Hydrophilus yesterday, infernalis today.

[Mike Spencer]

That's pretty far out of elegans range. My first (relatively inexperienced!) impression when I looked at it yesterday is that it's not clean and clear enough, especially through the head/labial area to be elegans. Also, it has a hint of, but is basically lacking the labial stripes that many elegans have. The dorsal stripe doesn't seem wide enough, either. This is all just based on first impressions, though. When looking at cal herps and trying to differenciate between the two, other than range maps, looks like the chin shields may be the key. Elegans front and rear will be equal in length, Hyrdophilus rear will be longer than the front pair.

Thanks for a bit of education this morning, though. It has been interesting thinking, "no, I don't think so?" and trying to back up my first impression. I wouldn't say that I've really suceeded in doing that, but time spent staring at garter snakes is always worthwhile

Yeah. Chin shields, scale counts, etc. all say it's atratus, and I've been finding/IDing garters for years. I have no doubts. I've lived in and have been herping Northern CA my whole life, so I know which Thamnophis are where and everything. Haha.

Glad you were able to get some education out of it. It's fun sometimes having to force yourself around a gut feeling or something and then dig around to find out what it really is, even if it does end up being what you think it was all along.

[jitami]

Good stuff as usual, Steve!

[Mike Spencer]

I've found lots of 'coasts' (I might as well use quotes now if I'm gonna have to get used to the new taxon. haha) in San Mateo, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, and southern Humboldt Counties, so I definitely know how variable they are. There's a San Mateo Co. population that is almost solid red with a brown head. There's a Mendocino County spot I find them where most are brown with just random red speckling. There's a different spot in Mendocino Co. (near Gualala) where they are commonly fairly red as well. As far as I'm concerned, most of the Garter complex in CA is screwed up right now.

I do love how variable Northwesterns are. I've caught them in Del Norte Co. as well as in random counties up through Oregon, close to 100 this summer in Multnomah County, Oregon, some in Washington, and some in Vancouver, British Columbia. I've found brown ones, tan ones, really dark one, patternless, stripeless, single striped, triple striped, yellow striped, bright red striped, orange striped, blue striped, a melanistic population, etc. etc.

I have a spot here in Ukiah for infernalis where almost every one I find has no blue whatsoever, but I took a friend there last week so he could find his first infernalis and the one he found was really high blue.
I've found the super high blues in Marin County as well.

I've love the blue phase elegans elegans from Mt. St. Helena in Napa County too.

I think what attracts me to garters so much IS how variable they can be, and how you can find them with many different appearences in such small areas.

[ssssnakeluvr]

I love the variability in ordinoides...I have a melanistic male....am hoping to get a large group of them next spring

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

I currently do not have any ordinoides but have access to Del Norte County, which has an incredible variety of morphs. My favorites are the red-morphs that are almost burgundy.

[ConcinusMan]

What an absolutely gorgeous example of infernalis! OMG I gotta get at least one that looks like that. Beautiful!

IMHO ordinoides has been way under appreciated for too long. We know better though. Some of them are just quite stunning. I too used to have melanistic ordinoides, and I know where they can still be found. I don't think I've ever ran across the burgandy though. Almost blue, or steel blue, yes. Other interesting speckled combo's resulting in the impression of a cool color, yes, but not burgandy/purple. I'll sure be on the look out next spring though!