sexing error

[drache]

thanks Chris
it's my first B example snake ever
live and learn
I've never actually seen a C example male either, so that's why I assumed that's what it was
my other males are all so slender that one cannot tell where the vent is without turning them over; none of them have any bulges - more like example A
forget it - I guess I am completely clueless about sexing
to me the only clearly female looking shape in this bunch would be C, and my females have a much greater variety of shapes than my males, but half of these shapes I haven't even seen on a live snake
since these come from a big-wig expert, it must mean that I totally suck
it's a good thing I bring my snakes to people with way more experience to sex when I'm not sure, but apparently I'm a poor judge of other people's experience as well
having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that all my previous sexing has been clueless luck, but I guess I've been lucky enough because this was my first wrong guess in years

[Spankenstyne]

I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Everyone gets it wrong at some time if they've been in the hobby long enough and have dealt with enough snakes, even all the big time experts. Trust your gut as it sounds you've had a long string of sexing them correctly.
Mother Nature likes to throw us a curveball once in a while & it's really easy for us to be right after the fact.

[drache]

what gets me is that everybody else seems to see it right away
I did kind of think I wasn't half bad at this sort of thing, and it's hard to be so spectacularly off
thanks for your kind words, Chris

[Spankenstyne]

No problem.

I actually often find it easier to sex other people's snakes than my own. I find myself second guessing & doubting my own sexings at times. Probably has to do with being more emotionally invested in our own snakes & possibly seeing what we want to see (or even maybe not wanting to see) instead of what's just there.
I have found it helpful on some of the iffy ones to take a few pictures and try to look at the pics as if they were someone elses that I was sexing for them. Usually the pics will look much more obvious to me than it did in person.

Chalk it up as a learning experience . I'm not sure of your experience level with these snakes, but it all comes in time with experience & we learn from mistakes.
I'm pretty new to seriously keeping garters, just the last 4 years or so (not counting the childhood escapades haha), but I do have more than 20 years experience in the hobby with other stuff, so the subtle differences might be more apparent to me (or the many others with much more experience than I) than someone who's newer to it.
There's always something to learn no matter how long you do this, that's part of the fun.
It's funny but the more experience I get the more I realize I still have so much yet to learn.

[ConcinusMan]

I for one would still love to see these "spectacularly mud coloured marcies". Sorry, don't mean to push but it's not every day you get to see a hybrid garter.

[kibakiba]

I do too. I'm too curious for my own good... It's killing me!