Who likes big girls?

[Selkielass]

We do get mating balls in my area, I have talked to s number of reliable people who have seen them, but ha e not been lucky enough to see one myself.

Theyve been described as softball to football sized masses un the brush next to spillways canals a.d abandoned. Vehicles on farms.
Species would be Eastern, Butlerii or eastern ribbon snake. Observers couldnt idenyify species but those are the available suspects.

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah well the females around here like to keep moving and making 2 or 3 males chase them around to exhaustion for days on end. She doesn't really give them a chance to form a ball. I guess whichever male can keep up in the long run gets the prize. I've just sat and watched them do this for hours. Watch a big female go whizzing by and I'll just sit back and watch a couple of males follow her trail. I really should get video but I'm scared to bring my camera unless I get a waterproof sport model. It's muddy and wet out there.

[MasSalvaje]

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

[guidofatherof5]

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

http://www.herpconbio.org/Volume_5/I..._etal_2010.pdf

[MasSalvaje]

http://www.herpconbio.org/Volume_5/I..._etal_2010.pdf

Thank you for the link Steve!

I also have to make one correction, I originally included T. melanogaster in the list that had been shown to utilize multiple paternity, however that was a mistake. One littler was tested and that litter was shown not to utilize multiple paternity.

Thanks again Steve,

-Thomas Wilder

[ConcinusMan]

Well Thomas... seems you have put me in my place...

I humbly stand corrected.

Just for the record, I only nervously stood by the conclusions I draw from my observations. Secretly hoping someone will challenge them and set me straight. How else is one to learn anything? And to be totally honest I didn't 100% believe my observations could yield any real conclusions in the first place.

Forget about all the arguments I have with Stefan. The only reason I let them drag on so far is because he's a good teacher and I want to exploit that as far as I can because I didn't go far beyond high school and if I were to have these debates in college it would have been much more expensive than membership in this forum.

I would read all those papers but there's too many big words and I'm too busy working and taking care of snakes to bother with it. I'd rather learn from people who have already done the work. It's quicker because I don't have to spend hours learning things that bore me. Only the things that interest me. In this thread, mission accomplished. In short, when I say mindless things I know it, I'm just looking for an intelligent response. I'm using you brainiacs. (that's supposed to be a compliment) LMAO