Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was looking at some of the blue garters and had a few questions.

1) Are the Puget Sound and the Pickeringi the same type of garter? I mean are they just different names for the same snake or are they different varieties? If the same are there other common names I'm likely to see them mentioned as?

2) Where do they naturally occur?

3) What are the genetics of the "blue phase" Pickeringi? Is it a simple reccessive, dominant, co-dom, polygenic or some other less predictable inheritance?

Thanks for any info. Lots of snake experience but next to none when it come to garters.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
0.1 Pacific Gophersnake(unproven Hypo)
1.0 Amel Pacific Gophersnake
0.1 Striped Anery Pacific Gophersnake
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

to answer your ?'s the pickeringi and puget sound garters are the same thing and I have never heard them to be called anything other than puget sound garters. they are found only in the puget sound area of washington state. and for the genetics i have two blue ones and all they produce is blue babies I have never known anyone to cross a non blue and a blue one together. there are different degrees of blueness scott felzer has some very nice high blue ones. my female is in the medium blue range while my male is in the high blue range and I get low and high blue babies. I hope this helps
JJ

Pickeringii is simply the latin name for puget Sound Garters. Their full latin name is thamnophis sirtalis pickeringii. So, yes, they are the same snakes, Blue is just one of a variety of colors that they come in. They do come in tans and yellows, as well as red. Blue is a naturally occuring color phase that simply is passed on not as a genetic trait, but as a general characteristic that will likely be muted if you breed it to a puget that is a color other than blue. It's hard to explain what i mean... like, if you took a blue puget and bred it to a brown one... you would likely get babies that were somewhere in between both parent's phenotypes, with the occasional baby leaning towards one way or the other. You won't produce "hets", it isn't codominnant, or anything like that. To produce bluer pugets, you simply have to breed two high blue ones and hope for the best!! Hope this helps!!

That definitely clears it up.

What you are describing is what I was referring to when I said polygenic. AKA a phenotype that is generated by the combination of several genes and as a result does not have a readily predictable inheritance. Like skin pigment is in humans.

Sean.
-----
1.1 BRB
0.1 Pacific Gophersnake(unproven Hypo)
1.0 Amel Pacific Gophersnake
0.1 Striped Anery Pacific Gophersnake
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

you are certainly correct.... I was sitting here for like 5 minutes like.. WHAT is that word, I know the word!!! But I gave up