Wow thanks everyone for all of the great info. I've been breeding snakes (mostly concinnus garters) and lizards and a few amphibians for many, many years but just as a hobby really so I never learned much about genetics, recessive genes, etc. This has been very informative.

@ aSnakeLovinBabe: Not you too! another concinnus owner? I can't believe it. 15 years ago, hardly any Thamnophis breeder even knew what I was talking about and was totally unfamiliar with the subspecies. Now I'm hearing about concinnus breeders on other continents and I've found so many right here in this forum. Wow. Oh, and it wasn't "thickness" that threw me off. It's the long, thin body and tail that made me think it was male. The overall gradual tapering. Of course, from the photo, I don't have the option of looking underneath to see the distance from vent to tail tip.

@ Mike Spencer. You know, I never even thought about it. I mean, we have T. sirtalis here (like I said, not very common though) that are NOT concinnus but I really don't know what they are. Or at least, they are sirtalis when using ID keys but lack the coloration/pattern of concinnus, and clearly don't fit any other local candidates' descriptions but do fit descriptions of T. sirtalis supposedly only found in the Puget Sound area. I just know that they are sirtalis and NOT any of the other species we have, and that they are NOT concinnus. I suppose I could be mistaken. That's for sure. It's a mess around here with garters. Some are easy to distinquish such as T. s. concinnus and T. ordinoides, but we also have Thamnophis atratus (usually in huge numbers where they are found) Thamnophis elegans, T. couchii, and those are just a few of the top of my head. Jeez, the list goes on. Even more confusing is some of the one's I listed have subspecies living in the same habitat, and there are many individuals that just aren't described or fit a description. It's confusing, that's for sure. Someone at the University of WA suggested to me that our local concinnus having approximately 30% or so with side stripes and almost no red on the sides/head meant that it was likely to intergrade with other sirtalis' but I just didn't agree for some reason I can't think of right now. Oh yeah, now I remember. My pair of concinnus produced a few offspring with lateral stripes even though both parents lacked them.

I did also have a question regarding our local melanistic ordinoides. Is that a trait that can be encouraged/promoted by selective breeding? I don't know how the genes work. I just know that melanistic individuals can be found here, but rarely and that all of my captive bred ordinoides varied greatly in color/pattern even in the same brood.