Thamnophis elegans terrestris

[candoia aspera]

Awesome breeding pair, the female appears to be a flame morph am I correct?

not that i'm aware of. For this particular species of coastal this is their normal colouration and they even have red blotching on it's ventral scales. I could be wrong and normally am lol.

[candoia aspera]

She escaped and came back?!?!

either she missed my lovely rainbow trout or i think she just rampaged indoors for a most of that time and as soon as she got out doors i got her.

[ProXimuS]

Thats awesome! Lucky you and her

[Chondro788]

I wanted to post a pic of a T. e. terrestris that was captive bred by Jeff Benfer last year, and how different they look from the animals in the original post. I guess its just variation in the species.

DSCN0869.jpg

[guidofatherof5]

Beautiful. Love the big black blotches.

[candoia aspera]

I wanted to post a pic of a T. e. terrestris that was captive bred by Jeff Benfer last year, and how different they look from the animals in the original post. I guess its just variation in the species.

That's a massive difference isn't it? There appears to be a huge difference in locals of these coastals. I got these from Steven Bol and perhaps I should have read this before now but I have now so here's a direct quote from his web site.

"My breeding Group consists of snakes originating from 2 different populations with different coloration and pattern.

One Group consists of snakes from a population that lives in the hills of San Mateo County. They can be found near the edges of a small lake at 610 meters above sea level. Most snakes from this population are quit dark with a very bright dorsal stripe. The belly tends to be strongly red coloured and this red coloration is also profound on the side going up towards the dorsal stripe. This results in many specimens having a beautiful red or pinkish lateral stripe. Some observations made in May 2000 on this population are described in Bol (2002). Because of the southern latitude it can be quit warm in spring and summer, but at the same time this habitat is strongly influenced by the cold waters of the pacific ocean. The coastal areas in California are often covered in fog (“marine layer”) and under these circumstances day temperatures sometimes do not rise above 16 ºC even in mid summer in a narrow coastal strip. A few kilometres away from the ocean the sun sometimes can burn away the fog and temperatures rise to 30 plus ºC. I expect that this population hibernates for at least 3-5 months. This is based on my observations done in February, March, April and May.
I mostly found them less then 2 meters from the edge of the lake but Coast Garter Snakes are known to occur far from the water. And to be much more terrestrial then the sympatric T.a..atratus.

My second breeding groups originates from Pescadero Marsh in San Mateo County. This marsh is located just behind the beach and the water is partly brackish. This habitat will even be more influenced by the Cold Pacific ocean then the population inhabiting the hills. Temperatures in June, July and August sometimes do not exceed the 12-16º C maximum for weeks in row (personal observation). In this marsh the dominant T.e.terrestris shares the habitat with T.a.atratus and even T.s.tetrataenia (the latter according to some literature remarks).
Snakes from this population are not as dark as the snakes from the mountain population. Normally all the stripes are clearly yellow without the red colour invading. Between the stripes the snakes are red with normally 2 rows of back spots."

[Thamnophis]

Pretty snakes. That's a species I once want to keep!

[-MARWOLAETH-]

Their colours are amazing!

[Chondro788]

I believe the adults that Jeff had that produced these were from the San Mateo locale as well. Pretty neat how much variation there is, but then again, thats what makes garters so cool!

[ConcinusMan]

Awesome breeding pair, the female appears to be a flame morph am I correct?

Flame morph is an eastern garter snake. Coast garters vary a lot in pattern, amount and shade of red, and distribution of the red coloring. The only place I've ever found them is right on the beach (hundreds of them) so they are certainly named appropriately.