Melanistic wandering garter babies

[Lee]

Very nice!

[adamanteus]

Beautiful looking babies. Congratulations!

[ssssnakeluvr]

Hey Brian....save me a female!!!!

[Brian]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone.

drache, Yes I will be breeding her again next year! I hope you can get one then.

Roy, the babies were just in with the mom until I got home from work.
Then they were removed. While elegans will definately eat other snakes their aren't many documented cases of them eating their own species. I've never had any problems. The mother almost seems sad when they are taken away. She seems to look arround the cage for them. It could be she is just hungry after giving birth though and is looking for a meal.

All of the babies have remnants of pattern on their sides but none of them have dorsal stripes. In previous litters when she was bred to a normal wandering, some ended up with faint dorsal stripe like the mom.
Personally I like these better than the all black ones because they are much more variable and the black stands out better against some remnant pattern.
It appears that there are several different genes at play with melanism in these snakes. Perhaps one for dorsal stripes, one for side stripes and one for the rest of the snake.

Don, will do. I haven't sexed them yet but will after their first meals are digested.