Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Earlier this year I found two garters in a wood pile in my back yard. One was a super gorgeous specimen with an incredible bright red stripe down his back. Unfortunately I let him go before by senses came to me. But this summer has been good for snakes (haven't had to really leave my house lol) and about a week and a half ago I found another garter hiding out in a crack in my back porch. She (I'm guessing it's a she based purely on size/dimentions, but I'm no expert and I haven't had "her" probed yet) ended up living in an extra tank for a few days before I could get down to the river to release her, but she went into shed and I didn't want to release her in that condition so I waited. She shed and I was going to release her...then I took a closer look at her and she has a pretty cool/interesting coloration to her belly scales. She looks to me like a red sided garter and she's got some orange blusing (for lack of a better adjective at the moment) that is pretty dark at her tail and gets fainter as it moves toward her head. Has anyone seen anything similar in their garters? I haven't got a chance to take pics yet cause I can't find the digital camera and my cell phone had an unfortunate accident with a swimming pool. So I hope to get some pics posted to show you all what I'm talking about.

Thanks,
Dan
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1.0.0 Snow Corn Snake (Suzie - it's a funny story)
0.1.0 Normal Corn Snake (F.U.)
1.0.0 Amelanistic Corn Snake (Tohper)
1.1.0 Black Racers (Diablo & Noir)
1.1.0 Normal Ball Pythons (Trogdor & Samantha)
1.0.0 Red Eared Slider (Fish)

Dan, where do you live? Is this an eastern garter you have?

it is quite normal to find a few with orange blushing and reds on them that strongly resemble the markings of parietalis (the true red sided garter)

I have a few myself, including this extremity:

Thats a sweet looking garter!

can you post a pic?
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Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.2 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.1 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 Okeetee Pantherophis guttatus

I have not been able to get a good pic yet but then I haven't been able to locate the "good" digital camera either.

To answer a previous question, the snake was captured in the Southwest corner of Missouri.

Sorry for the delay, but I hope to get pics posted later tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks,
Dan
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1.0.0 Snow Corn Snake (Suzie - it's a funny story)
0.1.0 Normal Corn Snake (F.U.)
1.0.0 Amelanistic Corn Snake (Tohper)
1.1.0 Black Racers (Diablo & Noir)
1.1.0 Normal Ball Pythons (Trogdor & Samantha)
1.0.0 Red Eared Slider (Fish)