The British garter hobby ....

[Mix]

I have been known to say 'fantabulous'

[guidofatherof5]

Here's one I'm sick of seeing and hearing:
ginormous

[ConcinusMan]

Hey! you spelled it wrong.

[gregmonsta]

Well .... I haven't heard anything since .... and considering how long it took to get in touch in the first place .... it seems as if they were simply trying to placate your favourite Scottish loony .... quite disappointing really ...

[gregmonsta]

Some light entertainment - NE England Snakes for sale now. - Reptile Forums

read the price list and follow my attempts to correct.
This, unfortunately, is why I have no wish to buy from a shop.

[mustang]

Some light entertainment - NE England Snakes for sale now. - Reptile Forums

read the price list and follow my attempts to correct.
This, unfortunately, is why I have no wish to buy from a shop.

whats a texas ribbon snake? it was listed for sale?

[gregmonsta]

whats a texas ribbon snake? it was listed for sale?

Yup ... listed as such and for sale as such prior to even working out exactly what they are ... unfortunately this is the British trend for shops

Yet you don't see them getting milksnakes wrong ... what would a milksnake enthusiast think to an ad that said - Mexico milksnake (Lampropeltis triangulum)
Which 'Mexico' milksnake would this be?

A useless and half-hearted attempt.

An accurate or inaccurate common name still needs a full taxonomic failsafe to know what your getting.
This is really winding me up, as you can probably tell.

Edit - improved milksnake example to match ... grrrrr

[Stefan-A]

I could not agree more.

[chris-uk]

I've dug up another old thread.

I'm loosing faith in our reptile shops. I can't understand why the primary labelling for all stock is not using scientific names. Or wait, is it because the majority of the hobby in UK revolves around royals and corns where the morph-type is the most important selling point?

Having read through this post and checked Greg's link to the RFUK thread, I can now understand his response to me saying that Coast-to-Coast seem to care about garters. Is it a coincidence that each time I've contacted them to ask for photos of infernalis I've been told that they are having IT problems, and that IT problems were brought up in response to Greg last year?
There's got to be a shop somewhere in the UK that really does give a toss. But I'm increasingly feeling that shops selling reptiles aren't something I want to continue to support. There's one in Coventry that I'm still giving the benefit of doubt to, I keep meaning to go in when they're quieter to have a chat and see what they're really like. The times I've been in so far they seem quite knowledgeable from the short conversations I've had - they are small and relatively new to the business, so perhaps they don't have some bad habits of older shops.

What would be really nice would be to find a good shop, that tries to do a good job of representing garters well, and doesn't get things plain wrong.

[EasternGirl]

Here I was thinking Britain was so far ahead of us in the reptile hobby...John sent me those reptile magazines and I was in awe of all of the reptile shops I saw advertised. Pages and pages of reptile shops...wall to wall vivs...so high tech, gorgeous...the shops alone were so high class...carry to car service...well! I've never even seen a reptile shop around here. I've only seen pet stores that maybe have a reptile section, a reptile room if they are really impressive...never nearly as classy as the pictures I have seen in the British magazines...no beautiful wooden and glass vivs custom made in the walls of beautiful shops...just old stinky tanks in old stinky rooms of shops where people usually don't know squat about caring for reptiles....and like you said, boas and pythons and corns...no garters. The pet store that I frequent can't even remember what kind of snakes I own...they always ask me how my corn snakes are doing. But now, I keep hearing from you, John, and Greg about all of this mislabeling of snakes, and shipping large quantities of snakes overseas...it is very disappointing to say the least...