Wild Flames in Manitoba!

[ConcinusMan]

I have been looking to aquire a pair of flames forever! I was under the impression that the closest they ranged to here was Quebec. Well they are closer to home than I thought. This article also proves that Manitoba is home to both T. s. parietalis and T. s. sirtalis.

And radix unless they have completely and suddenly been extirpated overnight from and area hundreds of square miles in size

And that snake pictured is not a flame eastern or eastern at all IMO. Looks like an aberrant red sided to me.

""One out of every 20 I caught was this red colour." Amazing find. A little convergent evolution taking place with Canadian easterns and red sided, reinforced by local natural selection?

[thamneil]

I completly forgot about radix! Steve would kill me! And I dont know Richard. Wouldnt an erythristic parietalis not look a lot more uniformly red? The patterning on this snake matches a flame perfectly. Only my guess though.

[thamneil]

Oh you said abberant! The redsideds up here exibit very low amounts of red. Some are completly balck or have just the slightest hint of red. Is it not unlikely that that many snakes would show this coloration out of the population. And wouldnt an aberrant redsided exhibit more tanish or brown color instead of red. Keep in mind that the red sideds in Manitoba have little resemblance to the commomly seen Kansas strain often encountered in captivity.

[ConcinusMan]

I completly forgot about radix! Steve would kill me!

According Steve, they don't exist at the dens because he didn't see any. Some even claim they don't exist anywhere in Manitoba. I think they do.

And I dont know Richard. Wouldnt an erythristic parietalis not look a lot more uniformly red? The patterning on this snake matches a flame perfectly. Only my guess though.

No it wouldn't. Erythristic only means an unusual amount of red. Could just mean an unusually high area of it is red. Which in this case, that's what it looks like. Either way "aberrant" applies as being a non-specific unusual trait. It's a bit outside the norm, whatever you want to call it, it is aberrant. As in, not normal or usual.

That snake is definitely not an eastern. Sure, it looks like a "flame" but everything else screams "parietalis" to me. The shade of red, the pattern of red above the laterals, shape of the head... that's a red sided.

[snakeman]

Actually its in an area not known to have any parietalis.

[ConcinusMan]

Oh c'mon. It's manitoba, and just look at it. That's a red sided as sure as I'm white. And you have to consider, nobody even knew these snakes were here until recently.

[snakeman]

Copeia - Extreme Color Variation within Populations of the Common Gartersnake, Thamnophis sirtalis, in Central North America, with Implications for Subspecies Status

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, not still sure that they aren't just red sided. "One out of every 20 I caught was this red colour." But there's no mention if the rest of them possibly were just normal looking red sideds with just a few red spots on their sides, or if they lacked red entirely.

But seriously, if you look at that snake and imagine it without the red below the lateral, the color and distribution of red above the lateral just gives me every indication that this is just a local color morph of red sided. Just like about 1 in 20 of the concinnus' in a certain area of Oregon, lack red or orange and instead are anery with varying degrees of blue/green tint over all.

[snakeman]

There are no red sided garters in the area.Plus there are plenty of easterns with the same red color as normal red sided garters.

[ConcinusMan]

If you say so.