Reptile Fight Club - Better herping in Georgia or Georgia w/ Nipper Read

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob discuss better herping in Georgia or Georgia w/ Nipper ReadWho will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIG https://www.instagram.com/jgjulander/Follow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

On this week's Reptile Fight, we have a special early morning adventure with our good friend, Nipper Reed. Welcome to the show, Nipper. How are you doing? I'm very well. Thank you so much. I do appreciate you getting up ridiculously early. Can I just say, I wouldn't get up at this time for either one of you to three? Well, that makes it all the more better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's about seven o'clock there, isn't it? Half seven? Oh, my days, that is ridiculous.

It's a cozy half-past two in the afternoon here. I've already had my lunch. I'm ready to go. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, that's just the level of respect we have for you. You know, we'll wake up at any hour, anytime. Stop.

I'm blushing. That's lovely. I feel like I haven't seen used to for ages. I know. It's been way too long. Especially considering we have a project together. I know. I haven't.

Which seems to be going to. on forever. I know you're doing the heavy lifting with all the publishing stuff mate, but it just seems to be going on. Yeah. Well, you know, those kind of things happen. Thank you, Chekles. We appreciate that.

Which is just all the better in light of your own personal relationship. Yeah. I just think all the good things you have to wait for. So for everybody that's waiting for it, it's going to feel that much better when you can actually pick it up off the shelf. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully

it'll be ready for the IHS meeting. Yeah, IHS. It's early. I can't think of acronyms very well this morning, apparently. But yeah, that's kind of the goal is to have ready. And I think we're very close to, you know, having that finalized blue line. Just, yeah, just without their editor person, they're having a backlog and a struggle. Having a hot time, yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, we're fingers crossed. I keep. I'm saying two weeks, you know, it's like we've been renovating one of our labs, our animal facilities at the university. And they said, yes, this will be a six-month project. And then after the six-month period, it was like, okay, in two weeks, we think we're going to be ready. And we're going on a year and a half now. And it's still, I think we finally said, we're opening the lab, whether it's ready or, you know, like it's, you know, they were having some issue with fans. and they had to run two fans instead of one

so they wouldn't have a backup fan in case one went down and I'm like we gotta use this lab we can't go this long without a lab but fortunately you know the US has decided that research is not important anymore and they've stopped the funding so you know we don't have a lot going

on anyway so bless you. It sounds a good time. Very dystopian. Yeah, yeah it's I'll have to join ICE here soon so oh I think you'd make a fabulous as I saw as well. Oh, boy. So yeah, well, what's, what's new with you? Have you been on any

adventures lately? I have. I know I bang on about it a lot, but I just come back from another one of the Canary Islands. Actually, another two of the Canary Islands, because I hopped across to another one. I get no money from the Canary Tourist Board. I would just say, if you get an opportunity, please go to the Canary Islands. It's like a poor man's Galapagos Islands. If you can't afford to go to Galapagos, however you want to say it, it's super, super expensive. Canary Islands, conversely, is super, super cheap.

But the sort of biome is very, very similar. Yeah. So they're all really small islands. I think to remember the biggest you can drive from one end the other in an hour and a half. The smallest ones, you could probably throw a stone for one into the other. But they're all volcanic. So the actual habitat is so unique. I sent Rob some pictures because he was bemoaning how hard certain places were to herp. And then I just pointed out, I'm herping in a lava field. There is no flat surface as far as the eye can see in any direction.

But it's just all the plants to the Canary Islands are endemic. All the reptiles, and there's not that many, which again makes it appealing, because each island has normally three to five species. So it's not like you've got a massive list to tick off. A lot of the birds aren't endemic, but they're African because the closest landmass to these islands is East Africa. Hold on. Sorry, West Africa. So, and the plants have kind of evolved from West Africa.

And it's just mainly succulents and cacti. It's just so otherworldly. It's really cool. And the lizards are very lacerted-like. Some of them get reasonably big. I think like the biggest currently is probably, I don't think, bigger than a chuck waller. But the average size is probably leopard lizard size or something like that. But the coloration is phenomenal.

And I have been spamming Instagram with pictures from there. But the lizards, they're very dark, and it depends on the habitat. So some of the larva is brown. And some of the lava is black, depended on temperature and age and all that sort of thing when it came out. and so you get different phenotypes. So although it's the same lizard, you go to a different part of the island where it's black larva,

you'll get black lizards, but with really metallic blue scales. What's the ones you call? The little tree lizards you get? Yeah, yeah, the scloporus or the spiny lizards or the tide-watch lizards? The ones you turn them over, they're all metallic.

Yeah. The Uda and the operas. Yeah, the utah, yeah. So they're that bright, but along the sides. And then on the brown larva, the lizards are obviously a browner color, but instead of metallic blue, they're metallic green. Okay. That's cool.

These are the glottia or glottia? Gallotia, yeah. So most islands have one or two species of galotia, one species of skink and one species of gecko. Okay. So even though these islands, I mean, some of the islands, you could literally, with that exaggeration, swim between. Yeah. They're still genetically different.

Okay. I just love the fact that you go to a little island and the gecko is genetically different from the island that you can literally see half a mile away. Right. Brilliant. Very cool. And there's no major predators. Fortunately, now there is because obviously people have moved in, so there's cats. Right.

And your biggest target was the California king snake, right? Oh, don't know. That island is Tenerife and Grand Canaria. Oh, that's Grand Canaria. Yeah, which is really unfortunate because, you know, let's put a snake that thrives in a dry desert environment and eats lizards on an island that's a dry desert environment full of lizards with no other predators. So just decimating it at the moment.

Yeah. Is that the largest island in the archipelago? Yeah, so Tenerife is the largest, and then I think Grand Canaria is the second largest. Okay. And then something, I mean, I went to an island La Gracia, and it was probably less than a mile by a mile. It's a very, very small island. No roads or cars or anything like that, obviously. Right. And yet that's got these Gallataeus lizards on there.

It's so fabulous. Yeah. And the geckos. I mean, presumably that little island was part of the main volcano. They were fractured and subsumed or something like that. But, yeah, absolutely amazing. That's cool. Tenerife, notably a great place to fly to.

Yes. Tenerife from here, super cheap. I mean, my flights, it's about a four and a half hour flight. Mm-hmm. And my flight cost me under £100 return, Sterling. What? Wow. Yeah. It's fantastic. It's such a super cheap. It's a very touristy place on some of the islands.

But as soon as you get, literally, as soon as you move away from the coastal tourist sites and go inland, there's nothing there. It's just volcanic rock. But obviously, no holiday makers don't want to go to those places. They want to be the nice guaranteed sunshine beaches because it's hot all year. So as soon as you're away from the little coastal resorts, the wildlife is fantastic. They have got some endemic birds, which I saw. They've got an endemic blue tit, which is really pretty. Oh, wow. They've got like endemic pippets and one of the other islands. If you go further up, you've got another little island chain,

and they've got an endemic pigeon and thing. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. I still remember that article in. Vyvarian magazine that was talking about it like it was some fantasy world. Yeah, that was stuck with me. To be fair, if you drive into Lanzarotti, the National Park,

or even the more common national park on Tenerife, which is Mount Tadie, I think the volcano is about 12,500,000 feet high. But you've got miles and miles and miles of nothing. It looked like another world because the plants don't. look like anything you're used to and all you see is lizards or a few birds uh-huh is is the herping pretty straightforward i mean you're not struggling to find stuff or i would say the easiest herping i've ever done ever you could literally if you wanted to if you weren't i mean i'm trying to get every sort of like phenotype around the different islands if you just

wanted to tick the lizards you could literally go to one of the coast or resorts, sit on a sunlanger on the beach and just drop some crumbs down and the lizards will be coming out. It is genuinely that easy. I think from boots on the ground to see in the first lizard, bear in mind we had a half hour drive was 35 minutes. It's really that easy. I mean, there are some super rare lizards. There's a speckled Gallateria. That takes a lot of work to find and you've got to know it's so the numbers are so small it's critically endangered

the habitat is quite challenging because it's very steep sea cliffs numbers are very small and you there's like one or two locations for it across the whole seven islands so that's quite challenging there's another extremely rare one which is again

is only on one, literally on one cliff face but apart from that literally walking through and it I mean I'm trying to think of somewhere in America that might be the same. When you're walking through the very touristy bits, it's just sand. Probably like Daytona, I'm imagining I've never been to Daytona. But it's just sand and then hotels all the way along the sea front.

And even walking through there in the hotel gardens, you'll see the lizards. And at night, if you come out and you walk along the promenades to go to a restaurant, you'll see the geckos. The skinks are very challenging. You have to do a lot of flipping for that. Flipping is when you turn rocks over to look for something instead of just driving up and down on a motorway looking for something that's coming out of asking. I know it's alien to you, but yeah.

To me, to me? Actually, no, you're from Utah, so no, you do your fair bit of flipping. I will admit that I don't enjoy flipping. as much as you know but what do you do yeah i i the the recent trip i took down to st george the first rock i flipped had a banded gecko under it so i saw the oh mate that picture of the um i can't think of the species oh my days my brains are functioning is one of the horned lizards oh yeah desert horn lizard yeah oh my goodness that was stunning beautiful thing coloration was berserk right it's really lovely yeah

I wish we could keep those properly. They, they, are amazing. We've talked about this before, right? The guy, of course, it's a Dutch guy or a German guy, but who is now cultivating ants and has created this whole system with, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's collecting the, wild collecting ants that he's then, like, feeding into the natural feature within the enclosure and all this.

So I think it can be done. It's a willingness to pursue another one. It'll be, it'll definitely be German. Yeah. I did keep the short horn lizards, the Hernandez. I, for a while. Well, I messed up the brumation, so that's where I went wrong. I figured out how to do that better, but you could order harvester ants and you just get a cup of harvester ants,

put them in the fridge, pull them out and, you know, take a few and throw them in the enclosure and they'd go to town. And then, you know, it was fantastic. Unless you let the harvester ants, you know, land on your hand or something else in there, fighting and stinging you. You know, that was not fun. But, yeah, they did pretty well. I actually had a couple give birth to a bunch of babies. All of a sudden there's, you know, 30 babies run around the enclosure. I'm like, whoa.

That's very cool. Did not expect that. The other thing that's happened, which has irritated the life out of me, is the fact that. is the fact that yet again some academics, boo academics. Some academics have decided that they... No offense taken. No offense, it's just it, but academics are the bane of my life.

They have decided that they couldn't just leave the smooth noots in Europe alone. They have now made it five separate species. Oh, God. Where it was one. They all look identical, but they've done some DNA work and they've decided it's five separate species. Now, fortunately, because a very wise old herper told me always take a picture of everything, no matter how many times you've seen it, wherever you are. I've seen four of the five. Yeah.

But there is now one population that I need to go to Bosnia. and try and find and take pictures of, which is somewhat irritating as I actually have smooth noots in my pond in my garden. So at least they're geographically distinct enough based on this, that it's definable, right? Yeah, yeah, it's pretty much, yeah, it's pretty much the big mountain ranges across Europe that have split. So there's a big population.

the apennines that runs through down through Italy. And then there's one that kind of splits Italy, Austria, Bosnia, Serbia and that sort of area. And the rest are sort of mainland. Oh, and there's the Greek population, which are, to be fair, the Greek population does look slightly different. It's much prettier, if that's a scientific word. So I've seen all of those. I just haven't seen the Bosnian-Serbian ones. unknowingly, I've been to Bosnia and Serbia a number of times.

I just never thought to look for smoothnoots because they're everywhere. But that's a lesson to all budding, field herpers, take a picture of everything wherever, even if you've seen it a million times, because somebody will be trying to justify their PhD further down the line and will change it. It's normally Italians that do it. For one of the smallest countries in Europe, it's very weird that we have things like the Italian tree frog, the Italian slow worm, the Italian crested nude.

It's almost like there's not a universal standard that can split these sorts of questions. Almost, yeah. Yeah, let's change academics to taxonomous. I mean, you could have one like my friend that sunk everything into children and I, so now. I don't need to go find the five or six different types. It's all just one now. Yeah. So that's fun.

Well, we were curious whether you're, to your goal slash venture, however you want to frame it, if that was a fixed point in time, meaning that the task is relative to that, or if the task is perpetually being modified? Well, the Irish answer is yes and no. So it is a fixed point in time that I was the first person in the UK to do it. And obviously Bobby and Yerun, Jan were the first Belgians and Dutch and the first European people to do it. But I still want to see everything. So even though in my heart I've completed the list, if something new comes out, I feel I'm bound to go and look at it anyway.

So I will be doing a trip. Sadly, just to look for one little new, but it is what it is. I guess it speaks to what the prioritization in your trips is. Yeah. Is I guess really the question, right? Yeah. Is it up to your priority or is it a... No, it's, I've got a spare week, what we're going to do this week.

I'll pop over and get that new. It's not like when I was trying to finish the list. where everything was all resources, time, logistics for let's get this done sort of thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at least it's easy to find and fairly common in the range, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Not too difficult. Not too difficult. Not too good. Yeah. And it'll be 12 trips before I actually find it. No, no. No, I've got, as the other thing that's fabulous with academics, who Rob, you know, better than anybody,

they do like to put out lots of information where they did their study. So there is literally grid references to survey sites. Right. Fingers crossed, it shouldn't be too taxing. I mean, Europe, it seems like there's limited places where they can be in some instances, or is this not a case like that? I would say with the smooth new, it's such a habitat generalist. that it's it's all over europe but there's other you're right it's so much so if you look at

the palmate noot that is really specific that it only happens in specific woodland it likes really tanning like water so um you tend to get those in um beach forests and things like that but for the smooth new i think if you turned a dustbin upside down and filled it with water within about 20 minutes it would be full of smooth news yeah well it's maybe it's more like a location for a garter snake over here versus, you know, yeah, exactly. Or does den, you know, here's the GPS coordinates for a desert. Yeah, in suitable habitat, just about any standing water should, should have them in.

They're super common. Yeah. Yeah, I guess there's maybe a little, little defense for the academics giving location. Yeah, that's a trick because, you know, when, from, from our end when we're writing books and stuff, we want to know where the study was conducted, at least generally, so we know we can base today's taxonomy on what was done.

Yeah, I mean, conversely. And now they're all five different species. You need to know which one you saw. 100%. I mean, conversely, to go full circle, I was trying to find the skink on Lanzarotti. And it's actually, critically endangered. It may may well become extinct. There have been one study,

academic study done on it. And, well, I was speaking to Rob to try and find some information of where it is. And it's, they're very, very, and quite rightly, they're very, very, they don't give anything out in the study at all. They mention a nearby village. But that's, you know, that, you know, that's about it. And you're looking for a lizard that's like about three inches long. And brown and lives in leaf litter. And they've mentioned a village which is only mentioned because it's the nearest village in a place that has like three villages

for, you know, X amount of miles. So, yeah. That being said, I natural is tendency. You're still able to do some work. But, you know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I should be doing another trip back to Lanzarotti to just find that.

Focus on that. So you weren't able to find. No, on the last trip for Lanzerrotti, I got the two variants of the Galleria, Atlantica that I wanted to get. And I got loads of different variants of the gecko. To get the skink, I think, is going to be a weak trip. week long trip, just focusing on an area probably a couple of kilometers by a couple of kilometers and just trying to find suitable habitat and literally it'll just be a flip fest.

Yeah. You know, these that don't even really come out and bask. It's literally a question of turning the right log or turning the right stone. And in these areas, there isn't a lot to flip because it's volcanic. Yeah. Yeah. Is it a time of year thing as well? Are they less likely to be found? Yeah, so for the July, August, September, the temperatures are ridiculously hot. It's like Arizona hot. Right.

So, yeah, that's not a great time to go. Sitting on, yeah. Volcanic rock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's nice for me because it's like a winter break type thing to do. So whereas for me, if I'm not going to the States, the main European herping season is probably April through to end of June. And then the summer months is not great. It's too dry. But in the winter, whereas Europe's way too cold,

and most of the species are under snow or whatever, I can go to the Canary Islands, and that's their really busy time sort of like, end of September, October, November is a great time to herp out there. And it's still, in the high 20s out there. Yeah. Does the prices go up because that's tourist time?

It's absolutely the other way around. So if, I don't know if it's the same for the States, but here, we have defined school holiday periods. And school holiday periods are like June through to the end of September. Airfare doubles and accommodation price double because obviously people want to take their their kids on holiday. They can't take their kids out of school any other time. As soon as the school holidays finish, the kids are back to school, the airfares just plummet,

no, no, that's definitely the time to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, good times. Yeah, it's so many cool places to go see stuff, you know, like, I guess maybe I maybe wish I wasn't so stuck on Australia because, you know, I'm doing the same thing over there, like, oh, there's this little island that has, you know, population. of spiny-tailed skinks that I need to get out and see.

Yeah, but the thing is, I find Australia overwhelming. I think that's why I don't go there. I find it, you know, you're talking about, if you put all the canary lines together, you're talking like a minute area that wouldn't, you know, it's not even a city in Australia. Yeah. Whereas, you know, to try and hurt Australia properly,

you know, even if you did it every day of your life, for your whole life, see everything. You're not going to see everything. And you know what I'm like, I have to see everything. Yeah. Yeah. Fair point. Although I will say, so I did look, and it looks like from the US, it's about 10x to get there as it is for you. So, not quite as affordable. Really?

Fly to London and then flight it. So the plan would be, flight to London. So that's a decent point. I can, I think, yeah, you're on to something there. I know I've flown to London for 300 bucks round trip. There's a new airline, Nordair or Nordair, that's doing really cheap flights. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not going to be the most comfortable flight you've ever been on. But they're doing like three, four hundred pound flights to the States.

So you could fly to London. I could pick you up. We could go herping in surrounds, go and get, you know, Vipirabaris and some lizards. and stuff like that, and then get a flight from London to Tenerife or something. And that flight will cost you under 100 pounds. Sounds like a good plan. Yeah, Hurt Tenerife. Fly back to London, fly to Greece.

So many places to quickly fly through. Great. Yeah, it looks like I can get to London for about half what it was quoting in, Tenerife. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get the added bonus of a second place to Herb with the... Exactly that. with an extremely knowledgeable local guide.

Well, not being fair, if you had, if the weather conditions were favorable and you had a couple of days, you could get every UK herb. There's only about 12. It's not, you know what? It's doable. I mean, we've pretty much done it in a day, but if you had two days, you could do it fairly easy. So make sure you plan at least two days. Yeah. Yeah.

It sounds like a good plan. And if he was willing to guide Lou, you know. probably be willing to go. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Man, yeah. Need more time and money. Exactly that.

I need to retire. I need to retire and just spend my days hoping. Yeah. Yeah, Heidi and I were hoping to make it over to visit you guys. Yeah. Yeah, it turned into a much more limited scope, which is probably a good thing. The Czech Republic to smuggle Python's back to the U.S. I wish, man.

If we're, I'm excited to get back to Germany. Yeah. But I have let Heidi plan everything. Okay. We are stopping in Pilsen to see the spider tail viper, so that'll be cool. That's cool. Yeah. But other than that, we're just, I'll keep an eye open, of course, for anything.

You're bound to get wall lizards. You'll probably get bearers if in the right habitat. there's certainly be a ton of amphibians that you should get. Yeah, yeah. So, well, we'll do what. I, I, I'm kind of making sure that I don't hijack the trip. Yeah. It was tempting with the, you know, some information from you and some other friends in Europe.

Yeah. It's, yeah, probably not going to happen. It was just a little too far out of the way. Okay, yeah. Hit those spots, unfortunately. You're going to Austria, though, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. Just a little sliver of off.

Austria, unfortunately. And Lichtenstein, we've got to add a few new places to the list of places I've been. Yeah, that's a cool. There's not many people go to Lichtenstein. It's a very tiny little country.

Right, right, yeah. So that what, we're close. We better just pop over there and say we've been. Yeah. Yeah.

Always fun to see new, new spots. And also get back to my old stomping grounds in Berlin. Yeah. And Heidi's been like, hey, should we go to this zoo? Should we go to that zoo? I'm like...

That's good. Yeah. And the aquarium. Yeah. Don't forget the Kit Kat Club. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah.

That was our first job. Can't go to Berlin without the Kit Kat Club. That's the candy bars, right? The KitK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they tell Heidi. Yes, yeah. Why all the people are like chocolate wearing leather and latex?

Oh, it's just a thing in Germany. That's what they do. Yeah. Oh, boy. All right. Well, let's talk about Georgia and Georgia. Yes, okay. Maybe Rob can kind of introduce the topic here.

Yeah, sure. So having been to neither, though having been to two of the neighboring countries for the country of Georgia, where Nipper is going, I thought this was a little bit fun. So, yeah, as I say, been to neighboring states for the United States is Georgia, bend to neighboring countries, Azerbaijan and Turkey for the country of Georgia. You know, a lot of eye naturalist scoping and things. And Nipper is heading on his first Georgian, meaning the country, adventure in the fall, question mark. No, 30th of June.

30th of June. Okay. So that's interesting, too, just from a timing perspective, if you were just hitting on sort of when ideal times are and things like that. So really, this is mostly an opportunity for me and Justin to learn about Georgia of the country in terms of what you anticipate trying to find where you're going, eco-regions time of year, we'd like you to hit on that. And I just thought I'd throw in a few factoids about the U.S. version and we'll see where we wind up.

But it's mostly about kind of, you know, you taking us to school. Oh, okay, then. No, this wasn't my idea. I'm going to be honest. One of my charming chums, Matt, we was chatting on that we did a trip, was it last year, I think, where we went to look for all the Spanish vipers in one trip.

When we was doing that, we was obviously talking about our love of venomous snakes and the kind of ground zero for, I'm going to call Georgia the country a year, European. It's not European. It was part of the former Russian Federation. It's in that kind of no man's land that's not quite Asia. It's not quite Europe. It's kind of in the middle. It's not Middle Eastern. It's, so Georgia sort of borders Turkey. A lot of Starmes, Turkmenistan, Armenia. It's not a very big country, to be fair. You can probably drive from one end to the other in about four hours. It's a very mountainous country. At the minute it's having some cheeky problems with its former owner, Russia,

where they're trying to get bits of it back quite forcibly. So there are, it is, how can I put it? It's sketchy. It's like Florida sketchy. It's okay in places, but there's places that you've really got to either avoid or have your wits about you. So there is some border fighting going on out there in some of the areas. Unfortunately, one of our big targets we probably won't go for because the reports are that that area is particularly dangerous at the moment. But, yeah, so we was having a chim-wag and we thought, yeah,

we'll go and do something different. America, as you know, is my great love for herping. They weren't so keen because of some of the things that are going on over there at the minute. So we looked and we thought, you know, what is the venomous sort of epicenter that we can travel to? We came up with Georgia. Georgia, over the last 10 years, has got a lot more tourist, friendly because of birders.

So I wouldn't say it's an easy country logistically to operate in. Right. But it's getting easier because, as usual, burders have kind of paved the way. So there is an eco-tourism sort of foundation being done at the moment. It's a super cheap country to operate in. I mean, the airfare was an extortion. I think the airfare is about 400 pounds for us to get to. And it's, you know, it's only about, I think it's a four and a half, five-hour flight from the UK.

It's not massive. Not too bad. But once you get there, things like car hire and four-wheel drive is essential. It's not like motorways and tarmac roads and things like that. It's old school. But car hire and accommodation is Pence. Okay. yeah there is it's not like um herping where you're going to be able to stop and go to a restaurant

right the drop of a hat you know you need to plan your resources and things like that but not fuel stations or you know it's pretty easy to come by get fuel or you buying some like and on the side of the road i'd say it's a probably a bit like new mexico in terms of you need to keep an eye on your fuel because your next chance to fill up might not be for of like four or five hours, something like that. But yeah. But not necessarily buying it out of barrels

like you're doing Kyrgyzstan. Burrell's on the street, right? Right. We'll see, Rob. We'll see. All right. A little added bits.

Yeah. For this trip, we are primarily going to Georgia, but our aim, purely because I want the stamp in the passport, but also because there's a couple of other target speech.

is to try and get into Turkmenistan and also try and get into Armenia because nobody goes to Armenia and it's got such cool reptiles. It really has. So the plan is there's four of us. I've been away with all of these people before. So I think that's important, as we've talked about a number of times. I think if you're going to do a trip in challenging, circumstances you really need to be able to go away with people that you know that even when

you're tired, hungry and, you know, all those great things that you're still going to have a good time with. So we've got a strong trip. And predominantly our target is going to be venomous snakes, but there's a lot of other things. So just to compare with Georgia US. So Georgia U.S., Georgia, the country is almost exactly half the size of the state of Georgia, which is very weird.

It has Georgia, US, the murder rate is 8.2 per 100,000 of the population, which is reasonably low. whereas Georgia, former Russia, Georgia, it's 2.2. So theoretically, it's much safer. I would suggest that there's a lot less people carrying guns out there unless you're around the border areas. Now, in terms of species, Rob was exactly right, as he always is. Georgia, US Georgia has about 160 species of reptile and amphibian.

of which the vast majority are amphibians. Right. Whereas Georgia, the country, has only about 60 species, of which predominantly are snakes. So it says, you know, I like a smaller list because to me that just seems more doable. You know, the majority of stuff in Georgia, USA is salamanders. I think you've got 50, 60 species of salamander in Georgia,

and they're all little dirt brown stuff that look almost the same. So there's a big challenge there in itself, whereas in Georgia, the country, there's only one, possibly two species of salamander, but also probably the most attractive, if you can say attractive, one of the most, possibly the most attractive noot on the planet.

And I would suggest, anybody that's interested, Googles the noots that you get from Georgia. I can't remember the Latin name. I think it's something like Omniatriton, Omniatriton, and you've got Omniatriniton Vitatus, and it is an absolutely stunning thing. I've seen it before as an introduced species in Europe,

but I'd be very excited to see it in its natural habitat. It is a phenomenally good-looking thing. You've also got, A very large salamander, sort of slightly small within your Pacific salamander, but probably a bit longer because it's got a very long tail. And again, the Latin name escapes me, Merton Siliata or something like that. Mertens Scyliana. People will be shatting at me, I can't remember.

But a very attractive looking salamander, which is one of our major targets. Cool. Yeah, that's a need to need to hear. there's some similarities, but, you know, a lot of differences, you know, similar species count sounds like, at least in regards to snakes, but yeah. Well, so snake-wise, I think, to memory in Georgia, USA, there's about 50 species of snake, Rob, is that right? Yeah, I know.

Whereas I think there's only 21 species of snake in Georgia, the country. Okay. And how many of those are venomous? Well, that's the thing. So in my humble opinion, if I was asked to do my top five most attractive venomous snakes, certainly in the top five will be Vipira Kaznikovai. Yeah. Caucasian viper.

The Caucasian, exactly that. And that is our main target for the trip. The nice thing for me is there's seven viper species in Georgia. Okay. And at the seven, I've kept three at home. So it would be really nice to see them in the flesh, for whatever better word. Right. And they're pretty variable, right?

The Caucasian viper have a lot of different looks to them. So the Kazna Kovai, if we're calling that the Caucasian Piper, yeah. The classic that everybody wants and they are extortionate in the pet trade is the sort of velvety black with the golden zigzags. Yeah. Absolutely stunning. Right. Particularly when you see them, so their natural habitat is alpine meadow.

And when you see them on, and I've had this conversation with Phil, and we couldn't really get to grips with the same thing. I call it bracken. Which, do you have, what would you call bracken in the States? Do you, you must have. Fern?

It's a specific type of fern that when it dies, it leaves piles of these brown, fronds all over the place. And when you see any of the European vipers because they're all very similar in their cryptic coloration, in a VIV,

yeah, they pop because the coloration looks amazing. But when you put them on this, they disappear. It's such a really good piece of cryptis. So I'm really looking forward to trying to get some decent pictures of that. It is quite difficult to hurt for Kassanoke Right. Because they are so overwild collected. So in the main target areas for it, what is the main target area?

It's not, you'd confuse me because we were talking about rattlesnakes before. Down in the Materila. How do you pronounce that? Matera National Park? There's a specific location. and I want to say Hopi, but I'm not sure if that's because we were talking about rattlesnakes before we came on. That's rattlesnakes, yeah. That is rattlesnakes, but I think I'm going to have to Google it or look it.

But there's, in that area, not only is there a wildlife police and the... Corky? Cokey? No. It is the type that whenever anyone's selling one online, it's always mysteriously from that locality. Right. Like when you see Amadites for sale, it's always Lake Scutari. Right, right.

Because that's the most, you know, famous, nice locality. Yeah. Everything has to be from that. Exactly. Because it does look like you get some of the more velvety or the darker ones other than, you know, that concentrated area. But you also get red ones in there, too. Yeah. I mean, some of them look very similar to Beres.

but the ones that are obviously the stunning ones are from that area with the blacks and the golds and the oranges and stuff like that. But even the locals... Oh, it's stunning. Even the locals will come out and not attack you, but why are you here? What are you doing?

Are you collecting snakes? Which I think is really good. It just adds a little bit of an element of a problem. problems to try and see that's... A dynamic is a great word. How do you convince somebody that you're not there for... Yeah.

Yeah. Intent. Yeah. So that's our number one target is that... Cool. Yeah. And I think, as I say, I think to me that is one of the most attractive-looking venomous snakes that there is.

And then we have other lovely venomous snakes in that area. We've got Vipera Transcaucasia, which is a nose horn viper. So very closely related. In fact, it was a subspecies at one point to Vipira Amidites, the one that you see in the US hobby. Right. But, yeah, that is naughtily venomous, I will say. You really don't want to get a bite off that.

Whereas the bite from Kazna Kovai is not particularly challenging unless you have anaphylaxis. The bite from transclocasia can be quite naughty. but something I've wanted to see for a really, really long time. And I'm sure you want to avoid any bites from any venomous snakes. Yeah. That's probably the main goal, right? That is my always my main goal, yes.

Having been there, that it's not something I choose to, I want to repeat. And then we have some of the little tiny little viper specialities that are really exciting to me, but everybody will probably look at and just go, oh, it's just a little brown snake. for me, I think it's super interesting. So you've got Vipira Eriewenensis, which is a lovely montane species, which is more out towards Turkmenistan and places like that, but it does come into Georgia.

You've got Vipira Lottievi, which was part of the Vipira-Rinardi complex that has been split and is now its own species. We've got Vipira Renardi, which is a stunning snake. quite widespread in Europe. How many is that? Tuscorekasia, Kestakovai,

everything else in the Lusia. Yeah, what am I missing? What am I missing? Oh, the big one. Renardi? Yeah, Vipira Renardi. We're missing Vipira Lebertina, which is the blunt nose viper,

which is an absolute tank of a viper. It is, that is a beast. I've seen the nominate form, which is Vipera Lebertina. and I've also seen the one that was a separate species, now isn't a separate species. They keep going backwards and forth with it, which is the Milos Viper,

which is Herfi Pira Shweger Eye. And yeah, they are large, very heavily bodied. Almost, they remind me of puff adders. Okay. That's a big, fat, sluggier. Yeah, big old heads. Yeah, real blocky, blunt-nosed head. Yeah.

Yeah, what else will be good? It looks very crotling. And it looks like a crotolus. Yeah, very similar. And the last one is a really montane specialist. It's found really, really high up. And that's Fipira Daniki. And that's the one that people want to breed in Europe,

but are really struggling because it has such specific husbandry needs in terms of most of the year it's under snow. and it's really high alpine meadows and its actual activity period is very short it needs very very moist conditions a lot of the time it's an insect feeder particularly when it's small stuff like that it's not impossible to keep everything you know you can keep everything

but it's not like keeping an amaditis which you can keep in a shoebox under the bed and it's fine for like years you know right more specialized yeah Yeah. So, yeah, those are the main venomous targets. Yeah, that's quite a few different targets there. That's great. Yeah, but if we compare that with Georgia in the U.S., I'm going to put Rob on the spot. Rob on the spot. How many venomous snakes are there in Georgia?

Yeah, so I think there's only six. Part of it had come down to what you consider to be species and things. I didn't have six. What are your six? I'm going to go with cotton mouth. Sure. Cotton mouth. Coral snake. Coral snake.

Eastern Diamondback. And we count in cane break as a separate thing. We are counting cane break as a set thing. Sure. Maybe it's seven. Maybe it's seven. Pygmy rattlesnake. One of the pygmies is there, isn't it?

Yeah. I'm struggling now. Copperhead. Copperhead. Copperhead, yeah. Coral pygmy, cotton mouth. Eastern Diamondback. Cain break or timber. Yeah, timber.

And chopperhead, seven. Yeah. Seven. So the same. So the same. That's interesting. That's very cool. That's good.

Are there venom snakes other than the vipera there? or no, so it is just the same. No, in Europe, I mean, if we're not talking about mildly venomous stuff like the cat snakes, like the Reifeng, the telescopus, and the cat snakes

and things like that, we are, our serious venomous snakes for Europe strict is only Vipera, that's her only genius of... Or the split-offs, right? Because what Lebitina is macrovipera or whatever. Oh, it's so... good, isn't it? He's really good.

Yeah. So we have Macro Vimpera and Monty Vipera as well as Vipera. But yeah, by large they are all. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I missed a snake out, which we're probably going to try and go for if we can. Just over the border

into Armenia is Rads viper. I'm not sure if that is a macro or a Monty. It's one of the bigger vipers Anyway, and that again is dangerous, but it's absolutely stunning as well. They're quite popular in the hobby in Europe. I don't know if they're popular in the States, but Rad's Vipers, very, very pretty.

Okay. Yeah, I'm not keyed in on the venomous community over here. I'm not sure what's popular. What does the visa situation look like? You talk about, you know, obviously you're going to firmly need one for Georgia, presumably. But then for Armenia, for your little bops over the border, what does that look like? To be fair, it's not as bad as you think. It's certainly easy than getting into the US for me.

But at the minute, the amount of online stuff we have to do just to fly to Vegas to do a fat Elvis wedding or whatever is ridiculous. So, yes, we've got to get a tourist visa. but in terms of over the border it's something that can be done at the border if that makes sense. As I moaned about on one of the previous podcasts, by accident we drove from Bulgaria into Turkey quite without realizing we were going to drive into another country

and yeah, I mean they dicted us about a bit and they took some money off us, but it's not the end of the world. Yeah, so it's not something that we won't pre-book an Armenian tourist visa. Okay. But we will, if we do decide to go for Rans Viper, if we've seen the other stuff and we had time to go for Rans Viper, we'll then, you know, you literally drive to,

I'm sure you've done it many times driving across that part of the world. You literally drive to a border post, and there's a very bored-looking border guard that really can't be bothered to deal with you, and he'll do a very thorough search. at the car unless you give him a carton of cigarettes. And then it'll just wave you through. Things might be, I joke, you know, obviously,

but I think things might be slightly different at the moment because of things that are going on in that part of the world. I mean, Iran is not super far away from Georgia. Right. Yeah. So that might present a problem in terms of free travel. I know other people that I spoke to have had issues trying to get across borders in other countries.

And I know particularly the Turkish borders are very, very tight at the moment. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, the nice thing about this trip is it's open trip. You know, we want to see as much as we can, but we're just, it's not like we have a specific goal that we must achieve.

It will be let's drive around and see what we can see. Right. I would say Kaznikovai is the main target. But anything else we see after that is just good fun.

Now, the other thing that's there is I'm hoping we see hundreds of them. Do you remember my problems trying to see the blot snake? Yes. Yes. Well, they split the blot snake

into two species. And the other species, etrichonar, is, very common, air quotes, very common in Georgia. So it would be nice to see the newly split species. On a sidebar, a friend of mine went to Bulgaria earlier, sorry, went to the Air Force Delta in Greece last week, but found three block snakes without trial.

Your white whale. Oh, I don't know. But yeah, another one of the targets is the newly split Caucasian. Boy snake. So that would be very cool to see. Okay. Well, and they have something of the pituitous term, right? That's kind of an equivalent form.

Yeah. So it will be interesting to see whether you have something of a gopher bowl slash pine snake situation going, where you were on one limel edge that is the pine snake equivalent, right? Yeah. And then they're actually the second most populous species, you know, omnipresent species properly. within their range and things. Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to think,

what other targets that I have? Ah, yeah, amphibian targets. I know you used to amphibian lovers because you're cool kids and just like snakes and nothing else. But I love an amphibian, as you know, and I'm also quite autistic in that I like to finish a list. So there is a parsley frog.

So a parsley frog, over Europe, there's a number of pasty frogs and they're really small frogs. They're about an inch long and they're very, very heavily um, walted, if that's a word. There are a lot of sort of tubercles all over them.

They're tiny little frogs and, uh, I've seen all the European species. But Georgia, being just outside of Europe has its own species. It's got the Caucasian one. So I want to see that for completion. Um,

there's also a spade foot toad. they've recently split all the spadefoot toads so there is a spadefoot toad called Pila Bates, what's it, Vesperatus, which would have then finished my spadefoot toad list as well. So that would be really cool. There's another frog, and it is the most dull brown frog, which is just the Caucasian grass frog.

And it's about as big as a leopard frog. but I really want to see that as well. Again, just so that I've seen all the grass frogs in Europe. Rob's Googling everything at the minute trying to get pictures. Come to fully understand and appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. There's also, we call it a common toad in the UK and in Europe, although it's anything but common.

So our big toad, which looks very, very similar to the, American Tov It gets about as big as... I'm going to be very American now. It gets about as big as a baseball. How good am I? And there is a Caucasian version of that, which I quite like to see.

Yeah. Plus, there is a genus of lizards and I'm not even going to try and pronounce it. I will try. Daryevskers or something like that. It's a Russian name. And that is like the... Russian equivalent of Lacerthids, and there is a ton of those there.

There is, like, I think to memory, there's about 18 species, and they all look very, very similar, like little rock lizards. So we should see quite a few of those as well. Derritskaya, I guess. There is Derritskaya, yeah, than possibly. I would imagine your Russian is way better than mine, Rob, for reasons, which we won't know. I think that's what I would go with. Yeah.

Probably Dada. Yeah. There's a very, I mean, a lot of these species look very similar to a lot of the species in America as well. You know, Georgia. Oh, 100%. I mean, if you put the two, I presume you get spade foot tubes in Georgia. Yeah. If you put the two spade foot toes side by side, I think he'd struggle to.

Right. Figure out which ones. Yeah. Yep. And the lemon yellow tree, the hyalus savagny. Savignia, yeah. Yeah, they look just like a, you know, a green tree frog. They're like the American green tree frog. Right. Yeah. The eastern tree frog as well. And Caucasian to, like you said, you know.

It looks just like, yeah. Yeah. Green toads. Yeah. There's so many similarities in the species. It's great. Yeah. And some of the salamanders as well, you know, you've got your Caucasian salamanders. Salamander, the Meritinella, that's... That's it, yeah. Yeah, it looks just like a lot of the ones you'd find in Georgia, the States. I think it's just the size because that is quite a big salamander. Right, right.

Yeah. I mean, I can't remember off the top of my head. Do you get fire salamanders in Georgia? Georgia's the country. Are you Googling it? I'm not sure if the distribution goes as far as that. Yeah, I'm not seeing it. Possibly not.

Yeah. But, you know, they're pretty wide-ranging, so it's possible, I suppose. But, yeah, I'm not seeing on INAT. Oh, okay. And it's also got some cracking birds. I mean, it is a very big birding, as I say, the bird has sort of started everything. Particularly for Raptors, it's a real must-go place. So you'll see what vultures we pick up and that sort of thing.

What are some of the highlights or the ones you're really hoping? Birding wise, I couldn't tell you exactly. I mean, there'll be booted eagles and things like that. But it'll be the larger raptors. Don't think,

oh, there's tortoises there as well. I think there is a tortoise species. Yeah, yeah. And there'll be pond turtles there as well. Yeah, Griff and Vulture would be really cool to see. I've seen, I've taken, I've seen griffons before. Yeah, they're huge, absolutely huge.

I think there was a possibility to see those in the south of France. I was hoping to see, but, yeah. We did see a snake eagle, which was cool. Yes. Yeah. How about bearded vultures? Have you seen those yet? I haven't seen bearded yet.

No, that would be very cool. That would be cool to see. They're neat little species there. Yeah. South of France, you might have got, depending on where you were, as Lammergeyes. Yeah. That was another one I was hoping.

Yeah. What do you do? Yeah, you can't get everything in one trip. That's the issue. Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah, it looks like a really nice diversity of birds in the area. Yeah, so we shall see. I'm looking forward to it, as I say, it is potentially sketchy, but it's no sketchier

than Georgia, USA, I can assure you. Well, statistically, it sounds much safer. Much safer, yeah. About a fourth of the chance. Yeah, as long as you avoid the war. If you avoid the war zones, I think you'll be fine. I mean, it's somewhat close to some other, you know, war areas. You got Ukraine fairly close by.

Is that? Yeah. Again, we had some minor, I could say minor problems. when we was in the Evros Delta, it was noticeably militaristic last year. And movements, we were turned away from a lot of areas that we wanted to hurt because they were borders with areas that were more under threat at the moment. So, yeah, it is a thing. And I think if you look at the, we aren't getting too grim,

if you look at the range of the missiles at the moment, you know, all this area. I mean, you're looking at a range of missiles out as far as the island of Cyprus. So, you know, we've had missile attacks in Cyprus. Yeah, we've had missile attacks in Dubai, you know. And, you know, so we are not that far from Iran. I think there's one country between the, yeah, it's a very, very large country, don't get me wrong. Right, right.

Yeah, it's a volatile part of the world at the minute. Yeah. Unfortunately, because there's just a lot of cool things over there. Oh, 100%. If, you know, you could hurry up and finish this little altercation, I'm very, very keen to go herping in Iran because you've got incredible species there. We were talking about that just on the front end. There were several podcasts with different folks who,

Americans who had just been over there and stuff and seemed pretty good. but yeah i'd love to see a spider tail viper in the wild that would be dream species the two big species for me for iran are the spider tail viper and the giant cave salamander yeah uh both of those are such amazing plus you've got all the cool agamas and things like that right and i mean it sounded like the the people of iran are fairly okay with you know were yeah maybe not so much at the moment yeah um but i think it's definitely all being well that's the ice cream truck that's exactly what it is there's an ice cream truck i cannot believe i've got my uh little

pit bull asleep next to me and he did not did not move which is very unusual i'm surprised we i'm appreciate your restraint for not running off to you get your You're after your ice cream. It's nearly summertime, so it's time to take the shirt off. So it's all about the training at the minute. Oh, yeah. Suns out of Gunza. I'm on a really, really strict diet at the minute.

It's very dull. Needs must. One day, you used to will get old and you will realize what it's like. Oh, no, I'm right there with you, man. I'm only a few years younger than you are. Yeah, but you look. a lot younger than me. It's your,

blame this lifestyle and your water polo, I think, keeps you looking. Well, I finally got out to the doctor and found out I am not the,

the perfect specimen that I thought I would. Yeah. Yeah. And so I've been watching my diet. I started a lift, so yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Off there, we'll talk about, I don't enjoy it, but we'll talk about some chemical enhancements that you can take to make.

make things that make it easier for you. Yeah, yeah. Well, and the other noted, you know, international fun spots, are you going to swing over to Chechnya? Again, potentially, again, Chechnya is less welcoming than many other countries. I know. But it's a possibility.

Yeah. Yeah, it depends. It's like any trip, you know, you might find your target. I don't know, Nipper. I mean, it's been a possibility. Right, we get, certainly we have walked into, have had the possibility to walk into Mexico. Yes.

For the record, we never did that. And by we, mean, you guys. Yeah. I definitely crossed the river into Mexico. No, we would never do that. That would be wrong. I'm sure I had some sniper, you know, trained on me for a minute. Some U.S. sniper.

Yeah. just to be clear he's coming back take the shot yeah but you know it's always possible to stray across a border

without knowing particularly in the desert so who knows it looks like there is a national park that goes that's on the border there yeah

border with Chechnya so yeah I don't know if that's the fun stuff or not but yeah it looks pretty good so if you if you look at georgia the country it looks it's kind of like a oblong-shaped country kind of like a squashed circle almost so if you're looking straight on the western end of it which has got the coastline um it's a bit of a black sea yeah yeah that whole

area is a bit of a no-go area so all all that bit is is a little bit complicated at the minute um with Russian military intervention and stuff like that. Sure, it's right over by Sochi from the Olympics several years ago and things. Yeah. So your flight is Tbilisi? So we've got, believe it or not, Tbilisi, although it is the capital city, is really good for Herping. There's a lot of Vipersites around the outskirts of Tbilisi. So, yeah, we've got, I think we've got a few days around the surrounds of Tbilisi,

and then we're heading west as far as we can safely go and then we're coming back and then going east. There's a little bit, if you're looking at the map, if you're on the eastern border, about halfway along, there's a little blip and that is also a no-go area, again, with Russian intervention. But apart from that, and unfortunately, that's where Vipira Dniki is found.

but apart from that the rest of it is is pretty safe it looks like the majority of the Kaznakovai are on that western edge yeah yeah yeah well Kazanukovai the hotspots do you know what I'm absolutely sure it is Hopi is the region I'm going to Google it that's doing my head in but that's on the sort of Turkish border area

okay so more eastern So you're in the east and north? Yeah, yeah. Hmm. There you go. Well, is this primarily then flipping, a la Europe? Is it hiking? Is it increasing?

So the beauty of vipers is they are really, what's the word I'm looking for? They're quite autistic in their behavior. So vipers don't get. up early, which is good. They tend to need the ground around them to have warmed up a little bit before they get up. They don't come out to barsely.

They seem to come out when it's slightly warm. So it will be walking in suitable habitat and looking for basking areas for the vipers. And they'll bask out to around about 11 o'clock in the morning and then it'll be too hot and then they'll go off feeding or go underground again. but they do bask out in the open. So pretty much like a rattlesnake, although there's no telltale noise, the habits are very similar

that they tend to sit at the bottom of bushes with an escape route into the bush, but they'll bask out in the open. So you just have to spot them. Yeah, it's just a question of walking through suitable habitat and looking out for them. So the trip will be, I don't see a benefit of super early starts

unless we've got a long drive to somewhere. So the days, particularly if we're going from the Vipers, will be up at, you know, half six, seven o'clock, a quick breakfast and then out and start walking. By lunchtime, you're only going to be seeing lizards, if anything. And then late afternoon, pretty much we do as in Arizona and New Mexico and stuff like that. You know, the heat of the day will probably either go eat or go bird watching or something like that. And then evening time will be.

looking for suitable amphibian areas, see what amphibians are out. Road cruising, I don't know that the roads are going to be that beneficial because a lot of them aren't tarmac. So I don't know how well there retain the heat. Right. Yeah, which is interesting, right, in the Georgia context, because, you know, somewhat reminiscent of Florida,

I think a lot of that cruising is dirt. Yeah. The productive cruising, right, is dirt. Yeah. So depending on, again, depending on what you're looking for. But if you look at the numbers of snakes we saw crew, and I know the weather wasn't optimum, but if you look at the number of snakes we saw road cruising,

the dirt roads in Florida, compared to the numbers of snakes we saw road cruising in Arizona or New Mexico, you know, it's poles apart. Yeah, I mean, in general, it seems like the things that are readily cruised are the aquatic or semi-aquatic type snacks, right? Yeah, yeah. That was our experience with neurodia, right? It would readily come out onto the pavement at dark.

But your favorite, southern hog nose, Florida pine snakes, those sorts of things. If you're going to find them, you're going to find them. It seems like during the day that dirt is more productive down that area. And I think, understand Georgia to be much the same, where that's the sort of activity that you'd be undertaking safe for, yeah, bushbashing and all. Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, that'll be the muragia. It'll be, as we often do, it'll just be walking through suitable habitat and see what we turn up. How about stays and things?

Is it, you know, are there places to stay? Are you roughing it? Are you camping? What do you do? So for the first two days, we've got accommodation books in Tbilisi. and it's almost shamefully cheap you feel like you're almost robbing them but that's just the currency differences

right but after that we have got nothing particularly books because we're quite fluid but we'll go on booking.com and book as whichever nearest

city we are okay so you're kind of tied to towns and cities and yeah um yeah the more remote areas i don't think it's not like herping where there's a big uh tourism waste where you can just find so yeah we will have to sort of head back to the larger towns to find somewhere yeah i um i did herp in in Georgia for uh a day or two i was i was at a conference and the hotel we you know we were hanging out there and in uh Georgia, the state, not the country.

And so, but I remember getting out, I'm like, oh, I need to go find some herbs. So I got up, you know, early and went out in the morning and was, you know, trying to find some natural type habitat. And so I found a little woodland and was flipping logs. I think I found a narrow mouth toad. And what else was there? Like a legless lizard. And then I, you know, I think I saw maybe just. a couple, you know, little things. And then I got some ants and other stinging insects or something.

And the plants were a little miserable, you know, and I was just sweaty and dirty. And so I came back to the hotel and there's these two guys, you know, from the conference looking in this tree right next to the hotel. And I'm like, oh, what are you looking at there? Oh, there's a snake in the tree. I'm like, oh. And then I walked up, you know, checked out the snake, got some pictures, went over to the balcony of the hotel. Everybody's looking over. the edge. I'm like, oh,

what are you, what's down there? Oh, there's an alligator swimming past. I'm like, I just had to stay on the hotel grounds. I would have seen more,

you know, cooler animals that way. I've got to be honest. I'm not, although I really love a salamander. And I think Georgia is probably the epistence of a salamanders in the US, I would say.

After our last experience, when, Rob fed me to ticks basically. I'm not keen to herb anywhere in America that's got a moist climate. I want anything, I want everything to be burnt out so that there is not a chance of a tick. Because, yeah, that killed me, man. It is funny out of all that that I think almost certainly I had the most on me, and yet you were the one who walked away worse for where.

I knew I was going to get it. It was that one, I just knew it was that one tick that would not come out. I just knew. As soon as that rush come up, I'm like, this is rapid. You didn't enjoy how what, what, for the rest of the trip, right? We're sitting in the car and every time we would get in, we would see them coming out. Do you know what? I don't know how Eric, I didn't have a sense of humor failure.

Because if I took my Land Rover on a trip and people feel, feeling out with tics, my head would come off. But Rob was absolutely right. We literally just sat there and you could just watch them coming out of the upholstery. It's disgusting. You need some pest strips or something. It was a clear tick collar. Yeah.

I just feel like, I just feel sorry for Dory because she wasn't even crawling for anything. And she's going to go to Walmart or something and just be covered in ticks. It's horrible. Yeah, why don't we wear flea and tick collars out there when we're herping? Seems like a really obvious answer.

Oh, if that was me, I'd have to burn the car out. It was disgusting. It is pretty creepy watching the ticks crawl across. I had one in Utah. I went out for some early spring herping, and we were crawling through trees and stuff, and I was just chatting with.

Wait, wait, wait. well there's ticks in Utah well not not too often yeah few and far between but uh I I looked down on my shoulder and there's one crawling up a good size tick and I mean we're in the mountains kind of in the in the in the woodlands and stuff but so yeah that was not great no and there was one spring where we were up at a cabin and and I was we were all just covered in ticks my dad got Rocky Mountain spotted fever you know from a tick fight and Um, so like, but I've never seen that again. It was just that one spring for whatever reason.

We were just there at the right time for the tick bloom. But yeah, it was crazy. And you were right on top of it as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping, Rob, that for the trip in September, it is a complete tick-free zone. Yeah. I wouldn't count on that.

Wear your tick collar. Yeah. I mean, you can do that for fun anyway, but yeah, I think you're probably okay. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. I'm not doing that again. Grim. Yeah, very good. Well, yeah, is there any other pieces, components, parts of the plan that we missed? Obviously, right, you get good insight into, you have the ability to cross-check your ideas and things with folks, and particularly in terms of taking home.

Yeah, I'm really lucky with the people I'm going with They're all extremely experienced I mean, and I feel really lucky This is like a Rob Stone thing Because I haven't had to really organise any of this trip The two of the people I'm going with Are very prominent in the zoo community in Europe So they're common

contacts were phenomenal. And in terms of academic sites and things like that, they've got a breadth of information. It's amazing the level of information that they would manage to attain for this. The other chap is a, what's the word I'm looking for? Conservationist is the wrong word. Ecologist, that's the word I was struggling for. He's an ecologist.

So again, his contacts and academic studies that he was able to get hold of were really, really good. So, yeah, very strong team, I think. I'm the weak link, to be fair. I'm just a fat old man. So I just hang on their coat towels and see much like I do when I come to America. Well, you're the muscle of the job. It's like this is here, right?

Okay, yeah. It's nice. I haven't really had to organize anything other than, you know, we obviously be chatting through what we want to see and ways to see that. But in terms of doing the research for the site-specific stuff, no, I was, I didn't have to do any of that. It was lovely.

What do you think you're at best, or how does Georgia the state fit on your places you're interested in? I know, I know I've slagged it off a little bit, but I'm really, really interested in Herping, Georgia. Yeah. In the US, cane breaks I really really want to see

it'd be nice to see I kept two of the three species of pygmy rattlesnake so I really like to say because I used to keep it's streckeri they get there isn't it a streckery in Georgia I think

I think in a portion of it right? Yeah which are the lovely red ones so so I've kept Miliaris Barbarai and Miliara Miliara Strecari at home. In fact, it was the strecheri that bit me. So I'd love to see those in the wild, but salamander wise, just incredible.

So it looks like Strecari is up to Tennessee, but is mostly to the west. Let's see if... Oh, is it Miliaris, Miliaris? I'm wondering, yeah, if... though. So certainly it's Barbara Rye, but I wonder if there's a peak of Miliaris.

But that would be kind of your target would be the rattlesnakes, yeah. Well, target would be cane break, and then apart from that would be salamanders. Yeah, it's Miliaris, Miliaris and Barbaran.

Oh, right, okay. Yeah, I still need a Eastern Diamond back and the pygmies, yeah, and the game break. So I guess all the rattlesnakes of Jordan. I really, really, all joking apart, want to see a cane break so that I can decide whether I genuinely think it's different or if it's just a folklore thing. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think inarguably, right, they certainly have a different look to them. I wonder, the question that's sort of. sort of, you know, in the same vein that you're talking, is whether they have a different form in addition to their coloration, right? Yeah. Coloration. There's plasticity to it. Even in Tennessee,

if you're looking at those mountainous snakes, those have similarity to what we saw in Pennsylvania. But, yeah, if you're just talking about if there's structural change with that as well. Yeah, absolutely. It would be super interesting to see.

And I'm sure, going forward, that I will do a trip to Georgia. Absolutely. Maybe now all the more in the offing. Yeah, 100%. I love to make it work. Yeah. What have you got left now? Rob, you can't have many left?

Yeah. So, I mean, certainly the three of note are the northern Pacific. It's kind of easy, medium, almost impossible. Okay. Pacific should be pretty straightforward headed out this coming week to try and do that Okay, what sort of area is that?

Up in Northern California Northern California, okay Yeah, so and there are a couple other goodies in the mix there as well So if you can't do some cool stuff there And then Kane breaks with young Mr. Burke

Yes in a few months time. Actually, the episode we just did with Zachary Gray, so it should probably coming out three or three episodes after this. Well, this will be the next one, so I guess within that chronology, but we're free ahead or something like that. I didn't know where you're calling him, young Mr. Burke. It's contractual. You have to call him young Mr. Burke.

He demands it. Yeah. And maybe some others. You know, certainly you both were invited, but have better things to do. Yeah, yeah, we'll see what else can come into the mix there. You know, we talked to Zachary about the time of year and things and whatever. He seemed a little sanguine on a couple other targets. It sounds like maybe now this time of year is better for those items of interest. So maybe that's, just opens, you know, closes the door and opens a window for the two of you to be part of that, but I think we probably will still check out some of those areas. And then the trip you're coming on with obscurus is... Amazing.

In the fall. So theoretically, trips in the offing to complete the U.S. crotilus forms list this year. And we'll see about mixing in what we can do on Echistradon and Cisteros and things. things, you know, have a handful of those left to go. And really still have to figure out the Echistradon sort of what I make of those for forms and things. I haven't put a ton of effort into that, right? It was born of initially crotolus and sister, crotists and sisteris,

and then sort of incorporating those things. I would like to see last my careerist. That would be good. If we can make that work, those other sisters, there's a lot of overlap in those things. So, yeah, I don't know. Those are the thoughts and ideas. Man, we could have a rattlesnake king crown this year. That would be amazing.

A little group. Yeah, if we can do that, right? That'll be things will have gone well. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it'll be interesting because this is kind of a strange year for, you know, at least in the West, for water.

I don't know how things have been going down there, but we just have an absolutely mild winter. and very little. Yeah. So it's not the, well, it could be a decent recipe for some species as we found with con color. Sure. Well, and that turned out the, I think the, at least two of the folks who turned up one of the New Mexico snakes, it was actually an incredibly dry. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we'll cross our fingers, I suppose.

I have been re-examining and evaluated. I did not think, contrary to Nipper's assertion the last time it was on the show, I did not, I was not so sanguine. But I think lots of lessons learned, lots of ideas, just was looking at, re-looking at it, re-pulling the Topo Maps, and getting to work on that. So yeah, certainly the enthusiasm is as high as ever. And we'll have plenty of, we'll put you to plenty of work and hopefully maybe your magic. Honestly, I am stoked for it. I generally, again, it's probably because of my job. I generally love a small search area. Yeah, I mean, that's what this certainly conditionally, right, within, within those parameters and things. I mean,

Justin, how much of that time did we spend in it? And to be honest, right, even that was across three or four different, you know, small localities within a given space, right? But yeah, it's certainly not big relative to

almost anything. Right. And again, it's probably my autism or something like that. I can search the same area over and over and over again. And it doesn't probably. You'll definitely get that.

Especially, yeah, depending on how it's approached and things, whether we do, you know, sort of everyone's simultaneous. I think maybe we'll have a little bit more. I'll check out A, you check out B sort of thing going this time. Maybe that's the way to do it with now that we have insight as to the pros and plans of all the different places. And yeah, you can have that place and that can be your assignment. That sounds great. I can't wait. Exactly.

What are our prospects for getting a new Venom Exchange radio episode? Well, I don't want to blow the gas or whatever. We are possibly, probably, we are, coming under the umbrella of NPR. Oh, back home. Back home under the comfy little hair ruffles of the young Mr. Burke, as he's we have to call him now and we

shouldn't really blow the gaff but I was emailing one of my childhood heroes and it really was weird we're hoping to have our first MPR episode with Romulus Whitaker

if it all goes ahead. I mean logistic wise and various other things is very difficult but that is that is the hope that our first episode would be Romulus Whittaker all right yeah that last episode with the the Gila monster talk

that was fantastic yeah he's got such a collection that actually it's just unreal yeah I'd like the fact that people are line breeding healers as well which is very cool I'll have to be okay with just the 3D printed version since we're not allowed to be keeping in Utah.

My daughter's... Oh, really? Since it's been a state. Yeah, and I suppose this kind of hits into the, you know, the VER type topic is, and I, you know, they're not, you know, as ever, right, the language around such things. So Colorado's carve out was that venomous snakes were prohibited. and the new sort of interpretation certainly has been to clarify that I don't know if it's venomous reptiles or snakes and lizards or whatever and the organization is sort of presenting it like oh well these were always intended to be excluded it was just sort of a misstatement or that they actually were which is obviously false considering that several are the largest helip monster breeders historically have been in Colorado so that's that's crazy not true you know that's the It's one of those like, no, no. And almost certainly, this goes back to the guy a couple of years ago who became whatever,

the first known heila fatality in a century or whatever. And pretty clearly based on the description, my understanding of it from news reporting and things, I didn't know the person, you know, Newfield platform, but was coming to the party with health issues, kept a variety of other things. and based on the, at least, you know, the party line relative to what happened, almost certainly it was anaphylaxis, and that could happen from V-Stank. So, you know, I think the policy is a little bit questionable, but that being said, it's not a surprise, right? When this happened, I think I predicted this several years ago, saying like, okay, well, that car route is probably gone.

And, yeah, that's unfortunate. Justin, can you not keep healers because they're native? to Utah or because... Correct. Correct. They're... Well, both, actually, because yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because there are some... I mean, we do have a fairly reasonable permit system to collect, you know. Okay. Something. Yeah. Yeah. But can you keep venomous? No venomous. No venomous at all. Well, with the permit and they just don't give out permits very readily. Same day. Yeah. The thing that makes me laugh, in the UK, you need a license to keep a healer.

You don't need a license to keep a Barron's racer or something like that. Yeah, right. Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. I did see. Toxicodriyes and stuff like that. No, toxicodry. Well, again, depends on the species, but some of the toxicodrius, yeah, you can have some of you can't. There seems to be no sense to it, you know.

Yeah, I did talk to somebody in Utah that had a beaded lizard and I said, oh, you know, keep that. Keep that under wrap. Oh, no, it's legal now. And I'm like, it is? Whoa. So. That was going to be my next question. Right.

If it's predominantly because you can't keep healers because they're native. Yeah, that's the main thing, I think. I've kept beaded lizards. They're really good fun. But they do need an awful lot of schools. They're big. Yeah. Yeah.

Substantially larger, substantially. Yeah. More active. I would say minimum eight foot five for a pair of beaded. Mm-hmm. Absolute minimum. They are actively. healers, you know, I've been bred healers before,

they literally dig out of their burrow, sit under a lamp, go back in their burrow. Their total distance traveled in a day is probably less than four foot, whereas the beadeds were around everywhere, always walking around, always digging,

always investigating, always active. A fabulous species to keep. Right, yeah, that would be fun. But, yeah, I think I'd prefer a healer, just because they, you know, have that special spot in my heart. Yeah, I'll have to say it. Yeah, but be it's our cool.

Can you keep reaffing stuff then? That was illegal at some point, but that's changed as well because you can get some of the, Boyga. Yeah, Boyga. Okay. But, and I don't think they really, you know, pay attention much to maybe some of the racers,

you know, the Barron's racers or things like that. Yeah. Who is the Great Basin Serpater? Is that Joey? Joey Muggleston? Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting, actually.

I was looking, he had interesting boas. And so I was looking at the things he had available or whatever. And it was actually very interesting that he presumably, well, this fits exactly into this box. So he's produced false water cobras, Doc Loafman's favorite, hydrodonasties. and had them available for sale, but only to non-U Utah residents. Oh, really? So I wonder how that happened. Yeah, maybe they're on the list as well.

I didn't, you know, when you're not interested in keeping a certain species, you don't really pay attention to laws because they're not applicable, but yeah. So I'm not sure. It was very interesting. But I know he was one of the few that did, was able to get a venomous permit in Utah. Okay. But I think that mainly is relating to his desires to, you know, open up a, a public serpentarium type thing.

So, yeah, hopefully that's in the, in the card still. You know, that'd be, he's a, I really like Joe. He's a cool guy. So he does some good work and has some cool stuff. So it'd be neat to see a Utah serpentarium for sure. Sure. 100%. Yeah.

There you go. And this past weekend, wasn't it? There was a big reptile show down. I guess it was in Salt Lake, huh? Yeah. Yeah, they've got, I, I've kind of lost track. of the show circuit. I used to go with a buddy here locally and we'd share a table, but I just haven't been

in the position either I'm out herping or I don't have enough to sell. That's definitely the case right now. I don't have a ton of animals left to sell. So that's a good thing. But, you know, yeah, it is what it is. But yeah, I do enjoy going to shows just to see kind of the local, you know, herpsine and catch up with some some folks that that kind of thing and educate the public, of course, you know.

Yeah, I haven't done very many reptile shows lately. We're really suffering in the UK at the moment. We're becoming America in terms of how our hobby is now. Everybody's trying to read ball pythons and Christmas. It's suddenly become really difficult to get species. Whereas before, we could just import en masse from anywhere. You know, all the new non-European regulations have finally kicked in now. So they give you a dwell period when they're going to do it.

But now they've kicked in. So whereas before, I could drive to Europe, literally fill my Land Rover up with reptiles and drive back again. Now I can't. I can now only bring back five. Really? Five per person. So even if I fill the car up with people that have no interest in reptiles, I can only bring back 25 species unless I go down the importing route.

Right. And that makes me a commercial person. Right. And then it's at the cost, it's ridiculous. So it's really noticeable how suddenly the hobby's changed over here in terms of a lot of species you're just not seeing anymore. and the species that are here, the prices have doubled if not tripled. Yeah. Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.

Oh, what a mistake, yes. Why didn't they think of the reptile keepers? Exactly. Reptile keepers are the real victims in this story. But yeah, no, it's really weird. In some ways it's really good because less than known species that people have. have and now really sought after. Right.

Like annals, animal species here are so on trend. It's ridiculous. Yeah. You know, it's so many, you know, it's out of all proportion to what it used to be. Suddenly they are the must have, you know,

everyone's getting all the different species of annals. Right. But, yes, even the things super common, when we used to do big East African imports for, you know, things like the Aetherist, you know, Clericus, squabigera and all that.

Now, the prices have gone mad. They're just not doing the imports anymore. Madagascar, we used to get, I don't know, probably 10 Madagascar shipments a year coming into the UK. Yeah. We haven't had one this year so far. So all the prices of the Felsumas and the Europlatus are rocketing. An American company, I can't remember the name,

you'll probably remember him from YouTube. He does just micro gecko. Yeah. Armine with Herp Time. Herp Time, that's it. He linked up with a UK company, Vipyria, and imported a load of micro geckos. You know, the prices are insane. People are paying it. People are happy to pay. But I just think, you know, a few years ago, I'd have picked up the same species for a third of that.

It's difficult here. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. how those kind of things change. Yeah, the landscape has really, really changed. I mean, with venomous, it's not so bad because venomous keepers don't tend to buy a lot of stuff, if that makes sense. So for them to go, and venomous stuff is quite expensive.

So for them to go over to Ham or Houton, they're probably only going to bring five snakes back anyway. But, you know, for someone like myself that might go to Hale or Houton, if I'm not buying venomous, but buy. 10, 20 phil sumas or something. I can't do that anymore. Right. That's really strange.

That's too bad. Oh, you can do it. You just can't get caught, right? Yeah, well, yeah. There is that. It's a job opportunity for when I retire, possibly. I always knew you wanted to open a smuggling ring, right? Oh, my, I think I'll be quite good at it.

Yeah. It's my dream to get in Bricarta to the States. Just to make young, what was it, young boy Eric happy? Young Mr. Burke happy. Yeah, young Mr. Burke. Yeah, I will get him some of Bracotta if it kills me. Yeah. Well, we're so interested in upholding, you know, Australian law.

Even if they're captive bred five generations, we're going to make a fuss about that, I'm sure. Yeah. Good times, good times. Well, I think that was a fun discussion. It's really interesting to think about new areas and cool places to go herp. I honestly wouldn't have considered Georgia, you know, herping destination at the country. But seeing all the cool species there and hearing about, you know, that sounds really like a great place to go. I think if you're into venomous, I think it is a really cool place to go.

Yeah, for definite. Yeah, some nice variability or a lot of different species of Viper there. That's cool. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's spot. Well, we definitely appreciate you coming on. Oh, I appreciate you getting up early. Yeah, apologize for the low energy of the early morning.

Yeah. But, you know, yeah, it's great to see you, great to have you on and catch up a bit. Lovely to talk to you again. Yeah. Yeah. Any really cool things that have. stuck out in regards to herpetology herptoculture um let me think only as i say the splitting of the uh the new is is the big thing right that's come out i'm yeah i'm following a lot of people on there's some

really good um ticot people that are doing amazing um dark frog stuff at the minute which i'm really into some of this and it seems to have which is nice it seems to have gone over to the states from Europe. So where it's before the really intricate, naturalistic stuff all used to be sort of Dutch and German keepers. I've seen a load of American keepers

really doing some great stuff at the minute, so I've enjoyed that. Yeah, especially with dart frogs. That's where you can definitely find naturalistic by various of dart frogs. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool stuff. Yeah, I recently got a pair of

Stokesye. the spiny-tailed skein, the Gidgeys. Gidges, yeah. Yeah, so I've been going down the rabbit hole looking into those. Okay. It was kind of interesting because they had Gigi's, and then they had Zalini, the subspecies for sale. And I was looking into it.

I'm like, all the Gigis we have in the U.S. are Zillengi. Like, I don't know why I'm making a distinction between. Somebody probably thought they could get some extra dollars to try. And maybe they have locality or something. I don't know. But, you know, that's kind of. Yeah. You've probably done all the same, but with the temperatures raising here, I've paired so much stuff. I'm starting to see a ton of felsuba babies, which is lovely. I've got lots of felsumer eggs in the incubator. I've paired my Florida pines, which are absolute beasts of snakes.

Yeah. I reckon they're getting on for six and a half, seven foot. They are my biggest pitchiofus. I've paired two localities of northern pines. We'll see what we get from those. And what else have I paired? San Zinia. I've paired Apodora again. They've locked loads of times. Probably nothing will happen again.

Yeah. Hopefully this year's different. I don't know what else to do. I've spoken to a lot of people, including people that have bred them before. And I'm doing exactly what I'm told. But we'll see. What else have I paired? Pyros?

two different no block eyes, Mexican black king snakes. So see what happens. Right. That sounds like a lot of good projects there. Yeah, I'm looking forward to. Oh, Timon as well. That would be nice to get some little Timon running around.

That would be cool. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, again, thanks for coming on. I guess people can find you. give your Instagram If anyone wants to chat, I do feel bad

because every so often I see a little note comes up and says you've been friend requested on Facebook. I don't use Facebook people. So if you want to chat, and I'm always happy to chat, yeah, just messes me on Instagram. I changed my Instagram for various reasons.

So it's no longer nipper reader Instagram, it's now the HIPP Twitter. It's the same account. It's just a different name. Okay. The HIRB Twitter. which we saw when I went to tag you photos and I said, what the heck is this man?

Who is this person? Yeah, but if anyone wants to chat, please get in touch of me on there. If anyone's going herping where I've herped and they want some advice or anything. I'm always happy to have a chat. It's cool. And check out Venom Exchange Radio as well. When we make the smooth transition to NPR, that would be lovely. And buy our book.

it comes out. Hopefully it's sooner than later. If it ever comes out. Yeah, I'm really excited to see that in print. Yeah. I think we're down to the last round. So, yeah, I just need to see the last little blue line and we'll get it out. That'll be good.

That'll be good. Can't wait. Yeah. Buy our book. I like that. Book. There's nothing else in your life. Buy our book.

All righty, sir. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Pleasure. I'll see you soon. Yeah. Well, We'll thank young man, Eric, for his umbrella of podcasting and excited to have Nipper and Phil under the umbrella as well.

And we'll catch you next time for Reptile Fight Club.