The British garter hobby ....

[ConcinusMan]

Or California newt. . And I think you meant to say that it doesn't range exclusively in Oregon.

EDIT: My mistake. California newt (also called red bellied newt) is Taricha torosa. It is found exclusively in CA. Doesn't seem to stop people from calling Taricha granulosa a california newt though. They do look pretty much the same.

[-MARWOLAETH-]

I meant that Oregon doesn't allow collection of that species so instead they're collected from California.

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, and I suppose that they sometimes end up getting Taricha granulosa and Taricha torosa when they collect.

Which brings up something else. I've even seen T. radix listed as "northern garter" by European sellers/importers. They're probably getting them all from he same "northern" location and just don't recognize that they have two different species.

[-MARWOLAETH-]

What is it with us Brits and parientalis?! In PKR magazine they labeled pic of them as T.s.infernalis

[chris-uk]

What is it with us Brits and parientalis?! In PKR magazine they labeled pic of them as T.s.infernalis

Well... they both have "Red-sided" in their common name. And if the shops that sell them can't be arsed to get the identification right we can't expect a jounalist - the author probably went to a shop to check they had the name right for the photo.

Misidentification of infernalis and parietalis in a magazine is particularly bad because people tend to trust what is printed and therefore this will propagate the issue.

[ConcinusMan]

Well... they both have "Red-sided" in their common name.

Then what's the excuse for confusing "red spotted" and "red sided" . Is it just because they both have "red" in their name? ridiculous. Besides that, I think it's a bad habit that people call them "red spotted". They've always been called "oregon red spotted" to me but people keep dropping the "oregon" part, making it even easier to confuse them with "red sided". Same with infernalis/parietalis common names. One is "California red sided" the other simply "red sided".

Misidentification of infernalis and parietalis in a magazine is particularly bad because people tend to trust what is printed and therefore this will propagate the issue.

It's all over the internet too which makes it even worse and it's not just "the brits" doing it. People here in the states will post pictures of a snake with red spots on it, and misidentify it as a different snake with red spots on it. It's particularly irritating to me when they know the locality of the snake they're showing and if they bothered to check the distribution range, they would know it couldn't be the snake they are claiming it to be. Even worse is that there is a lot of that out there and no way to contact the poster or website creator to inform them of their mistake so thousands of people end up viewing it and believing it is one snake when it is in fact another. This leads people using the internet as a I.D. tool, to be misled, perpetuating even more misidentification.

[chris-uk]

There are few websites I would trust the photos on enough to identify a garter. Don't we have a photographic identification chart on thamnophis.com somewhere?

[guidofatherof5]

I believe it's somewhere with the old software version.

[ConcinusMan]

There are few websites I would trust the photos on enough to identify a garter. Don't we have a photographic identification chart on thamnophis.com somewhere?

We used to have a photographic library but it was hardly visited and mostly incomplete. Now I can't even find it since the software upgrade.

[chris-uk]

Of all places thamnophis.com should be able to produce a definitive species guide.