OR Red Spotted/Northwestern Den

[ConcinusMan]

Steve is doing it so I thought I would share this den with everyone. It's in northwest Oregon and is shared by T. ordinoides and T.s. concinnus.

The weather here has been unusually cold and wet for this time of year so activity and number of snakes is limited but there's still plenty of action going on during breaks in the rain on warmer days. Temperatures around 60 with some sunbreaks is enough to get a few stirring.

Here's the den itself. A rock wall embankment, facing south, gets plenty of sun, and has lots of entry points. It's also down in a recessed area with plenty of forest around to help shelter the den from the bitterly cold and harsh westerly wind that blows in the winter.


Some copulating was observed. Two concinnus' locked up:


Northwesterns also locked up. After I took this pic, female here became aware of my presence and flattened her head, and did the weird "slow tongue" thing, trying to act all tough.



I'll add more pics later...

[kibakiba]

Northwesterns in your area look weird. The ones here are almost always really dark coloured, dark, golden brown eyes with an extremely visible stripe. Despite being kind of bold, they are hard to see in the tall grass. Those ones also have a different looking head shape. Mama's head is a bit boxy. They have a very cute look to them, though. The eyes look weird, though. Are they somewhat whitish?

[ConcinusMan]

Natural selection my dear Chantel. There is always differences depending on where you go. Sure, they are still polymorphic and still have variation within a population, but if I go just a couple of miles away to another population, they will often mostly have a different look to them. Just so happens this spot has mostly ugly dull ones like those two, but there are still a few nice ones around. I got my red stripe girl at this very same location. A few miles away, I may find mostly well defined yellow or white stripes, in another location, maybe mostly orange or rust colored stripes. It just depends on the highly localized gene pool.

Here's some others from the same spot:

[kibakiba]

I know it's natural selection, but I still haven't seen any like that. I've always seen ones that look at least a bit similar to mine, especially the really bold colourful stripes. Of course, I haven't seen any other than my own in real life, but online.

I find the "dull, ugly" ones are the most beautiful. I'd rather have a dull and ugly snake than something awesome and flashy. Mama is just brown with an off white stripe and she's one of the most beautiful garters I've seen. Sure, others are cool or pretty, but Mama's prettier.

[RedSidedSPR]

I find the "dull, ugly" ones are the most beautiful.

I agree. Although I don't I don't know if I like them more than the flashy ones.
I'd rather have a normal red sided (like mine) than a flame morph eastern. But I'd love a flame morph... I Just like the natural ones most.

[ConcinusMan]

Flames are a natural morph.

[PINJOHN]

Flames are a natural morph.

i thought i read somewhere that a doctor something or other inbred them over a number of years

[ConcinusMan]

That very well may be true, and they may have been changed a bit over generations of line breeding for more intense color, but flames are a natural morph found in Canada.

These are wild caught Canadian flame easterns belonging to Charles:


But we are a little of topic. Let's not turn it into a flame eastern thread.

[PINJOHN]

had no idea, i thought flames were man created ,another demonstration of what a great and informative site this is. no more mention of flames i promise

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Very nice Richard.