Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Albino western terrestrial garter snake (T. elegans terrestris)
I hope this works.

Albino western terrestrial garter snake (T. elegans terrestris) picture #2

Albino western terrestrial garter snake (T. elegans terrestris) pic #3

Albino western terrestrial garter snake (T. elegans terrestris) pic #4

normal western terrestrial garter snake (T. elegans terrestris) found next to the albino.

Spectacular lol.

I got dibs on babies!

Mike
Michael's Place

-----
Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

Congrats! That is a awesome looking snake.What are your plans for it?Cali laws are a pain in the neck.They don't let you sell anything native.

holy!! consider yourself very lucky... I know I would! even the reg is beautiful m or f???

hi,

How can you sex a small garter snake? It seams to have a long tail so I am guessing it is a male at this time. I am not willing to have it probed until it has adjusted to captivity for a wile. Once I find out for sure, I will post its sex. ericR

It looks male.Not 100%.I wound'nt probe it.When it gets a little larger you will be able to tell easily.Just collect a male and female to go with it.

Hi Tom,

I am very excited about this snake. I have not fully thought about the future for this snake at this time. I am working on getting it to feed well and adjust to captive conditions. I am trying to sex the snake first then I am going to look around the same area for one of the opposite sex. That way there is a chance that it might be heterozygous for albino and if not, the young would all be 100% hets. I know that is a long shot but they are really not that common of a garter for the area it was collected. It is still very young so I have lots of time to think about what I will do. I will keep everyone posted on how he/she does. ericR

I found a wc albino in 2001. It too was found in an area where I never see snakes. ON this particular day, I found two together under one piece of litter. The albino and a normal phase...male and female as luck would have it. I had them sexed, but I'm still not 100% certain it is a pair. The normal phase snake is mixing most of the tail, which could possible interfere with probing due to some scar tissue internally. Either way, I never considered selling it. Hopefully I will see them produce for me one day :O)

John Eddington

none

...Don't tease... Show us a pic!
:Mark

Just for you, Mark :O)

I need to get some updated pictures soon. Been too busy.

John

Just to let you guys know, in terms of breeding natives, there is an exception for albinos. Because the albino is wild caught, you couldn't sell it, but you could sell albino babies. The problem is, the F1's would be hets unless you can find a compatible albino western terrestrial to breed it with.

43.7 Albino Native Reptiles and Amphibians. Albino reptiles and
amphibians are defined as individual native reptiles and amphibians lacking normal body pigment and having red or pink eyes. No permit is required for the possession, propagation, importation, exportation, transportation, purchase or sale of captively-bred native albino reptiles or amphibians. The provisions of sections 41.5 and 42.5 apply to the taking and possession of albino native reptiles and amphibians from the wild.
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/pdffiles/fg1502.pdf

-Alice

WOW. thanks Alice. I am going to look into that a little more. thanks for that post.

That is real cool. I wish I could find an albino anything.
-----
Justin

Congrats!!!

Very beautiful.
-----
BigSurf
www.SurfinBird.com
Robert@SurfinBird.com

That is neat!
Could you please give some details about how often you go collecting, what time of year, time of day, how many garters you
average per trip, where in the US you are exactly, what types of areas you prefer(forrest, creeks, lakes etc) if you have ever seen a wild albino before... etc.

thanks
RC

Hi RC,

I go out looking for reptiles whenever I have the chance. Really around here I go mostly in June-Aug about once every week or two. It is cold the rest of the year. I also try and take at least one trip to Arizona each summer. When I go out I decided what I would like to look for and go from there. For example, if I feel like finding pacific giant salamanders and lots of other amphibians, I look along creeks in the evening (early spring). If I would like to find rubber boas and rattlesnakes, I drive the mountain roads on a warm night. When I look for garters I walk up river banks and in grassy fields during the day (sometimes flipping rocks, logs, and trash). It is all so different.

Like I said in the post a couple days ago, this snake was spotted by someone doing some construction work. It seams like people in construction see a LOT of reptiles and amphibians.

It varies so much with how many of anything I find. When I look for garter snakes, I usually find between 0-about 150. Some days they are all over the river banks and it is hard not to step on them! I always go out expecting to find nothing then every animal I find makes it better.

I am in Humboldt County in California. This is defiantly the first wild albino I have ever seen.

let me know if you have any other questions, ericR

Thanks for posting the pics.
Too bad California wont let you breed garter snakes.
I hope it ends up with a breeder somewhere.

Hi,

I have tried different food items every day and I found what he likes. He ate 7 pacific tree frog tadpoles today. So now that I know what he likes what do I do. He seams a little small still for pinkies. Am I going to need to feed him pieces of pinkies scented with the tadpoles? :/

thanks for all the responses so far! ericR

Get a day old pinki; day olds are small enough for 6 inchers to take down. Next get a live pacific treefrog. Rub the pinki all over the frog and offer it to your snake. This worked well for my western terrestrial from Arcata. He only needed his first couple of meals scented before he started taking unscented. My local western terrestrials (Santa Barbara County) don't seem to require scenting, often they need their first pinki brained and after that take normal pinkis. I'd let him go a week without eating before offering the pinki so that he's nice and hungry.

-Alice