Quote Originally Posted by ConcinnusMan View Post
And which garter almost always the subject of these studies? Yeah that's right, canadian parietalis' and what do the scientists do? Study that one and make it sound like their conclusions apply to all garters. And I got news for you. None of the garters in my area even form mating balls. I hardly consider two males chasing a female a "mating ball" and you sure as heck don't see thousands piled up like you do in manitoba. Yes I know some do have multiple paternity. Northwesterns do, and they can even control when eggs are fertilized. Gestation doesn't have to begin at mating time but I can tell you it always does when it comes to concinnus and once she mates by choosing one male, she doesn't even attract males anymore so it wouldn't make any difference if I let 10 males go at her. She'll only mate with one and the rest quit trying after that. One male is quite enough to fertilize all the eggs she can produce so if you're implying they didn't all get fertilized because one male didn't give her enough sperm well that's just absurd. And just because we see a yolk or a bunch of yolks (or a total slug out) come out doesn't mean it ever had a viable egg with it to be fertilized in the first place.

And Thomas, I've caught I don't know how many wild gravid garters and had them give birth in captivity. Not once have I seen the pathetic slug-outs and/or low numbers we see very often in captivity and I don't think that observation is mere coincidence.
Richard you need to read the studies before you start trying to poke holes in them. This study had nothing to do with "canandian parietalis", It was done on two different populations of T. sirtalis; one in Michigan and one in Wisconsin. Also here is another study for you to read:

Phylogenetically Widespread Multiple Paternity in New World Natricine Snakes (King et al. 2010)

This study lists T. bulteri, T. elegans, T. sirtalis, T. radix, T. melanogaster, T. sauritus, as well as other species in Storerai, Regina and Nerodia that have all had published studies done to show that they utilize multiple paternity. This is not something that happens occasionally within a single subspecies, multiple paternity occurs regularly across the board in multiple species of Natricines.

I never mentioned anything about the amount of sperm one male can produce or how far it can go, that was your conclusion from the little research you did based on my words and those from the study you obviously did not read. In fact I didn't lead my remarks to any reason as to why multiple paternity would impact the factors being discussed, only that I believe they do have an impact.

Richard I don't mean to discount what you have experienced. You have your experiences and I completely understand why you stand by those. I have had my own however. I have had w/c vagrans throw entire litters of jellies, while I have had captive females throw large healthy litters, but that is just it! There is nothing as far as a published study that has examined the occurrence of full healthy litters in the wild compared to those that occur in captivity; until that happens, all of the debate back and forth in hearsay and I will remain unconvinced.

-Thomas Wilder