New "Family" photos

[ConcinusMan]

Remember, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

I like to say beauty is in the eye of the "beer holder"

[Hollis_Steed]

I'm copying an pasting the two photos together so I can look more closely at the diffferences you pointed out. This is very helpful. I'm sure I'll need a mini-course is the description of other garters as time goes on. Thanks

Well first off, 3 stripe concinnus aren't very common. The lateral stripe isn't very well defined when it is present,and is a different color than the dorsal stripe. Lateral stripes on valley garters are usually well-defined, having nice clean and sharp edges. You'll never see that on 3 stripe concinnus. See how your fitchii has very clean edges to the lateral stripe? That tells me it's NOT concinnus. Also, concinnus tend to have bluing or whitish areas(if not completely red/orange) around the neck,cheeks and throat. Fitchii that look like concinnus tend to have yellowing in those areas. Concinnus that look like fitchii tend to have stripes that aren't a nice golden yellow but rather whitish, greenish, or only slightly yellow. Notice that your fitchii has nice rich yellow. Concinnus never have richly yellow stripes OR yellow anywhere near the face, neck, or throat.

Keep in mind this is only from observing WILD snakes. All bets are off when it comes to captive bred. You could end up with a snake that is mostly concinnus, mostly fitchii, etc., when it comes to captive bred snakes.

Many snakes I see advertised as "Oregon red-spotted garters" may or may not be mostly concinnus but often I see traits more congruent to oregon/washington fitchii.

The bottom line is they are both thamnophis sirtalis, and geography (range) as well as physical traits are the only things defining them as separate subspecies.

That's why I say I'm confident that my snake pictured is 100% T.s. concinnus. It was wild-caught and the nearest fitchii populations are about 60 miles east through the Columbia River Gorge (or over the cascade range toward eastern WA/OR) when it starts to transition over to desert climate. By the time you get there, you are out of concinnus range. Fitchii are strictly east of the cascades, concinnus strictly west so knowing where your snake is from, is half the battle.

I can say your T.s. fitchii looks like it is from eastern Oregon or Washington. A fitchii like that would never be found anywhere near as far west as the 3 stripe concinnus I showed you. Fitchii prefer a much drier and sunnier climate which eastern WA and Oregon provide and are found in areas such as Yakima,WA far from any concinnus. The two snakes are both T. sirtalis, are compatible for breeding to one another, and can be very similar, it's just that they have different ranges and climate preference. To complicate matters more, "concinnus" start looking like infernalis the farther south you go through oregon.

It's interesting to note, however, that the area where my 3 stripe concinnus were found, used to be part of the columbia river. A series of floods ending about 13,000 years ago carved out the Columbia River gorge straight through the Cascade mountains from eastern WA/OR and much of the water ended up right here in concinnus range, so my 3 stripe concinnus might be a result of past sharing of genes between the two ssp.

The bottom line is they are both thamnophis sirtalis and much debate happens when one tries to define a subspecies. It's not like one is a completely different species from the other. They are the same species and are very close to one another geographically. That goes for T.s fitchii, T.s. concinnus, and T.s. infernalis. Intergrade zones are known to occur.

[ConcinusMan]

Oh, well maybe you should look at a head shot too. 3 stripe T.s. concinnus:



another pic:



Valley garter Thamnophis sirtalis fitchii:



The differences can be very subtle, but they are there.

[ConcinusMan]

Another fitchii:



And now a T.s. infernalis:


Starting to see those subtle differences now?

I know, sometimes it can be very tough to distinguish these snakes from one another, especially in areas where their ranges come very close or overlap one another.

[ssssnakeluvr]

Another fitchii:

love that fitchi!!!!

[ConcinusMan]

Confused yet? No? then let me throw in yet another. Thamnophis sirtalis pickeringii. That's another one that is commonly sold as "Oregon Red Spotted Garter" when in reality, it's a Canadian pickeringii. Now that's something I never understood. Why is it that a blue puget sound garter is considered the same subspecies as this guy? Seems to me that it should be a different subspecies for obvious reasons.

Typical Blue phase puget (pickeringii) This is how they look in the south puget sound area. North of the canadian border, and in other areas, they look like the above picture.

[Hollis_Steed]

boy you're right...confusing! Beautful snakes all! Thanks for the pointers in getting this figured out.

[ConcinusMan]

"figured out" is something that never really happens. Heck , the scientists behind the naming of species and subspecies still don't have it figured out so don't feel bad.