Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to say hello from Bucknell University. It's been a while since I've posted anything, so I thought I'd just lead with a pic of a w/c eastern I found a few years back on the farm. I regretfully let it go, but I've seen others like it since then. There seem to be two general phases of garter snakes on our farm (both eastern, though). There are the more commonly colored, standard "garden snake" variety, and there also seems to be a strain that is slightly larger, and significantly more reddish, with reduced black markings. This specimen is a good example. Let me know what you think.

Nice looking snake, if it were my farm, I would catch a pair or two and captive breed them and keep the pinkest babies, let the rest go and keep selectively breeding them a couple generations and see where it goes, maybe you could end up with a pink flame, but maybe you don't want to invest that kind of time, possibly 10yrs or many more . Theres only one way to find out if they are genetically something special or what their possibilities are; breed them a couple generation, right? Of course I could just be dreaming or half crazy, maybe pink easterns are very common I wouldn't know.lol Either way it would be a fun project if you love the snakes and don't mind spending the time?
Jeff
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

That is a very sharp eastern. What state did you find it in?
Great suggestion on the line breeding Jeff. It would be cool to see if that color phase could be improved from such breedings.

Scott

I found this on the farm where I live in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. According to state laws, I cannot sell any reptile or amphibian captured in the wild, although I think it may be legal to sell captive bred offspring of a wild individual. Law says I can legally own one wild caught native species, so technically I would have to breed one of these w/c natives to a cb purchased one, or capture a gravid female. If I remember correctly, this garter whose picture I showed you actually gave birth while I was keeping her for a few weeks (I later released her), and the offspring were mixed between the drably colored normal-phase and individuals displaying traits more similar to the mother. The mother's spots were reduced, as you can see in the picture, and the black markings in general were smaller and cleaner than most. The color of her back varied with lighting from a brownish color w/a little red to more of a pink clay color. Her sides had a reddish chocolaty hue. Here are two other angles, one here, one in the next post.

np

If you would have kept the female and bred one of her pinkest male offspring back to her it sounds to me like that would be completly compliant with your state law. Maybe the pinkest babies will become pinker and they grow and shed, then you could pick out the pinkest ones to breed, let the others go to keep your local gene pool going. Sounds like a super fun project to me. I would absolutely love to have an opportunity like that, but I'm a science and reptile nerd and my wife and I don't have any children, so my snakes and turtles are my kids, but maybe you actually have a life and a real family and don't have the time I think you would agree Scott, that since some of the gravid wild caught pinkish females offspring were pinkish and some were not, there is definately something genetic going on there worth exploring further?
Jeff
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

There's definately some trait being passed on w/ some babies being pink and some normal. The genetics could be either co-dom (if the male who bred her was normal) or she herself could be a het and bred to a het in the wild.

Scott

That's a really nice garter!Nice pic too! Jeff