that they have changed the name and it will direct you to a new site. Maybe you can then purchase there if it's still available.

I'll have her checked by the vet first.

That may be impossible. Northwesterns are native wildlife. No vet in WA or Oregon can knowingly treat or examine native wildlife by law. I don't mind admitting I had to break another law to save Big Bertha's life. I had to obtain prescription antibiotics for her from out of state, without a prescription. I had no choice. It was that or let her die since no vet would diagnose or treat her. Technically, in WA its also illegal to keep them, (native garters) although when it comes to garter snakes, the law is rarely enforced. They would only take them from you if they got a complaint and you weren't taking good care of them and that's about the extent of it. I really don't think that the scar would cause any problems. I've seen snakes in much worse shape give birth just fine.

[katach]

Just the other day Steve checked with WA Fish and Wildlife and there are no restrictions or regulations on native garters. The guy said that they could be kept. I guess the law has changed. I was soooo happy!

[ConcinusMan]

I have an email that came directly from WA Dept of wildlife stating otherwise. Nothing changed. It's always been that way. Native wildlife is just that - wildlife and the law applies to all native animals. Its illegal to import, export, collect, or keep them under the umbrella restriction regarding keeping native wildlife. It doesn't apply to non-native garter species though, such as plains garters, checkered, etc. Enforcement is another matter altogether. There is none when it comes to garter snakes. They don't give a damn so don't worry about it. I delt with WA wildlife officers before. They overlooked the garters but took my rubber boas. At the time, the boas were on WA's "threatened" list.

[Jeff B]

I think there are a few things that need cleaned up or cleared up from this thread.
1. polymorphism-in the case of the ordinoides poster, polymorphism is refering to a characteristic of T. ordinoides, that species exibits many morphs occuring natually in the wild populations. Hense the term polymorphism describes what occurs in the species not the individual animal.
2. all of the snakes in that poster are a "morph" and that are all variant of the others, that is what polymorphism is refering to; the many different morphs that occur, displayed on the poster.
3. when you guys are asking is this a morph, the answer is yes. You could call that black and gray one axanthic (because it lacks red and yellow) and you could call the red one erythristic because it has increased red. HOWEVER, I think the question that you are really trying to ask is, " is this a simple single point gene that will be predictibly heritable, using the simple inheritance patterns of Medelian genetics to pass on the gene to the next generations?" or "is this a simple recessive or co-dominant, dominate trait?" or "will it make babies in the next generation or the generation after that which look identical?" The answer to that question is as Joe stated "breed it". See what, if any, inheritance patterns exist in subsequent generations. Keep records of numbers and ratios and then you can make a hypothesis, and see if it proves out over several generations.
4. T. ordinoides has historically produced extremely wide variability within and amoung litters, which creates some difficulties to isolate single genes and inheritance patterns to say the least, because so much variation occurs in wild populations.

[guidofatherof5]

Good explanation Jeff. Thanks

[katach]

Thank you Jeff. That is just the information I was hoping to get when starring this thread.

[ConcinusMan]

I always like it when Jeff steps in and explains it. He has a very good understanding of genetics and a knack for stating it in a way that allows us laymen to understand it better. I just suck at it. I guess what I was trying to say that if we define a "morph" as a single point mutation then no, the snake in question isn't a "morph". By Jeff's definition, (and the definition of "polymorphism") they are all "morphs".

And I have to say, that after years of breeding them, the answer is not just that there is polymorphism within a population, but that they can throw different morphs even in a single litter. Sometimes, just sometimes, the offspring in a litter turn out to be completely different than either parents and have more than one morph in the litter. Also, in my experience, you can definitely increase the occurence rate of a particular morph by selective breeding. This is demonstrated by observing different populations. Usually there is a high prevalence of one or two particular color/patterns in a population but you can go to a different population and find a different dominant color/pattern.

I think that no matter how much selective breeding / line breeding you do, there will still be variation, even though one particular morph will eventually occur most often.

This is why I was saying you would probably have better luck producing this particular morph, if you bred the snake to another of that particular morph, but make sure you get the two from the same population. That way, local natural selection has already done much of the work for you.