T. s. tetrataenia or T. s. infernalis???

[Stefan-A]

euthanize! Are you kidding me? There are plenty of people out there (like me) who are not interested in breeding and just enjoy the snake for the snake. Before you decide to euthanize I will gladly pay shipping to give one a good home!

There will always be accidental litters, though. One day it's just one hybrid, the next it's 30, just because somebody, possibly with no interest in breeding, decided to put two snakes in the same container for some perfectly valid reason. It saves a lot of trouble to just euthanize them IF they actually are hybrids.

[prattypus]

They wouldn't be hybrids though, would they? Wouldn't they be classed as intergrades? This happened in captivity, but don't the CA RED SIDE and SAN FRAN ranges overlap in nature- or did so in the past?

[bkhuff1s]

Hybrids, who care's! The moment we took them out of nature, that ended, they're pets now, regardless of where the ancestors lived

[bkhuff1s]

Genetic drift occurs in nature, so keeping 'pure' breeds in captivity in the long-run is laughable

[Stefan-A]

They wouldn't be hybrids though, would they? Wouldn't they be classed as intergrades?

The term intergrade has certain ecological and evolutionary connotations. Basically, anything produced as a result of human activity, whether that occurs in the wild through introduction, or in captivity through crossing, would be a hybrid.

[Stefan-A]

Hybrids, who care's! The moment we took them out of nature, that ended, they're pets now, regardless of where the ancestors lived

What ended?

Genetic drift occurs in nature, so keeping 'pure' breeds in captivity in the long-run is laughable

What they won't do, is turn into hybrids or jump from one limb of the phylogenetic tree to another.

[count dewclaw]

I have always wondered if T. s. tetrataenia was a pattern morph of T. s. infernalis that was local to the San Francisco area....Does anyone know what information was used to classify them as a sub-species separately from T. s. infernalis?

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

I have always wondered if T. s. tetrataenia was a pattern morph of T. s. infernalis that was local to the San Francisco area....Does anyone know what information was used to classify them as a sub-species separately from T. s. infernalis?

yea.... this is exactly what I was gonna say.... is there anything that separates them, apart from pattern? I know that because they are their own population they are genetically separate, but could they have actually been a striped mutation of infernalis that just happened to sominate that area? I have a plains garter that is striped and smeared like that first infernalis pictured, a really unique snake... she is a sibling to Scott Felzer's "aztec" there were only 2 born in that clutch, to a wild mother....

when you compare strictly visuals, my striped plains is to plains garters, what San-Frans are to infernalis!

[charles parenteau]

It's very very interresting!!!

[Stefan-A]

yea.... this is exactly what I was gonna say.... is there anything that separates them, apart from pattern? I know that because they are their own population they are genetically separate, but could they have actually been a striped mutation of infernalis that just happened to sominate that area? I have a plains garter that is striped and smeared like that first infernalis pictured, a really unique snake... she is a sibling to Scott Felzer's "aztec" there were only 2 born in that clutch, to a wild mother....

when you compare strictly visuals, my striped plains is to plains garters, what San-Frans are to infernalis!

Molecular phylogeography of common garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) in western North America: implications for regional historical forces

Our molecular analyses suggest that T. s. tetrataenia (San Mateo Co.) is not genetically unique from other California populations. However, geographically nearby populations (Sonoma Co., Santa Cruz Co., and Contra Costa Co.) belong to a strongly supported clade that does not include San Mateo Co.

So basically, it's yes and no. They are not very different overall from other T. sirtalis in the area, but whatever they're surrounded by, they're not closely related.