PUGET Update (Vet Visit & more ;))

[KITKAT]

My snakes seem to have one scale row for the dorsal stripe. The side stripe is also quite thin, but I would have to check to see how many rows.

My snakes are also blue, however.

Do you think they might be a hybrid?

[Cazador]

I've questioned whether we're dealing with hybrids as well. I don't know enough about taxonomy to really say one way or the other, though. Apparently, T.s. pickeringii can be blue, red, melanistic, brownish, greenish, and probably even more colors. One of these days, I'll pull the dead ones out of the freezer and count their teeth. Rossman et al. has a very good key that uses the number of teeth as a definitive characteristic, but it also seems like a pain in the rear.

[GarterGuy]

From pics that I've seen, T.ordinoides seems to be an extremely variable species as well, not only in colour, but also general body shapes and such too.

[garterking]

[quote=KITKAT;4524]I hope Cazador and Garterkiing will chime in here...quote]

Hey Kat,
Glad to hear yours and Marain's are doing well. Although it seems like a sucess story so far, it's only becouse you both were very much on the ball and took the time and care where needed to nurse them thru. I hate to keep sounding negative but, didn't I read you both bought these from "bob"? If I'm wrong I appologize. If I'm correct, you bought sick snakes and ALL the credit goes to you for making them healthy. Like I said, I don't want you to always think I'm negative but I guess what I'm saying is you bought sick snakes from this guy, and if that's the case I wouldn't call it the sucess story I was looking for. I'm hoping to someday read that everyone that buys snakes from "bob" were healthy from the start.

Update: A week and a half and still no reply from "bob" about my email. Maybe he really meant it when he said he didn't care.

[GarterGuy]

Considering it's been well over a month since I emailed him about the snakes that I lost......yeh, I think it's safe to say he doesn't care.

[mikm]

hello all ... I see head shots are all the rage so I added mine, lol I too suspect these may be intergrades ... The girls have been taking 3 large f/t pinks along with strips of salmon every 5 days or so, for the past few weeks. Their weights have increased drastically since their vet visit on 1/26/7 ... I weighed them all again on 2/10/7 ...

Big Girl _ 57grams >> 74 grams (med condition)
Girl #2 _ 42 grams >> 54 grams (mild condition _ had the worms)
Male _ 41 grams >> no change (fish eater only, shows no sign of illness)

Both girls have the extremely narrow dorsal stripe, barley covering one scale. The male however has a broader doral stripe consisting of at least 2 scales ... I distorted the background of these pics focusing on the subject and changed it to B&W to hopefully show the head shape better. Here are their head shots ...

[mikm]

BIG_GIRL ^^^



GIRL_#2 ^^^



MALE ^^^

[Cazador]

Marian,
Congrats on the weight gain! That's a great sign, and since they haven't been brumated recently, I think it's very revealing about the effect the parasites were having. Really fantastic news!!! Also, if you look closely, each snake has its vertebral scale completely colored, and about 1/2 of each paravertebral scale is colored. They all seem to have small eyes (characteristic of T. ordinoides), and the internasal scales on the male seem to be longer than the prefrontals (behind the internasals; characteristic of T. ordinoides). However, the male also seems to have the most pointed head (characteristic of T. sirtalis pickeringii). The head shape of the girls seems to be much less triangular (like T. ordinoides). As you'll see in the file I'll send you, T. ordinoides have 16-20 maxillary teeth, and T.s. pickeringii have 20-26. I have some dead ones in the freezer that I can examine. I think the dorsal scale counts of 17 were VERY revealing, though.

All,
I've pretty much plagiarized the distinguishing characteristics, life history, ecology, etc. for T. sirtalis and T. ordinoides from two snake ID books (Rossman et al.'s 1991 The Garter Snakes and Western Reptiles and Amphibians 3rd Ed. by Robert C. Stebbins) and will send the files to Mikm, Kitkat, GarterGuy, GarterKing, and anyone else that requests a copy (via PM). Since plagiarism is frowned upon, I don't want to post the file onto our care sheets, but I'd be happy to provide individual copies to anyone who asks.
Rick

P.S. The head shots are very useful, and if you posted a good side view around midbody from slightly above the snake (~35 degree angle), we could probably help with your scale counts, too. A nice side view from slightly below the head will reveal the number of upper and lower labials. These nice, clear pictures are very helpful.

[garterking]

I just want to give a quick warning for all on here. "bob" is back on http://kingsnake.com/ advertising his cool blue garters. Read this entire thread and make sure you know what you're getting into with this guy.

I should tell you it's been a couple weeks now and still no response to my email. Just a fair warning to everyone, that's all.

[Tori]

There was a dealer at the last couple of reptile expos here that purchased 10 of them from Bob. I don't know how many had to be treated by a vet, but several did. He said that he had to ask so much for them to help pay for the vet visits. He was asking $150 each (and getting it). I'm thinking about buying one from him. The expos are once a month here. If they are all still healthy next expo I'll decide for sure then. It would be hard to do a scale count at an expo, so I should look for a very thin stripe and a pointed head? Anything else?

Tori