Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I´ve got these two as brother and sister.
Both are red and black but looking nearer they seem to be very different. That do you think, what kind of garters they are.

Thanks for your replies

sorry but the sever did not accept the second pic!

I really dont know, maybe a red-sided or something, i just wanted to tell you that they are nice looking garters!

Hi,

the animals look like a mixture of a really red Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis and a Thamnophis sirtalis semifasciatus.

Where did you get these snakes?

Greetings,

Daniel
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webmaster of www.gartersnake.de

This is always fun.

I can not be sure without the snake in hand for scale counts and comparisons, ventral patterns etc. in order to key it out. The two dimensional pictures are also a bit blurry to me and locality information is important here.

I do have an impression that they might be Coast Garter Snakes Thamnophis elegans terrestris. I especially get this impression from the second picture. The head is a bit iffy but the pattern is dead on. I have seen Coast Garters where the red washes out towards the second half of the body but I have not seen Common Red-Sideds do this to the extent your animal exhibits. Also Coasts are more apt to have the checkered arraignment than Red-Sides, which usually do not have much red in contact with the dorsal stripe. Both species make good pets.

Randy
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Firehouse Herps

I keep some T.elegans vagrans too and know about the experiences of other breeders with T. elegans terrestris.
There is a big difference in feeding behavior, you must see when you´ve seen once. I´ve got some sure ´parietalis and all of them have more /brighter red in the first half of the body.
Most I was surprised about the kind of black barrs /lines, I´ve never seen on a ´parietalis before.

they are red sided garters, thamnophis sirtalis parietalis....they do have a bit of variability in their coloring, i have a book on the red siders in canada in the limestone pits, they have a row of red spots along the side stripe, and ones I have found in Kansas have a red background with black checker pattern, and some cb babies i have just have a row of red and black spots on the side stripe. i also have one with orange instead of red.

I have few other red sided and seen a lot of from other keepers but never seen those little black barrs on the lateral stripes like the male has.

My female has the bars like that, also the orange one....kinda depends on where they were originally found... not sure why, but it seems like just a variation in pattern....

this is my female red...got the bars on her...

the pic was there....trying again...

heres a pic of my orange red sider.