Which species?

Even though I am a proponent of the belief that hybridization occurs in the wild, I currently think there are actually less such crosses than I had previously imagined. In my neck of the woods, I was quick to jump to conclusions as to some of the "mutts" I came across. There really is a lot of variability among these guys. Whether or not "contamination" has occurred in the last 30 years is unknown (but probably likely, especially where intergrades, not hybrids, might be concerned). The sirtalis clade has up to 11 ssp. throughout North America; with that many morphologically distinct locality types it is common for there to be even more subtle variations within a subspecies. Our local Coast Garter (T. e. terrestris) commonly shows up with background colors in red, or brown to olive to tan, w or w/o red flecking, rarely a "blue-belly", and all kinds of "unspectaculars" inbetween! T. ordinoides variation is insane (not just in CA!).

Cladistic studies are much more accurate than the older method of comparing morphological differences. Comparing the blended effects of red & black in the head colors of an intergrade between say infernalis and fitchi might be practically useless, if the blended colors have nothing to do with the intergrade itself. What if that intergrade zone contains a population that just happens to focus on a slightly different diet, and THAT is what is affecting the colors??? This refers to ontogenesis (what I like to call the "You are what you eat" study of evolution) What if the acquired immunity towards newt toxins in some garters and a subsequent diet of newts changes its colors or enhances its salivary toxins? What if? Ya can't rule anything out. Poison Dart Frogs become less toxic when they are not fed their native chemically noxious beetles!

Rambling again! Gosh darn it!