Red Spotted Garter Snake

[larrylee]

Discussion thread for Red Spotted Garter Snake. If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

[KITKAT]

I would love to hear particulars on keeping Oregon Red Spotted garters. I have bought them several times, and can't seem to keep them going.

[drache]

I got my first pair two years ago, when we were in the middle of the move and lost the male to an unsecured screen top - he did never turn up, but left the female with "presents". She and all her offspring are doing fine, or at least I haven't heard otherwise. The female took a long time to get to take rodents, but all of them have always been great eaters. I still have one of the "babies", and had her shack up with an unrelated male I traded for one of her brothers, but I think they were both not quite "mature" enough
They're wonderful snakes, and I've found them to be unfussy and robust.
btw - it's nice to see a little more of you again

[adamanteus]

I have a pair of concinnus, which I bought as c/b neonates. I must be honest, they're probably my best feeders and easiest to care for. Maybe I've just been lucky.
My female is very gravid and should give birth in the next few weeks.

[gregmonsta]

I love concinnus. Find them to be fantastic feeders and they grow like weeds. Although I've not had much luck loosing my female earlier in the year and now have eye troubles with Xerxes. .... James ... I hope she has lots

[ssssnakeluvr]

mine have been doing real well!!! very easy to care for...and I am also expecting a large llitter any day now

[ConcinusMan]

I noticed that most discussions concerning this species isn't actually here in this thread. I only recently started exploring the rather largely unused portions of the forum. I see the organization and I think I understand what the intent was.

I wonder if there's something we can do to improve on this. Should we take the most interesting discussions and move them here? Should we just leave well enough alone? I don't know. It would be nice to have all the good species-specific discussions/pics in one location.

I also noticed that the Wiki pages have much room for photos and info. Much potential here for it to become the best "one-stop" place on the web for garter snake info. I'd like to see more people contribute to the wiki pages to that end.

[ConcinusMan]

I'd like to start by showing that even though the name "concinnus" can be taken to mean "stylistically congruous" it doesn't mean there isn't some interesting variety of them. I think that the early explorers that described this species must have named it that because they mostly saw Northwestern garters, which are highly variable, and chose the name "concinnus" because most every one they saw in an area, was pretty darn close to being the same color and "style".

I've been noticing through my own observations and through pictures (with locality info) that this subspecies tends to change it's look as you travel throughout it's range.

For example, in SW WA counties of Clark, Whahkiakum, Pacific, and perhaps a few others adjacent to the Columbia River, it's very common for them to have lateral stripes, and black heads, looking much like T.s. fitchii. It appears that these populations are dimorphic, meaning there are both laterally striped, and regular, in the same population, and both types give birth to both types in the same litter. This isn't limited to WA. It happens in Oregon counties which are adjacent to the Columbia, from Multnomah County, all the way the coast, and also where Oregon's Willamette River meets the Columbia in Multnomah County.

Interestingly enough, the Columbia River gorge serves as path through the barrier of the Cascades range. T.s. fitchii, and many other species that normally only occur east of the Cascades in So. WA, often occur on the west side of the Cascades, in the mouth of the Columbia river gorge. Could it be that the two subspecies intergrade here, or that they intergraded at some time in the distant past? Maybe these concinnus' that carry the laterally striped genes do so because they crossed with T.s. fitchii in the past? Could it be that T.s. concinnus became a separate subspecies only after they were separated from T.s. fitchii after the Cascade range was formed?



Clatsop County Oregon (Near the mouth of the Columbia on the Oregon coast) T.s. concinnus' laterally striped adults:


T.s. fitchii, Deschutes County, Oregon (east of the cascades) for comparison:

[ConcinusMan]

2 siblings born of a laterally striped adult: (These two belong to Chantel now. Ember and Snap are their names)



http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/bree...concinnus.html

More pictures/morphs, locality-specific to be posted...

[Stefan-A]

I'd like to start by showing that even though the name "concinnus" can be taken to mean "stylistically congruous" it doesn't mean there isn't some interesting variety of them.

I'll take the opportunity to jump in and point out that the scientific name should be seen more as a tag, than an accurate, all-encompassing description.