Hello

[chris-uk]

I'm sorry if this goes wrong but it's the first time I've used a forum and don't know how to include the quotes etc. She doesn't have any yellow like the Cuitzeonoensis pictured above and she has a paler brown dorsil line runing down her back which I cant see in the above picture either. Presumably as she matures she will change.

I'd say Chapala is right on the balance of the photos and they one in your avatar. The avatar photo seems to have a faint checkered pattern, which wouldn't be typical of a Cuitzeo. And if the dorsal stripe is pale brown (is her colouring actually brown? In the photos it looked black to me, but that could be light) then that almost nails it. Let's face it, Lake Cuitzeo and Lake Chapala garters are closely related, and part of what I was going on was the shape of the head.

As she gets older her colours will develop. From my reading (the baby Cuitzeo above died before he developed his adult colours, but still changed significantly from birth) you can expect it to colour up nicely over the coming months.

Chris i agree that it looks very dark and could be a cuitzeoensis. I don't have any experience in these guys, but it looks like it has bluish lateral stripes. Is this trait also seen in cuitzeoensis?

The dorsal and lateral stripes are almost invisible in my adults. I can just about make them out in my female, but the male is jet black. I guess it's a sort of bluish, in that it's still black, but a lighter shade of black. Their bellies are like a iridescent, gun-metal blue in the right light.

By looking at your avatar you would think cuitzeonoensis, but by looking at the pics you posted and by your description i would still say lake chapala.

I'd actually say the photos convince me in the opposite way - the avatar says Chapala, the photos say Cuitzeo.