Reptile Fight Club - Billy Sveen on Monsters of God and more

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob discuss Monsters of God and more w/Billy Sveen.Who 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/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQWebsite: https://mprnetwork.transistor.fm/

Welcome to Rept Off Fight Club. I am your host and I am very, very tired. With me tonight, of course, is Rob Stone. How are you doing, Rob? Doing great. Excited for them. Yeah, yeah. We've got Billy Sveen back. Welcome back. Glad to have you. Happy to be here. Yeah. Always good to have Billy on. He's a wealth of knowledge and some really insightful commentary. So good to have him to chat about this stuff. I am a little drained from I did a rocket run down to the subway in Zion, which is a nine and a half mile trail. And we started out early in the morning. It was my 77 year old father's last hurrah at the subway.

So his last time, he's done it a number of times. But this was his last time going down the subway and made it out just fine. And that was really a good thing. a lot of fun and I took a couple of my daughters and one of my daughter's boyfriend. So that was a lot of fun. We had a really nice trip, but we had to get back for school and work. And so we exited the canyon around 8 p.m. and got home around 3 in the morning. So I'm a little worn out. And then I made the choice to go practice some water polo this afternoon. So add insult to injury, I guess. But yeah, so we should have a nice chat tonight. But if I, if you hear snoring,

please ignore it because maybe Eric can edit it out. All right. Well, what's new with you guys? Anything exciting going on? Well, the thing that I've seen a lot of from New York Times and then on Instagram with the park itself and all that is kind of the wild situation around the North Kaibab Trail. in Grand Canyon, you know, off the fire last year and then having flash flooding. It seems like mostly lower than where we were at last year, you know. No, there were some places we stood that were completely decimated by that flood and bridges we crossed. Met that water.

Yeah. Yeah. I saw that bridge that was just, yeah, totally dismoored and whatever. Right. Yeah, it's kind of wild. Well, and that was one of the things, like we were, you know, we were going down on Wednesday. That was when we were doing the hike.

And the park was closed on Tuesday. So it was one of those like, are they going to open it? Are we going to drive down there and find out they've, you know, kept a closed or whatever? Yeah, we had a permit. Yeah. And so it, yeah, it's a permit of Kenya. Apparently, if you get caught without a permit down there, you get a $5,000 fine per person that they

catch without a permit. So I did not want to pay, you know, 20 grand for me and my three family members. members. So yeah, that would have been a little way off. No, want to, couldn't, whatever. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you don't want to do that without a permit. When I was in high school, we went down with a group of friends and we went down from the bottom to just see the subway. You can, you still have to have a permit these days, but back then you did not. At least I didn't think we did. We didn't really check about those kind of things in high school. But we were, we got to the subway right as somebody was coming down a rope from from above, you know, because you do need to

repel about 20, 25 feet the last drop before the subway. And so we said, hey, can we go up your rope? And they said, sure, why not? And so we went up the canyon instead of down it, which was, I look at it now. I'm like, it must have changed a lot because I don't think there's any way to do that these days. You know, that's kind of a challenge. But I guess I was younger and more fit back then.

So, but yeah, it was, so this was my fifth time doing the hike. and you just forget, like, it's a slog the way out. Once the fun canyering is done, like, you're hiking through a streambed for four miles, and then you have about a almost a mile basically straight up. Like, you climb up to the rim of the canyon, you know, from the riverbeds. And then do you look back to where you started, but above the rim or one? You need a shuttle car. So, yeah, we took two cars to the top.

And then we left one down at the exit and then drove, you know, the one car, three of us went up and got the other cars. So, yeah, it was a, it's a beautiful hike. I mean, it's got some just fantastic scenery. My brother carried his Nikon, or no, Canon, what's the six Mark two or whatever? You know, he's really nice camera. Yeah. Really, so I'm excited to see his pictures. And I just had my iPhone.

and it died a couple times. So one of the folks in our group had a charger. She let me borrow. But really fun. There's this one spot where you enter a pool and there's a little archway under the water. And you can like dive down and swim through the arch and come out in this other pool. It's kind of a fun little thing. And I talked all the kids into doing it.

So my Gavin, my daughter's boyfriend, was a lot of. little hesitant at first. He wasn't sure. And then Grace, my second youngest girl, she, she was worried about the bugs that were, you know, on the rock face that she had to go under. She's like, are they going to jump on you? No, they're not going to jump on you. Just do it. But yeah, we had a lot of fun. And I got to be the rigor. I got to rig everybody up for the repels and stuff. So I'm, you know, hooking everybody up to the rope and making sure I do it right. Without incident. Yeah, no incident. So that's, yeah, that's the important. part is we everybody did really well on their rappels so that was cool and we had a few that were

pretty inexperienced um my daughter grace is pretty good we've done a few canyneering trips but the rest of my kids have only repelled incidentally when i'd set it up in the canyon or something so this was you know you get a little nervous that they're they're gonna be okay but yeah everybody great so fun stuff but yeah yeah my cousin's son was there and he he he knows you know he was the one that brought the rope and knows how to repel and everything. So we had two of us kind of checking it and making sure everything was good. Fun time. Yeah.

A few herbs. There were some morphing canyon tree frog, you know, metamorphs that were out there that had, you know, tail and back and front legs or just back legs and long tail, short tail. It was really fun. And a couple red spotted toads that had just recently morphed out and were hopping around in the desert. It's always fun. and then some nice tristicus, the scloporos tristicus, the plateau fence lizard or whatever. And I think a couple western fence lizards as well.

But yeah, hoping to see a, yeah, you're always hoping to see a Mountain King or something down there. They occur in those canyons. But, yeah, we didn't get lucky this time. Lots of wildflowers, though. All the rain had brought out the wildflowers. But, yeah, the rain from the day, two days prior to our, Our hike were the whole place was flooded. Some of the roads got flooded out.

They had to close down some of the roads that went through the Zion National Park. And so kind of crazy. Right. And same systems that were impacting Grand Canyon on the north side and whatever. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I just took it as a lesson to do the things and have the adventures,

much in the way that you guys were on a random Wednesday, where you just say like, you know, two, what, it was two years. ago that we did that, you know, our grand adventure, our croat trip, you know, throat grand slam or five, you know, whatever it was. Yeah. But then the next year, the whole North Rim catches on fire and burns down. Again, it's a fire, you know, moderated ecosystem that's normal, but, you know, it had been mitigated to the point where then it went up too hard and too fast. And then the next year, just, just wild stuff. So. Yeah. And it's amazing what the trees do. to prevent, you know, those flash flooding events, I think that probably exacerbated, you know, how bad the damage was, was that fire.

Overdone. Right. Yep. Yeah. So, and there was some pools in the canyon that had debris. We had to swim through, you know, a bunch of sticks and, you know, logs and stuff like that. So, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but all the pools were pretty, pretty murky, except for the ones where the springs were coming in the canyon, you know, that those were nice and clear. But, yeah. Yeah, as we talked about a lot of, week, right? That was the issue around when we were down at Flag that, you know, Oak Creek and all that, that it was closed. And again, the 5,000 seems like, you know, even number that the federal government likes. Right. They do. Yeah. Pick up a price high, get $5,000 fine. Get within 100 feet Oak Creek, you know, between this July and the end of September. Get five, you know, that's $5,000. You know, that's $5,000. No permit here. That's $5,000. Yeah. Just make sure you're carrying $5,000 if you're doing illegal stuff. in the park systems. Oh, my goodness. George Costanza with the wallet. But anyway, yeah, just take the opportunities, enjoy the stuff while you can because

there really are no promises either for any of us or any of this stuff, I guess, is the good and bad message. Right. Yeah. And I, you know, I guess I've over, or done more than my fair share going down the canyon five times or down the canyon four times and up the canyon once. but yeah it's uh it is good to get out there and just i mean touch rock and get get restored i just love it i mean it's so beautiful and slick rock is my second home i just love that sandstone

it's good stuff yeah what's do with you bill i have been working on this like bigger enclosure behind me for way too long, almost a year now. So that's like the biggest thing I've been working on. It's six feet by two feet by three feet. And right now is probably one of the biggest enclosures for microbeckos known to people. It currently has about 30 Lagodaclis, Kenrawi, a colony of them, just hopping around. there. They've been there for like two months and I think I have like 20 more eggs in the little

egg tube. They're just so prolific. Yeah. Right. So I have it so I can just grab the egg tubes out and freeze the eggs because I don't need to have more. But do you see a difference with the, you know, being such a micro gecko being a small animal, right? A lot of the context goes around are we, it seems like within herpet culture a lot of times that means shifting them into a real small space it's oh because they're small you can keep them in this small space here you're talking about planning out and doing this large enclosure with a volume of small animals have you noticed an impact on their precondency how they seem to be doing different yeah behaviors certainly their activity is significantly different um so i had them in a series of small enclosures ranging from like, you know, babies in like one gallon food containers up to like a five gallon but shape, but they're like custom ones that I've built. They're tall five gallons. And so I didn't really know how many I had in there because they keep breeding and it's

hard to know exactly. And so I don't know how I definitely reached a population capacity in the, like, one of the five-gallon tanks. And when I emptied, there was like 15 geckos in there. And they were all big. So the babies weren't surviving. And they don't get eaten. They don't really cannibalize them.

I think they just out-compete them. And I didn't... It was so overplanted and so full of geckos that I just didn't know how many were in there. Right. And I couldn't monitor the eggs very well anymore either. Because I had kind of thought I would be moving them over. a few months earlier and just didn't happen. But...

Defining the carrying capacity of your little homemade I know, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So in this big enclosure, they, I mean, they're not communal in the sense that they don't like love to be together.

They don't like hide together. They very much have their own little spaces and they ignore less space out from each other. It's sometimes being very close to each other for a little bit of time. But the feet, males have like pecking order and the males have a definite pecking order too but and every once in honestly one go after one and like nip one but um you know in this entire process i've seen one lose a tail uh and that was when i had them in like small enclosures um and so sometimes they chase each

other around but then they like establish a hierarchy and they uh the males are brighter colors than i've ever seen them. They also have stronger UVB because I went from having the lowest UVB across all the enclosures to now having, oh, I forget, you know, one step higher, like a 12%, I think. And just because of the sheer, you know, three feet of space and all the branches, they can get a lot higher UVB if they get really close to it now. And they do it. But they do it for me. But they do it for very brief periods of time. I've never seen one just like continuously zip across all six feet of like an enclosure, but I've definitely seen them move for like three or four feet really fast,

like branch, branch, branch, branch, like hopping. And so that's an activity you would never get to see them do. I see them hunting a lot more and I see them eating a lot more. And so, but some of that I think is just like the, ease of access to it because I open it up and as long as I make sure like there's nothing no gap is about to escape right there I can keep it open and I can like stick my hand in there and move things around and water I'm watering the plants and doing stuff versus the little enclosures it's like you have like a porthole or like a tiny little door you slide open tossed

it and close it because they're just like all right there it'd be one thing if you had like one or two but if you're having a group of them in there especially when they have the babies are you know tiny like fit on like the the pencil eraser you know and so that was the biggest thing is trying to figure out how to make this escape proof for the babies and I think I've done it I don't think any have gotten out that's cool and so that that was why I wanted to custom build all of the little ones because I wanted to make sure I had the right the ability to these are the materials that nothing escapes. I've had some escape from those until I got it down.

So I'm glad I did that experiment first. Yeah, those small geckos are hard to wrangle too, like, without, you know, hurting them, you know, just because they're so small. Yeah, I don't do that. Change them into something or yeah. Yeah, yeah. Paint brushes and deli cups or like a paint. brush into like a one of those like tiny little fish nets.

Yeah, very much like the things that tarantula keepers do. Okay. Like try not to touch the gecko, just get them to like move around. Right. I always wondered like, you know, have you come across any studies or anything about like population densities or like. Like a necklace? Uh-huh. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not sure. I know Lagadaklis, Kunrawai, are potentially different. Like, is Kadrawai and Williams Eye, the electric blue, are what are the most popular in captivity. And the electric blue are, you know, much more popular than Kamauai because they're, they're significantly bigger and they're. Okay. Prettier, you know, like the blue on those males can't. Nothing competes with those. Yeah.

But those, some people have had success keeping them. bigger environments, but they'll predate under babies, is what I've heard. But, yeah, these Kenrawe are really tolerant of each other in bigger groups.

And I've read stories about how bold and cosmopolitan they are. And so in Western Africa, they're on homes quite a bit. And people I forget exactly where I read this,

but there's two anecdotes in this scholarly paper, but it was it was like a different observational based paper where the two things that they said that really stuck with me are that they're in this

dwelling, in this home, in the same area as like a hemidact list, I think, like a house gecko type thing, that's significant. significantly bigger than them and not journal and will eat them. But the ligadactylists are like twice as fast. And so the ligadactylists will get really close to them and not care.

They're bold enough that they'll like, you know, they know if they stay like 18 inches away, they'll be able to outrun them and like dash away. And so they'll go and like grab bugs from a light where the hemidactylous is like sitting right there and they'll know how far to stay away and not get caught and every once in a while like one those house geckos will make a move for it and they just bolt and then they come right back and that's exactly what i see them do they're always just like testing boundaries in there and then the other story was um some that that the researcher had gotten in their car and started driving and gotten quickly onto like a freeway or some type of a busier road in Cameroon I think is where they were

where it wasn't safe to stop but he had noticed that there was a lagadak was on his windshield or on like the hood of the car yeah and the gecko stayed in there the whole way and then when they got to their destination just like hopped off hopped on a tree and like started running around and they were just like really bold little characters um I mean, they'll certainly hide from you. Like when I open the door, they all are on the back of a branch. They just teleport, like, shift their body really fast. But if you just sit there for a little while, they come out.

And, yeah, they're pretty usually. Another thing is that they're high up, right? They can get above me now that they're in this enclosure. And I think that makes a big difference too. They like to be, like they like to stay above me. and some of them will just sit there and watch me. That's cool. Yeah, it's fun.

I just love that kind of, you know, area where you can just sit and watch and it's a huge area. They have different behaviors than they would in a smaller enclosure. That's really great. Yeah, they certainly have different behaviors. And I can keep them, I can have hotter hotspots. I can have brighter UV exposure, not to mention all the space that they can. jump around in. Yeah. Well, that, I guess, you know, every time I think about, well, I just saw a really cool post today. It was Matt Deaching. He had, uh, or was it, is that his last name? Gosh. Yeah. And,

and, and he had the cohab, uh, Tristus monitors with, uh, the Henry Loss and I, the, uh, dwarf bearded dragons and, and he threw, you know, a bunch of insects in there and they all just come out and they're all feeding and, you know, that thing. And he's like, you know, I wouldn't trust an adult, Tristus, with these spirit dragons. But, you know, when they're younger, they do fine together and stuff. But he said he's planning on switching him out for Gil and I. Interesting. That's cool.

Really cool. That multi-species enclosure. So I guess that, you know, I've always thought about that. Like, I wanted to do one with maybe banded geckos and then something like a leaf-nose snake or something that, eats that specialize on banded gecko eggs you know and just like have have kind of a similar ecosystem going on where you just have one snake or maybe a pair of snakes and then yeah you have a bunch of banded gecko you know but you could do like banded geckos and sclooperus and one of those snakes right you know that could be cool maybe yeah my plan is to put the ball python in there okay

yeah yeah i was going to ask you there was any other species you might introduce yeah I mean, the listeners won't be able to see it, but it's full of shelves across the whole thing. And so I need to add more dirt to it. And I'm going to add a whole layer of like, they'll essentially become subterranean pides with slate or the top of it. That the snake can go between without coming out. And the snake won't care at all about these geckos. I'm like 98% confident that will be completely fine. And then I have two species.

I'll play it's indeed a mouse, let alone a micro radio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I have two species of millipedes that are native to the area. One that's like a not quite like a giant African milapede, but like eight inches. And they're like semi arboreal will climb around during the day. And then another one that's like much smaller and like very posthorial. That's awesome. It should be fun.

Yeah. Very cool. That'll be a while because I want them to. breed because they're not super i mean they're not expensive individually but to get a number of them is expensive so i want them to reproduce in the little culture before i move in it so that'll probably be a couple years right uh that's cool yeah on stuff yeah i don't know that stuff is is really enjoyable you know the multi species it is it is and vivaria and things like that it takes time though it takes a lot of effort i mean i've like shut down all breeding of everything else to focus

on that and it's taken the better part of six months I mean it's almost a year but like six months of actively working on it and so it's taken all my hobby time we're that's cool yeah how about um you know do you ever move any out to other you know people who are interested in keeping them i should i mean like when i had those grow out enclosures i was thinking that that was you know essentially going to like be a population that would headstart this group and then be able to expand in there. And then after seeing how many I had, I was like, this is like enough for right now. So I have a local specialty shop that I wholesale my poison frogs too when I breed them. And he's interested in taking the day geckos also.

So my plan is to see if I can fish out five and get you. get them to him and see what that process is like and how they sell and all that stuff. Then I can incubate so, or I don't incubate them, just not pull those eggs and let them hatch and replenish. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, yeah, I hope you have continued success with that. Yeah, they're fun.

That's great. Very cool. Awesome. Well, we'll hop in to at least, or give at least the context, context can see. for the show was six weeks ago on the front end of the Monsters of God release. He had reached out and said there was a lot of

hobby chatter, including Ron's infamous and Justin and I can speak to it. I know we heard him talking to Dave Levinson about it. Half in just post about the dinosaurs looking up at the asteroid as we as a hobby anticipated the decline of

keeping reptiles in captivity based on the release of this documentary. That being said, in the interim. We were waiting until sort of the show was coming to its conclusion. All the episodes had been released, but we had seen the

sort of episode summaries associated with each and said, okay, we'll wait till the end, and then maybe we'll have some comment. We gave a brief comment, I don't know, a month, six weeks ago, something like that. But I know both Billy, you and I were aligned that

people already know that people keep reptiles as pets and have feelings about it. And I think all three of us reside in states where it's already illegal to keep venomous reptiles as pets. So it's not quite a Tiger King situation beyond the whole sort of COVID singularity. And then the idea that, wow, people are keeping chimps in their houses.

And I think that is a lot more unfamiliar to people than the fact that people might have snakes. That being said, there's been a lot of content out there. instead of having the argument about will this matter or will it not let's kind of focus on now we've had five weeks of seeing what it seems to be doing the impact the different maybe thoughts from both it and the associated media that have come out those sorts of things so just wanted to lay the table a little bit we were going to have a fight but it doesn't seem germane at this Yeah. I did type up how what would happen if I got the coin flip and what had to argue that this is going to be devastating for us. And I essentially just made it points opposite to my other points that would be hard to argue. So I agree. Like it would be better just to just to talk it through, I think. Yeah. But I find that, you know, kind of it's it's playing a little bit on sensationalism.

like any reptile show these days. You know, you got to. And like all of Eric Goods work. Right. Right. Yeah. And I guess that's how. I'm not saying that like in a judgmental way.

I'm just saying his stuff is sensational. He's right. Right. He's making it's entertainment. It's not just information. And not to say that a lot of the stuff in there isn't sensational. Like, you know, it's crazy. Some of the things that have happened.

And I mean, it is good to know the history. I guess my kind of. overall takeaway watching these was like yeah I saw that in the two books that have been around for 15 20 years or whatever so I already knew all these stories from those books and maybe that's where the controversy lies in in part yeah about that a bit yeah I mean that was my post of like you know we should be uh we should know where we come from we should know the history and of this stuff. We shouldn't be afraid of it.

We should, like, yeah, yeah, could shed a bad light on the past, and it could shut a bad light on people that maybe aren't having high welfare standards for their animals currently. And potentially the whole importing animals for pets versus importing animals for breeding projects to make more pets, you know, by breeding. and most pets being captive bread. But those are things I largely agree with.

And so, you know, I don't want to legislate things to oblivion. But I just also don't think that's likely to happen in this situation. Right. And, you know, I think there's also some current cases out there. We might mention Steve Sykes and the issues that are surrounding his business right now. And I thought that was kind of germane. Yeah. To bring up in some ways, you know, and this is maybe jumping ahead in the conversation,

but is for all the concern that there was around Monsters of God as a show and what the impact of that would be, I think the geckos, et cetera, situation is probably more dangerous to us as reptile hobbyists than the show. It's speaking to a different audience. It's doing a different thing. those things that potentially again we can my intent was to come to that at the end rather than on the front end but yeah yeah i think um come back to that in some ways that's more dangerous in two different ways and maybe my perspective will be a little bit different justin you already have insight into it a little bit from my messages and things on this topic but uh yeah it's

certainly there's something to say about that right So, yeah, where do you want to start, Billy? Where do you think is a good place or what points do you want to kind of highlight? Yeah, I think there's so many differences between this docket series and his previous two. Right. The biggest one, I think, is important to understand Eric Good's personal history, which she brings into this a little bit, but it's not super, apparent that he's also a huge reptile nerd and fan and he um you know when he got wealthy in the

new york nightlife scene he used his money to buy tortoises and uh then eventually established this um the turtle conservancy which i know ruffles some people the wrong way like there's disagreements in the turtle, you know, world, whether you're TSA or TTPG or whether you like the Turtle Conservancy and like, and I'm not really in the Turtle world, so I don't claim to have strong opinions in one way or the other, but it's pretty clear to me that he truly likes reptiles, that he likes keeping reptiles, and he also thinks that there's a value in private ownership of reptiles when it's done responsibly. Right. And I mean, he has put his mouth or his money where his mouth is in regards to conservation and trying to preserve turtles, you know, that sort of

idea. So, yeah, whether you like his organization or not, you get it in that he's trying to do something good for reptiles. I mean, the conspiratorial spin, and I've had people really say this quite strongly to me, is that, you know, he's this quite wealthy person that's built up a whole structure of conservation around him so he has access to all the turtles and tortoises that he wants. So he doesn't care what legislation happens because he has this facility that he can do whatever he wants with. And he actually might want us to lose access privately to animals and to be in institutions. I just don't think that's true. The veneer of permitting, right? Yeah, and I agree. I don't think it's true. I mean, and there's, he's been on a few podcasts and I, at some point, we'll clip the

parts out and post them, where he explicitly talks about, you know, keeping a bearded dragon is not like keeping a tiger. And keeping a ball python is not like keeping a chimpanzee. And this is how you ignite a passion for the natural world. And you can keep these animals well. And he's not against keeping. Like he said it multiple times. It would be such an intense and deep lie for him to be actually trying to motivate legislation to radically reshape a reptile private ownership in the United States. I think we've discussed this topic before, but, you know, I do think there are some, you know, some species of reptiles that would be somewhat equivalent to owning a chimp or a, or a tiger. you know, where just an average person is likely not well suited to keep, say, Moto Dragon or a, that might be a bad example, but like a king cobra.

The king cobra. Failing to keep them well enough to have them exercise their natural capacities is often the mitigating factor that keeps them from being that risk. Right. Right. So, like, failing to keep them sufficiently well that they actually present the threat that they could. if they were in their wild state.

Yeah, keeping a king cobra at 80 degrees ambient and a six-foot enclosure. Or, yeah, the opposite of that as well, like keeping them poorly so they do pose more of a risk. And is that what you're... No, I was saying more in the context of saying that they aren't the risk that they could be because their needs are not being met, right? So most re-tics are not getting to their maximum. adult size in captivity. Most of them are not surviving to that point based on neglect or being inappropriate,

generally pets, right? Or they can only strike a few feet because they can only lift their front half off the ground. Right. Right. Based on their system, you know, the constraints of the system and those sorts of things, that they're not the threat that they could be in Sulawesi, where they genuinely kill people. You know, it's difficult for them to swallow a person, but they do actually kill people. It does happen.

And kill kids. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a possibility. Yeah, you're right. And I guess, you know, if you're keeping something inappropriately by the same token, that could mean you have a greater risk to the keeper. Sure. You know, you're in a fixed-inclosure instead of a room-sized enclosure, you know,

where it doesn't feel thread and it can get away from you, that kind of thing where, you know. Sure. Unless it can, like, you can't find it. Right, right. you know sure yeah absolutely and we know that there have been big cat incidents related with that where it's like the surprise from a where yeah you didn't see them they weren't where they were supposed to be relative to the safety protocols all those things and those fatal incidents yeah the safety protocols failed and you know all of a sudden you have tigers in the yard with keepers and yeah

that's right yeah yeah yeah the last 20 times you entered the enclosure when you couldn't exactly see where the animal was it was in that cave in the back but now it's right beside the door in the bright spot. Right. And to assume, okay, it knows me, it loves me, it's not going to do anything, you know, that could be a deadly error. I mean, that's like what you hear about people, not that I'm not in this world either, but venomous keepers saying, like, I broke my protocol a few times by reaching in to move this, to change this water out with my hand. because it was faster and I knew the snake was way over there. Yeah.

And then the, yeah, that's more just silliness on the part of the keeper, right? That's lying yourself, if nothing else. I would say that maybe a difference between the tiger folk, you know, the big cat folks and the primate folks

and reptile folks, as most reptile folks, have enough sense to realize and not sort of anthropomorphize that it cares about you at all and has a connection to you. Yeah. Right, where, oh, you know,

the big cat, no, it loves me. Most well-balanced reptile-keepers, you know, even that have great relationships with their captive animals, don't think that it loves them. It's, okay, sure, I think we have a good understanding, you know. Yeah. You know, I'm the food monkey. Yeah, exactly right. But it doesn't love you.

Right. Right. Yeah. I think, yeah, there's such clear differences there. And this Eric Good, this is the documentary he was always. making. You know, some of this

footage is like 12, 15 years old because it predated Tiger King and then he got truly distracted by Tiger King because it was a story that he had to chase.

Yeah. And then Chip Crazy fell into his lap and he went with that. And all along, he's still filming stuff for Monsters of God. And then in the last

six years he really like focuses on it and gets it done. And so, it feels a lot different than the other ones. Like it's much more historical, much more retrospective, and feels more personal. And although it is still very sensational and I think a little bit more sensational than it needs to be

in some ways, it's not like... Well, I think so. Like Tiger King, I think not to say that this is the way all big cat people are, but really plays into this idea of this is ego driven and power driven, right? Like the men have a deficit in their ego and they fill it with a tiger. And the chimp crazy story was much more focused on these women that keep chimpanzees almost as a proxy for children and the attachment and

interpersonal loss and struggles that a lot of them were encountering. And so like another very different personal story. And I feel like the story with Monsters of God, the psychology, is much more of like this collecting mentality and,

and obsessive curiosity that I think Eric Good also has, just not to the extent of some of the people willing to, you know, so grossly and negligently break the rules and endanger other people. But like it's a thing, it's on the spectrum that we all have. Right. Well, that's what I was going to say. Even that expresses differently, right? Between. Yes.

When you're talking about someone, you know, who. is forcing an interaction with King Cobra for literally for the camera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. While he's telling him to put it back.

Right. Yeah. Exactly. While the person who's filming is saying, I think we've had enough. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Versus sort of, and we'll get into this maybe a little bit, the Van Nostrand approach,

which is really just, you know, making, particularly with Junior, right, is making an effective business versus. is the Hank Mole and to some extent Tom of I think Tom's maybe in the middle right between the Van Nostrand approach and Hank Moll Hank Moll. Hank Mold is more about curating yeah, curating the thing, the unknowable. Yeah. The unattainable.

Yeah. And, you know, the Van Nostrands is about the business, a moving, you know, moving product. Farming. And Tom's in the middle, right? Yeah. Yeah. I do think there's something. And again, it's how the community has looked upon these big characters and how it's gone on, right?

Because, like, strictly is still around. And Tom now keeps a lot of animals and is still a presence, too. Whereas, to my knowledge, Hank is not doing a lot of stuff. And, you know, so, like, it's hard for me to square. the way Hank seems to pretty quickly kill animals when it is to his benefit, which is, you know, part of the story a couple times for him. And even, like, there's a pretty clear contrast when at one point Tom gives animals that he's not willing to kill to Hank. and then Hank kills them to lord them over as evidence for against Tom. Yeah, I would say at best.

And so my exposure to this was principally from Stolen World, which will be a topic here. But I would say that, and I've met Hank, you know, going back to Daytona, three years in a row, having Heineken's at the bar in Daytona and all those things. And I would say that he certainly has good taste. And I think Jenny even does him well when she says in the book where, yeah, where she's talking about his, you know, his passion as coming out in this little illegal alligator snapper, right? That's, you know, two inches, two inches long and whatever. And it's like, but she's seeing him as a child sitting at the pool with this little turtle, right?

I think she actually does him a favor with that. Yeah. I think he has intrinsically pretty good taste. But, yeah, there's no doubting, no disputing. my perspective as someone who's read stolen world three or four times and as I say knows a lot of those characters that um I can see commonality there where I lose it is sort of the as someone who basically works with stuff that I have to give away now the commercial aspect that he was very willing to put on and embrace to fund fund the adventure is just something is a bridge I haven't crossed

yet. So maybe I just can't relate from that perspective. But the idea of, you know, oh, bear with me one second. This is a little bit of a diatribe, but it's pertinent, right? Is our pal, the mutton power lifting gloves, Nick Mutton for now going on 15, going on 20 years, has gone on podcast and said, oh, we don't have X because no one cared, right? No one cared enough so that we still have X. Well, here's the thing, right? And the value of a dollar has changed over the last 25 years, 30 years. When you look at priceless and say that, you know, ring pythons when they first came out, oh, those were $10,000. Well, you know, that was in $1985. Right now, that would be equivalent to $25,000. We were just saying that I would, you know, struggle, not be happy to pay a $5,000 fine, let alone pay $25,000 to work with a pair of snakes.

Right. And if you really want to be a project, you probably need 10. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. It's the Boland's pythons of now. So a lot of the things, not all, not all, certainly, but a lot of the things that fall into Nix, no one cared, actually fall into the box of, well, you would have needed Bolins Python money today to actually do that project right. And there was no one who had Bolins Python money today that was interested in doing those as a project. And that's what Nick really means when he says that.

And I think there's another aspect. This is getting even further away from the docket series. But there's another aspect of as a community, what's the carrying capacity for the number of species we can have? Like, we only have so much interest. And so if we're going to... And the peculiarity of those things, right? The more, why don't we have mudsnakes, right?

It's because, oh, we don't have amphibularity. fuma as feeders that you're going to be putting into those animals, right? We don't have the infrastructure to support them. I mean, there are dozens of Lygdactylus species. Right. And some of them are from places that are really hard to get to. And so, like, that's why we don't have them. But, like, even the ones that do come in, they're, you know, like, this one is, like,

medium pretty and quite group tolerant and the other popular one is by far the most pretty like that's why they win and they've and like i would say conrali is from the same area as ball pythons and uh savannah monitors and easy enough to fix into the infrastructure that exists yeah and emperor scorpions right um and so they're coming in they're still being imported And then electric blue geckos have a champion with Frank. And so. Frank Payne. Originally, Linda Switzer did a ton with that.

Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, that's what it takes. But like for people to, yeah, jump around. I just wonder, like, this isn't like, you know, there's a thing you hear with, like, breeders like that certain dog breeds there's not enough interest because you can't you can't keep on multiplying generationally and expect it to keep growing like you have to be able to figure out how you maintain a population that doesn't grow over you know 10 years it's the same as it was 10 years ago like the number that leave the population the same number that comes so it ebbs and flows but

it's essentially a stable population right so if we're having like the the reptile group, the community of us, is growing because people are getting interested in hopping in. And so the analogy doesn't quite work with the idea of like a stable ecology of animals. But like, can we sustain 100 species? Can you sustain 500? 2,000? You know, we can't, we can't do all of them. Right. Yeah. And we've talked about that a lot in the context of even where where there's sort of a mispersexual. associated with the commonality of reproduction of a given species,

glowered eye, going back to the late 90s through the mid-Ots, where it's like, oh, well, I see them at my local show. That must be there are lots of producers. But in reality, it was animals being resold from a handful of producers that had dialed them in and were doing well with them. And they were then being sold second and third hand and distributed. And then by the end of the aughts, it was those folks had gotten out. and there was that infrastructure that supported that didn't exist and now it was there was probably

fewer than 10 adult females in the country and now it's come back some in sports were allowed in additional folks have become interest and kind of become champions as you say billy but you know those things we see that and even i i've mentioned it a lot in the context of the merton's monitors right where there's a clear champ bronx zoo has produced them on and off for years but there's been a clear champion. And I've told them where I've said like, yeah, if Mike, if you don't, when you stop producing these, at some point, you're putting a, you're flipping the hour loss on that species not being available in captivity. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, barring, you know, something. That's the. Right. Right. Sure. But I mean, that's the case. As opposed to Hornstakes, those based on their ease of care, their ubiquity within the hobby, those will be around. The leopard gecko, which is an amalgamation of, you know, a dozen different species and subspecies.

The hobby leopard gecko, right, doesn't have a scientific name. You know, that, well, I suppose it's Eublaferrous domestica or domesticas, you know, that will be around because there are enough champions. Even Beard of Dragons, right, which we know there's Barbada in the mix. I don't know the extent to which Henry Lawson, the small rankins, those are in the mix, but yeah, the same idea, right? That'll be around. But no, Billy, it's a compelling point, right? Is there's a carrying capacity in terms of variety that we have?

Sure, color morphs within staff, that that's where the real variety can lie because it's fundamentally how many species are regularly consistently produced in the U.S., which is a big market. Australia is more limited. Europe, they're a little bit more niche, but how long does that last? Right. You know, where we see it's like, oh, you know, Rina, invariably in Europe, what does it mean if something comes from Europe? It's that it might have crypto and that it's cheaper than whatever we're producing. You know, and you can't really trust it.

Like, that's what it means. Right. To some extent. Yeah, there's exceptions, definitely, but yeah. I said what I said. Yeah. I wonder that same question. Like,

what is the carrying capacity for the, and I think too, we, you know, again, going back to the false bill of goods of like, if you, if you want to keep animals, you have to be a breeder, you have to keep, you know, things that will sell well and that will make you good money.

And, you know, and I mean, there definitely is an aspect of that. We need these people that may, like, echoes, et cetera, that produce a lot of animals. But they also have to be responsive to the market. Because if the market goes away and you're stuck with a lot of animals, then you have maybe some bad things that happen and, you know, some splaining to do.

But, you know, what, what is that level, you know, do we need these big breeders to supply pet chains and, or does that just cause more problems than it's worth? Yeah. You know, or do we need importers or is that just more problems than it's worth? And, you know, a lot of people kind of looked at things like imported animals that were brought in in the millions or the thousands at least. And, and they said, well, I can't compete with importer prices. So why would I waste my time, you know, breeding that animal or producing captive bred animals or figuring them out or whatever? And I think, you know, ball pythons are a great example of what happens when you do figure those animals. almost out or there are some aberrancies or weird things, then they can be very successful. And now it's the most popular pet on the planet. You'd almost reason. But, you know, that's a tricky thing to get people's mindsets from, oh, what do you, you know, I want a snake, I want a boa, or I want a ball python, or I want a corn snake.

They're not thinking, oh, I want a spotted python or a lot of times. I mean, some are. I agree. That's the trick, I guess, is to. That's why you published books that makes people want Spotify. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, but yeah, who buys the books? Or people do, they already are interested or, you know, that's kind of the hard thing is how do you get, how do you be a good champion?

I think, you know, like you said, Frank Payne's a great example of that. I think you're doing a great job with the Cameroon, you know, dwarf geckos. You know, like, I think that's the thing is people. need to see like, oh, there are more cool animals than just, you know, ball pythons and corn snakes. And, you know, there's a variety out there. We're early enough in herpeticulture, or at least in like a period of evolution within it, that you can still, the future is still so open. Right. As far as like what's going to be around 100 years from now.

I just feel like we shouldn't feel bad if the thing that we, you know, the thing that we, you know, either bread once or twice doesn't isn't here in 50 years or the thing that we passed up on because we made a thoughtful decision decided not to pursue something that that's not around in 50 years right that's okay you know we we I of all of the animals that I could legally and feasibly obtain I need to pick the smallest percentage of them. Right. Because I don't have space and time.

And so it's okay to have some limitations. Right. Yeah. And you need to know your limitations and know, so you don't run into issues about like. So you don't start buying tickets to Fiji and try to get those Fiji of Ghanas back in your suitcase. Well, I think maybe that's the thing. That's the fundamental distinction.

right, between what Hank's doing as documented and stolen world, and I guess in Monsters'I got as well, is that that's more about, it's not about him being the champion. It's about making that available for someone else to be the champion. At great expense, you know, funding the venture, funding the next venture, and I think maybe that's the... And assuming the risk, you know? Right. I don't know the extent to which that's a redeeming quality, but I would say, that, you know, with Hank, it always seemed, it's not even about the money for the sake of the money to go sit on a pile of money. It's about the ability to go do the next thing, whatever that was. Yeah, money is a means to do, to, to adventure. As opposed to the business, again, with the dichotomy of sort of lizard, you know, Lizard King is a business book. So in the world is a passion book and or is a book about passion, right? And I think, I think that's right.

And as much as I say, I draw a line between my own interest and passion and what Hank was doing there. I understand it. There are areas where we feel similar in that areas we feel very far apart. Right. It's a function of, okay, well, what are you doing? And then what are you doing it for? And I think there's also a difference between not to like put a line in the sand of like polier than that. or anything, but just like a difference is in the times and the context of, you know, these people growing up in a time where they're so unlikely to have big repercussions, at least when they started doing these things.

And they didn't have a lot of means of getting this stuff. Whereas now we have the internet. The three of us happen to all have professional degrees. And so, like, we're not trying to do this for a living. And, and, we are privileged in a way that this is at the most, like a small side hustle that helps sustain itself, you know, and perpetuate getting more stuff. But yeah. One thing I want to toss in there, just it fits beautifully into what you said. And it's one of the,

it's something sticks out to me from Jenny Aaron Smith's stolen world, right, is when she's describing Tom Crutchfield. And she said, what, he's a fourth or fifth generation, Thomas, you know, or whatever. But by fourth or fifth generation, Redneck Florida, on his birth certificate, it says Tommy. You know, and that was so beautiful. The way that she wrote, you know, is a humanizing characteristic of saying like, oh, you know, it's not Thomas Crutchfield descendant of, you know, some nobility from England or whatever, you know, his birth certificate says Tommy. Yeah. yeah I mean there's something to I think he was getting 50 cents a foot for cotton mouths I think is what he was catching when he was in high school and selling to like snake emporium and that's how he got like quote unquote like street rich in his you know high school years because he had access to money that none of the

other people in some like rural suburb in Florida. I'm not exactly sure. But like, yeah, it's just very different than speaking for myself, my childhood. Right. Right. Yeah, different lives. I think too, like, I mean, I remember when Stolen World came out and Crutchfield and his minions, whatever you want to call him, like they were going after Jeannie.

He was initially on board before he came out. Right. And there was a little bit of blowback. Right. The smallest amount possible. Yeah. And yeah, exactly what you're saying of like, interesting.

I don't. Yeah. I mean, I remember just my wife worked at a bookstore at the time. And I, they had the copies and I was like, you've got to get this to me, you know, as soon as you can or whatever. But she was like, no, no, no, it is released on Tuesday. You know, I'll get fired if I do, you know, whatever. So it was wild.

But yeah, I remember all of that. I remember reading it the first day. It was on sale, you know, as soon as it was on sale, I had it at my house and I was reading it. And then I remember all that backlash. And I was like, no, Tom's just pissed off that he doesn't. She paints him as a real person, not as a hero. Right. You know, he tried.

He sees himself as, yeah. Yeah. And I think we all kind of. Yeah. Yeah. We're all the heroes of our own story, at least hopefully. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was what she had failed to do was portray him as much as a hero as he is in his own mind. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And to personalize or humanize people is, you know, I think that's a really nice style of her writing. Yes. He really, you know, comes out in that book.

And it makes you, I mean, I know I know folks that have brought in things illegally, you know, back in the day. And I remember one story that always stuck with me was that, you know, somebody in, uh, was watching this guy in Australia, hack up a blackheaded python that was crawling through his yard, you know, and you're just like,

and in his conclusion was, well, they don't care about their reptiles, you know, they're dead on the road or hacked up in a yard or whatever. Like, what do they care if I take a few and send them back to people who are passionate about them,

who love them, who want to, you know, keep them and multiply them and make that opportunity for other people. And really, I mean, once that happens and once, those folks make that happen, then the need to remove them from the wild

disappears in a lot of cases. It's just always the price point where that gets a little bit messy. Right. You know, for me. For me, sure. Right. Which is why it's not something that I do.

I don't smuggle reptiles. Right. Right. But by the same token, like I'm very happy that it happened, you know, that I can keep a a black-headed python and, you know. Right. I relate to it a lot until it comes to the price point. I guess it's all I'm saying.

Like the vision, the feeling, all those things. I find that hugely relatable. Then coming back and saying, cool, now it's the modern price of parabolins-Pythens-Pythens. That's the part where then I look at it and say, like, for who and for what? Why? Right. And I understand, you know, to consume. And when it's that expensive, I do think it facilitates further smuggling.

It would be one thing if the animal was. Right. readily affordable like other similar animals you know in that you know like like other pythons but if it's going to be a $10,000 $20,000, $100,000 animal like Schingled back skinks. You know, right. Yeah. Like if a Schinglebank skink was the average price of a blue tongue skink, you know, then it wouldn't make me feel a certain way about people.

trying to get them really hard. But like the idea that there's a few people that do read them that have gotten them, I mean, maybe not like completely legally, but they're like the origin of them. But now they're multiple generations in. It's like so far removed from the original incident. But we know that people are still trying to smuggle shingle back sinks.

But it's because they're so expensive. Right. Right. Yeah, it kind of makes it worse. And I, And I love the idea that undercut the market. Yeah, about somebody who is describing a new species. They said, you know, the way to curtail this illegal activity would be to take a few.

And while you're studying them, we talked about this. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's a beautiful. I think you're talking about us. We talked about this on the show. My memory is wonderful.

But, you know, that idea. Oh, and, you know, responsible reptiles, responsible reptile keepers has said that, too. Yeah. Right. And then it goes, you know, those crazy price points or whatever goes to fund further research, you know, and description or preservation of other populations. And I think that's, that's a great thought.

But at the same, by the same token, these folks that are, you know, taking whatever risk to bring things in that are, you know, potentially like they could lose their whole collection over it, you know, or lose their whole livelihood or go to jail or all these things, you know, it's hard to say, well, you know, you should be asking less or it shouldn't be so expensive or, you know, that's, that's a tricky thing. Yeah, it's the legal aspect that really does make it different. Right, right. Yeah. And in some countries or people are more apt to take that risk,

you know, that's a risk I won't take. I'm waiting for the second or third generation. But that's not to say I didn't benefit from that. original risk and that original illegal activity to some extent. But come on. I mean, presuming that where they ultimately went to resulted in offspring that were produced. Right. Right.

Exactly. What I'm saying about the price point and then Billy, what you were saying about probably a little bit too willing to, you know, sort of dispatch things to save your own ass or to use it as, you know, leverage against someone else. You know, that's where we separate again, where we're saying, like, what, for who and for what? And you say, like, okay, if you're really interested, if the goal is saying that I don't like seeing black, you know, blackheads shouldn't be restricted to Australia where they're just killed in droves on the roads and killed by folks in their yard, then, again, this actually exists, right? We see it with, you know, ESA listed species all the time that, like, genuinely, I produce animals that I give,

way. I hate to, you know, pay for the, pay to feed them, pay to get them started, and then pay to send them to someone else. Or at best, they, you know, pay to, you know, they send a label, and I put them in a box and send them on their way, right? And that's the entirety of the venture. It doesn't have to be for money. And Billy, I think your point is, is really, you know, germane and fair, that it's like, sure, we're coming with a lot of, when I say that, I have, a lot of inherent bias to my position, right? I'm coming from a real position of privilege when I say that. But this stuff doesn't have to be for money.

And I think really, when we're talking about what species can go in captivity, what, what you well, what's our carrying capacity, what, you know, deserves to be a species that carries forward based on its underlying characteristics and all that. I think we could all benefit if this the industry would be smaller if things didn't cost money. But what we would have might look a little bit different. I know it does for me, right? Where it's like these are just things that are important to me. Their fiscal value for several of them is literally nothing. Right. Or negative, yeah, for you.

Yeah. You're putting into it. I, you know, I thought. Yeah, that's a really interesting conundrum that seems to be involved with a lot of wildlife things. I mean, most hobbies, they cost you money and you're putting money into them to do them and enjoy them. For this, you know, we've been told, oh, if you just get a pair, then you can produce them and make a million dollars. And you're, you know, you want to be a big breeder and do nothing but read reptiles. Right, right.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of where I'm sitting is, you know, that it's funding itself kind of thing. But by the same token, like, if it doesn't have a price, you know, how many folks are out there willing to put in that effort? And we just don't, I think we need to celebrate that more, like doing things for the benefit of the animals, not for your pocketbook or whatever to make it easier on you. Like celebrate Rob's attitude of like, hey, this is a great species and people need to be able to work with it. and I'm going to champion it whether it costs me money or not.

You know, that needs to be celebrated. Rather than saying, oh, someday when I grow up, I want to be a full-time breeder. No, just, you know, be a champion of something. Make something last and be available to people. That's what is cool. And it sounds like there's enough folks like-minded with Robb that do work with those species and their population genetics are pretty stable. Right, with the Puerto Rican beaas. We saw that.

Right. Where there was, Graham Reynolds had looked at the diversity within captive Puerto Rican bea's, and he was shocked by how diverse they are as something that was originally CITES 1 listed, and ESA listed back in the early 1970s, saying these are things that otherwise haven't been commercially traded in 50 years. And it does, this is probably not the day for it. But it does, I was talking with an old school herper about Puerto Rican bows and he said, oh, they were delisted, moved from CITES 1 to CITES 2, which is correct. But here in the U.S., there was no change because though there was a proposition in 2022 to delist them as an endangered species, there was no action taken around that.

So there was the first step in the process, but it was never effectuated, which would make them fully open to commercial trade if they went from being ESA listed, particularly as a now CITES II animal. Right. And honestly, I have hugely mixed feelings about that. About what would that mean? What would that do to people's interest in these animals that, yeah, Justin, as you highlighted, right, the study. that found that, wow, because people have cared for 50 years, this thing that has no commercial value, it actually, people have done tremendously well with it.

If tomorrow, you know, they get delisted and the commercial switch is fully flicked on, what happens? Yeah. Right. Does it get worse or better? You know, like when money is involved, right, exactly. It's hard to make this instance. It does get worse. It's hard to make the, it's hard to make the,

it's hard to make the argument the other way. Although, you know, I'm kind of, that's, that was kind of the road I was leading us down a little bit was like, does that commercialization help it all? Because, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're, you know, getting an import that's worth five bucks, you know, or you know, or you work hard and save money for 30 years and buy your parabolins, you know, which one are you going to care more about and take better care of, you know, that's kind of a hard. But commercialization, you know, gives us ball pythons and bearded dragons and crested geckos. And like, that's what is particularly good at. Right. Panther chameleons and, like, bright and showy things that can be pets. And so your Puerto Rican bows don't stand a chance to become, like, immensely popular.

And so the concern that some people are going to see how quickly they can reproduce them to capitalize on a new open market. You know, that would be my concern. Right. Well, yeah, which automatically will lead to a lot, you know, a loss to that heterazigosity that was so surprising. Yes, absolutely. And I do think, Justin, even in that sort of spectrum that you enunciated between Boland's $5. and free, I almost think there's a huge difference between, even though the difference between $5 and free is basically nothing, it's less than a cup of coffee, I think it actually makes a world

of difference. When it's free, there's an obligation that when you just hand over $5, well, that was just $5. Right. When it's, this person gave me this, there's like an obligation to that person and that animal. That's true. Yeah. So I do think the free has a benefit. potentially over the $5.

But, you know, and I guess it depends on the context. If the person, you know, oh, I discovered this Puerto Rican voter, I found out that you could get them from Rob Stone and, you know, and then they go hat and hand. Rob Stone, would you be willing to let me have this opportunity? Yeah, they're definitely going to care about that more than if they saved up and bought them because then it's like, well, now they're a commercial, now I got to make my money back. You know, I got to breed these things so I can, you know, or how many people, people just would spend that money just to have that animal, you know.

And I feel like I've done that a few times where like with the albino darwins, I wanted to get heads because I wanted the wild type Darwin look and you just couldn't get those. And so spent a lot of money on those heads. And then all of a sudden they come out of the woodwork and they're cheap and that kind of thing. And you're like, well, maybe I could have waited or, you know. But conversely, like I've been thinking, oh, I'll wait until the price of Carinata, the rough scale pythons comes down and it hasn't really it's maintained and stayed pretty stable for the most part it was high it came down a little bit and right back up yeah yeah because because

they're they're not flashy they're more of an enigma of like you you know it's amazing that we even have the opportunity to get these things you know and what a rare opportunity this is kind of an attitude rather than oh they're they're going to make me a lot of money because they're really flashy and nicely. I just wanted to keep them because they're fascinating animals and they're just really unique in their, you know, in the Python world in a lot of ways.

So I don't know. It's hard. I guess everybody has their own motivations. Yeah. You know, and I guess I align more maybe with Hank Malt than like Tom Kretschville or Van Nostrians, especially Van Nostrians,

like more of like just I can flip these for money kind of attitude. But by the same token, The Van Nostron, like listening to Ron St. Pierre on a podcast talk about how Mike Van Nostrand treated the reptile collectors that he dealt with very fairly, always paid them. He said, he said there were a lot of people that would buy my animals, but Mike was the only one that paid for them every time, like without failure. Exactly right. Yeah. I mean, and from that perspective, absolutely there's no competition between those two. Right.

Van Nostrad approach was better businessman. Much better. Much better and much better for the people. Everyone they were interacting with. Right. Hanks is a boutique approach and he was willing to sacrifice a lot of people, a lot of relationships along the way. Yeah.

And the worst was like the guy who wanted the parviocula, that kid, saving up all this money and he just burned him just to watch him flounder and suffer and terrible. But at the same, you know, that's something that I, would never consider doing. You know, you'd be excited to share in the excitement of that animal rather than like, oh, watch me mess this kid over kind of thing. That's terrible.

Right. That's where I definitely depart from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Billy, you've seen much more of the show than we haven't taken in. Sure.

So we're talking about the one Dave Levinson and Ron, which is a great episode. Appreciate it, Ron's perspective on that. You've seen a lot more of the show and taking in a lot more of that content. What did we miss to this point that you've taken in? Yeah, I think it's been interesting to hear interviews from Eric Good when he's on podcast and he talks about it. Because he talks about this as if this is his like Magnumopus. Like this is the thing he wanted to make. Tiger King was like Flash in the Pan.

he had to chase because it was wildly successful. And it'd be foolish not to, but this is where his passion lies. And he, so yeah, he says very openly how much he loves reptile keeping and how much this story is personally interesting to him. And then it's interesting. I've listened to a couple podcasts where people review either like episode one and then one podcast where people are going through every episode that aren't reptile people that are like one of them is like a true crime podcast and they are watching the whole series together

and then debriefing it and that is really interesting because well it's just intriguing to see like what their opinions are of stuff and what they're like shocked by and what they're not shocked by because I'm like shocked by seeing the Fiji iguanas and stuff you know and like like seeing the animals that like I know to be impressed by yeah and they're like how many snakes do we know like why know about garter snakes and I know about Burmese pythons like what else do we know about snakes like rattlesnakes rattlesnakes different like is that a different you know like And so you hear them like talking is like just crazy. The things that they get intrigued by and not.

Right. Things that they miss. And they, it's a lot of people, and I see this in the documentary, it's confusing. There's, uh, the documentary isn't chronological. It's kind of like episode one is Hank versus Tom. It's like grossly chronological, but not like skips back and forth. Right. A lot.

Right. Episode one is kind of like Frank and. Tom or a Hank and Tom. Episode two is like the rise of strictly reptiles and Mario Tabrawi. Episode three is like a lot of strictly reptiles.

And then like budding into Anson Wong. And then four is goes back to Tom because then that's like Operation Chameleon and his second big arrest. And that's that's going into Anton Wong again in episode five, which I

haven't watched, is going to be about Anton Wong. But so there's a lot of jumping back and forth where if they did it chronologically and essentially had like five main characters, it would be easier to follow, I think. Because

some of the people that I'm listening to are legitimately confused. And I'm not because I've read both of these books that's so informant. Right. just am immersed in the culture of it all. But yeah, so sometimes some things do get conflated when I hear them talk of like the keeping versus the importing, the legal mass importation versus the illegal smuggling that is often

much smaller scale. And so there's interesting things there, but mostly people are like feel for the humans involved and find some of the reptiles interesting and a lot of the reptiles not like creepy. And so I don't know, it's interesting to hear and I think underscores

that this does not have the impact of Tiger King. It's hard to follow. It's so much more niche. There's not one person that just like ignites your imagination. You have to be a lot more dedicated and interested in the topic.

Or immersed. It's kind of written for us, you know, for the reptile people out there. And so there's a lot of lingo and yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's not for the mass masses. It's for the reptile folks. And so I think that could be a good thing. You know, it's not going to have the damaging potential that everybody was worried about. And I don't think it's the intent.

Yeah. Yeah, as we mentioned beforehand, right? And I don't know the extent to which it's happened for you guys, right? I had the one-way street on this. I've had two folks, two normal folks, right? Non-reptile folks say, oh, you know, I saw that this was a thing. One of them had watched episode one in its entirety and said, oh, this is fascinating. It made me think of you.

And another said, oh, I started it. They started episode one. And that was weeks ago. And they didn't even finish the first episode, which, again, speaks to the point you make, Billy, where it's like, yeah, It does not have the social cachet, let alone avoiding the COVID singularity of the tiger king and stuff. Yeah. And I've heard reptile people kind of say the same. I think Dave Levinson kind of mentioned that in his interview with Ron, where he's like, yeah, I just didn't really find it that exciting or interesting, you know.

I like it. I like it. There's a lot of really interesting editing and the, you know, the clips of all the animals is intriguing. He does such a good job of getting. the archival footage of like like in episode four when they go into operation chameleon there's a whole bunch of actual uh undercover footage of the feds oh that's cool right and it's so like i mean it's it brings to life the books that i read and yeah think about a lot yeah and so that aspect of it i really like but i do think um especially hearing non reptile people talk about it there's

pretty obvious things as like yeah you cut that out and you streamline this and you you add in because like it was interesting the one of the um podcasts i was listening to these uh two hosts were talking about how they want like a psychologist to come on and talk about like why do people want to keep reptiles and it looked like like like step back and do like a bigger picture right type thing yeah most people think we're crazy you know like yeah Who would do that? You're insane. Yeah.

And there's some things like, some clips of there are like when Tom or Mario or Hank or someone's talking about the intricacies of a particular target species that they love, where it does like ignite something. And even in those people, they're like, that was fascinating to hear him talk about that. Right. But there's not enough of it. or it gets too easily lost, I think. Yeah, that's, it is, I mean, I guess I kind of like the personal connections that you make to. And I'm, I'm curious, you know, like, I just remember in the book reading in Stolen World when I realized that a pseudonym was, that somebody had a pseudonym. And all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, I know that person. I met that person, you know, I tried to engage in conversation.

Thomas Price. Yeah, exactly. Benjamin But 15 years later Yeah So it was kind of from that way In Galapagos iguanas in Africa You know right he's living in Africa and keeping

Galapagana like marine iguana That's pretty wild Yeah And the fact that you could do that you know That's that's incredible Yeah yeah right You know with with some level of success right That's

That's pretty wild And that's where those Thomasai came from Right the Tomasai came from right the tomassian uramastik's thomasai and princeps at least some of those right here it talks about that in the book that yeah he was the person daring crazy insane however you want to frame it enough to say oh sure i'll go to somalia and smuggles some lizards so that then that species is now available in the trade right right that's it's uh incredible in in a lot of ways you know that and and And I think that's the thing.

Like we, we, and maybe it's part of this where, you know, people who are so passionate about things, a lot of times they don't let laws stand in the way of that, you know, and they're going to get them regardless. And if they keep them secretly and nobody knows, then, you know, nobody's the wiser or whatever. And they can breed marine iguanas in Africa or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. Where we, we would probably just, you know, average herper might think, oh, that's probably impossible. I don't think you could keep and breed marine iguanas. But then somebody goes out and does it, you know. Or you look at the...

Commitment or willingness. Yeah, it's a different level of obsession. Right, right. I guess the contrast that jumps to my mind too, right, is there's... And I don't have it in front of me, so I don't know the title of the book. But there's a book that dives into the arijuana hobby in... Oh, the drag-handed glass. Yeah, exactly right.

You know, but that you're talking about... color and form variance of something that otherwise is entirely available. And it's a wholly different. That's much more a van-Rostrand thing than it is a Hank Mold thing. Right. Yeah. And too, like you look at the Fiji bandit iguanas, you know, or the Fiji iguanas that are commonly bred in Canada or Europe.

And they're very inexpensive and, you know, easy to come by. But yet somebody's risking their whole, you know, jail time for to have those or to. When he was doing that. that, right? When he was doing that, that wasn't the case. But, you know, it has become the case and speaks to maybe they're both their inability to captivity and the fact that, well, we listen to Shannon Dom and they don't seem to care two bits about Fiji iguanas that they could readily purchase up in Canada. Yeah. I mean, they're snake guys, so maybe that's probably. I understand. Nevertheless, you know, it's like, I don't know how you look at one of those and gods. Yeah, they're beautiful animals.

Yeah. I mean, I guess one is a beautiful animal too. So, you know, that's the, the whole trick of this whole thing is, yeah, does. But probably not a good pet, especially in the same season. Yeah. You know, they get four or five foot long. They're happy to, you know, man, by being an herbivore, you know, certainly a really nasty bite. Like, that's probably not a great pet. And during the breeding season, they can get quite feisty maybe. So. Well, absolutely. We know that that's the thing. Even to, and Billy, I think this can be a jumping off platform for something that you've noticed within the content around this. You know, we've mentioned Jenny Aaron Smith. I know she went on with MJ. I've heard some of that. Justin's heard the whole thing. Certainly support her. We would be happy to talk to her. We've, you know, as I say, well invested in the book, really enjoyed that. So I'll set up that platform. But in the context, Justin, I know that. sort of anecdotally that there's been a lot of a lot of the incidents between male green iguana aggression and captivity and this was more the thing in the late 90s early to early odds right and they were commonly kept is that female keepers were having negative interactions with those males in season than male keepers right but bill billy uh this will be the jumping off point for something you you've noticed in that thing yeah there's a lot of massages

throughout this whole docu-series. And I think some of that is because it's accurately describing the situation, right? Like Tom Crunchfield, using Peggy Crutchfield to move animals through. And people from Germany hiring college students to come and have a free vacation, all you have to do is take these pythons back to Canada and give them to someone that's going to bring them across Toronto.

Ray Van Ostrand sitting slightly off camera or you can kind of see him in the background while his wife is being interviewed and correcting her on things as she's talking and interrupting her. And the risks that he took that ruined

there's so many ruined marriages in these stories and then not to mention Tyler Nolan doing the interview laying in bed with scantily clad women

you know for the like the brief a little bit that he's even in the thing right so there's that which is like gross like this idea of like

reptile guys um And then for the story, we've been talking about it as if it's based equally off two books, and a lot of the content does seem like it is. The Lizard King, Brian Christie, and Stolen World, which is like the Von Ostron's and Anson Wong to some degree. And then Stolen World, which is Crutchfield versus Malt. And that's by Jenny Aaron Smith. she's not in this documentary at all. And despite what sounds like multiple attempts of her to reach out and figure out how to be appropriately credited and appropriately included.

Because facts are facts, but the facts are arranged in a certain way to make a story. And she did that. And that was a lot of work. Yeah. And the facts are spun in the same order and just interspiced with, Brian Christie's story and he is heavily included and

made to seem like Lizard King covers everything. Yeah, his book is cited in each of the episodes, kind of like based on the book and yeah, right? Yeah, that was the biggest thing. And I have no problem with him being involved,

but the idea that she wasn't, and even to the extent of when I read through the things, when I made my first post about this, I tagged both of them, because, like, how is it not about both of their books? Like, the timeline, like, alternates between their books. Yeah. And, but, yeah, to hear her talk about it,

she stood up and confronted him at a live questioning, or live question and answer session at Daytona. And with a lot of confidence and professionalism and polish, I think that level of again, who knows all the things, but like I, it reads to me like misogyny of,

right. This was a man's story. And even if that's not, I'm not going to say that's the intended reason for anything, but that is the effect. And so that is hard to ignore. also some of the featured folks like Jeannie Brodsky where she was she was fairly well featured in the documentary

and had you know numerous things she was saying and was a player in this whole thing and I searched you know on on Google like who were the main characters of the documentary she was not mentioned as one of those you know where she probably played more of a role than like some of the folks that are listed but yeah I think the fact that, yeah, the stolen world is not mentioned as a source of this material is gross oversight. And definitely speaks to that misogyny you're talking about. Yeah.

And I don't, I mean, that's not the only, there's lots of other things involved in it. But there is certainly a lot of misogyny that's highlighted as problematic. But then I think there's also, it clearly continues. and so yeah I wish she was credited and I wish we heard her talk about it you know that would be it would make it a better story

but I think it's also like hearing the when Eric Good talks about his interviews he says that he read Lizard King and he was like starting to dabble in film and so he bought the rights to it

and so he bought the rights to Lizard King almost two decades ago. And so that I think is part of it, you know, like it's what he's run with the whole time, but like you've got to yeah, then just

cover the van us and just call, yeah, just cover the things in the lizard team. I wrote a book that was specifically on half this story. Right. And you're now talking, you're covering the same material. Yeah, I think you know, it was across both of us.

When we were reading the synopsis, provided by HBO for both episodes. It was like, okay, cool. This is actually reassuring for the reptile community relative to, you know, the comic coming down upon us, that this is just Stolen World and Lizard King

made into documentary video. That was my take seven weeks ago. Yeah. I also think this is like a little bit different, but in episode two in particular, they interview Ray Van Ostrand a fair amount, and he has pretty late-stage dementia. And it's pretty disturbing that they put that on camera.

I think there are some things that they could have asked him and something that he's participating in. And then you could say, like, either through narration or have Mike say, like, my dad is too sick to participate in a lot of this. So I'm telling a lot of his story. Like there's a way to do that. And instead they have him be like, I don't know what year I got married. I don't know what year we started this part of the business.

I don't know all these things. And it's like, why are you showing this? This is. This was. To the thing. Yeah. And there's no way. I don't care what forms were signed.

The difference between legally culpable and ethically responsible, he is not consenting to be on this film. and he's not alive anymore. So, I mean, there's not going to be any repercussions to these things, I don't think. But, uh, I just, like, that doesn't seem like a good film, film decision. Just gross. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, as with any, any, uh, show or doc, I mean, I went and watched the, um, Steve Irwin's movie in the theater just so I could watch a Parenti run across the screen, you know, the big screen. Yeah, yeah. I want to do that in theater too. Right. Yeah. I just love seeing, you know, these reptiles that we care about and even if it's a brief glimpse of them on the TV or whatever, that's... I overall enjoy this documentary, like, because I like the books and I, you know,

it brings them to life in a different way. And my wife's even said, hey, let's watch the latest episode. you know, like she's into it. So it's been kind of fun that way too. Because, you know, I get excited because, oh, I remember that from the book or, you know, this. Oh, check this story out. This is crazy kind of thing, you know. Pay attention here. And I think there's a possibility that like, because I imagine, you know, what if I would have been 12 when this came out?

It would have intrigued me. I would have known what the thing, the things that the main characters did was wrong. Right. But I would have like, it would have made me. want to read the book that at least the one book that's mentioned and hopefully it would have found the other book uh you know like i would have yeah um it well i think it would have had a good impact on me you know it would have put me on the right journey it's not like i would i wouldn't have watched this and be like hmm i wonder what reptiles like in smuggle you know like i don't

think it's like going to spark that and people that aren't already down that path yeah and and i mean we live in a different time too yeah You know, those, those kind of things are, are much more, you know, it's, it's a lot harder to get away with, it seems, these days than it was back then. You know, you can't even go through into the airport without a ticket and going through security and things. So, yeah, a lot of things have changed that we just are accustomed to now that, you know, used to just be able to do a lot of different things. I still remember my coworker, and this is even, I think, nah, this might have been before, but he just had a salamander that he found. on a on a business trip that we were on put it in a water bottle put it on the you know the thing and it went through the x-ray machine and came out the other side nobody said anything or did anything

about it he just what year what you're about do you think that is i i mean it had it had to have been after 9-11 it was at 11 yeah because i wouldn't have been going to those meetings until 2005 with him so you know sure and i was surprised i was like wait a second did you just put that through security and nobody said anything, you know? And he's like, yeah, I do it all the time. I'm like, wow, that's, that's interesting, you know, not that I would do it because, you know, you worry about that. But yeah. So it's tricky. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So the last thing we haven't touched on, assuming there's nothing else, Billy, that you think is germane to this, I do want to hit on. So at least I, if not Justin, saw you the first day.

of IHS, which was great. And then I proceeded to not see you again. I saw him out in the desert, and he just walked away and jumped in the car and left. I was coming over to say hi. I got a cloud of dust in my faith. Oh, I forgot about that. I would frame up as that you had disappeared, but then you adroitly pointed out that I was missing for almost all of it.

So, yeah, how was IHS for you? you know, walk us through that a little bit. We had chatted through it with Jordan. I think it just came out, actually. Yeah, I listened to it. How was it for you? It was great. It's my first time ever being down in that part of the country.

I've been to, like, superstition mountains, but not to look for reptiles to just, like, be a family once for a vacation. But that was a long time ago. So my first time ever been down in that area, and this is my third year in a row going to IHS, So I'm starting to like recognize people and looking forward to meeting some people. So it was awesome.

It was great to be, uh, uh, meet Roy down there. Um, and so, um, getting to be with him again in person. Um, it's always a treat. And, um, truly everything I found was a lifer. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Troc stretched out across the road on my drive-in. Uh, is the second my rattlesnick I've ever seen in my heart. life and the little clobberi lepidus that I found lepidus clobri that I found the night before heading back home was like amazing too right like everything in between all of it was just like this is great you know every toad every tarantula all the I loved it also.

It was hard of going to, how am I going to go to talks? How am I going to stay up all night? How am I going to do all these things? And so that was the trickiest, trickiest part. And then how am I going to go herping with all these people too? Yeah. You know, it was the trickiest part. Yeah.

It is such a great place. I mean, I just love that area. It's magical almost. So, yeah, I get excited just thinking about it. But, yeah, I think the, I guess the contrast is with that many people that you're in a line of cars, you know, herping. And there were some people. That did happen. Yeah.

Sometimes. But usually not for that long. And so, like, then you could pass somebody or, you know, or take a turn off at some point. But or stop the car and go hiking. looking a little gully for a while. We did that one time. Yeah. So, yeah.

Yeah, there was the time that we went specifically up to an area to hike at night. And then we got back in the car and left you as you drove in. And I didn't realize that until the next day. But we were trying to meet up with Paul, Duren, and a. Stephen Cush and Stephen Lewis and Claude and Joy. But they, yeah, the phone service was awful and so hard. And so we were looking for them. And somehow we missed them, even though we were looking for them.

And so you coming out of nowhere, you had no chance. You know, we were out of there. We already made our decision. We can't keep looking. We got to go. Right. Yeah. I'm over it.

Yeah. Both have to go again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's always a balance, right? Like, I know, well, some of my friends are a little bit more antisocial. You know, they don't want to be around crowds. And so, and I feel the same way in a lot of respects.

But at the same time, it's, it is nice to stop and, hey, what did you find kind of out of an interest type thing? Yeah, the crowds is difficult, especially when you've herped it, you know, without the crowds. And you see all, yeah, oh, man, all these people everywhere and you get a little frustrated. So yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's give and take. I did like the sociality of it, though, meeting people and old people, seeing old people. And yeah. And there's definitely like you, you see someone pulled over and you know they found something cool. And so it's cool to go see it. But to the extent that one time Roy and I were driving up through. through like the park area, like right up to the mountains. And there was like a family with like a bed sheet out, like bugging with like a black light.

Yeah. And so it was like two parents and they're like late elementary school age, middle school age kids probably. And I was like, let's go see what they have. And Roy's like, maybe we shouldn't go interrupt that family and drive up in the middle of the night with our headlights on. I was like, you're probably right. Like, I'm a little too into like my nerdy.

Yeah, that's, yeah. I feel the same way. Like, yeah, might as well see what they're doing. Well, they're clearly camping in like a dead end of this row. You know, we were to go to turn around and our headlights saw that that's what they're doing. We were like, let's go find out. But they're like, probably shouldn't do that. Yeah.

You're probably right. Well, and there was a guy that had had some car trouble and was pulled over on the side of the road and people kept stopping and asking what he found. And he chased some folks off with like he was going to hit him with a hammer or something. Like he was, leave me alone. I'm trying to fix my car. Quit bugging me, you know. That is wild.

It's kind of a funny. Yes. Yeah. We were out there once on a herb trip and we'd stopped. There were some people with flashlights going out at night. We assumed they were herpers, but they were out owling, like looking for owls. And yeah, it was. It was a kind of funny story.

Yeah. I did make a joke about how, well, because I feel like, you know, I've heard you talk about this. Like you should, you need, you know, to just be interested in nature in general. That you, you know, that every day out there is a good day. And the way I've done that is to kind of be interested in bugs, you know, in general. And especially the rapids. I know they're not insects and bugs. But, but all of the.

those types of things I think are yeah all those invertebrates are really interesting um and so I was talking about how if I knew a lot about ants I would always be interested right uh because there's just ants everywhere and so I need to learn more about ants and beetles and stuff and then literally when we were up in the place where we uh ditched you on accident um there was ant biologists okay they were out there like looking for honeypot ants right and And I was like, is this a joke? Like, is the university playing a joke in me that I was literally two hours ago talking about. I wish I knew more about ants so that I could always be looking at ants.

And I was like, oh, these people know everything about ants. Right. Well, we had a great interaction with a badger out there. Yes. The night before or the night after, whatever timeline it was on. Yeah, it was really cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Those mammals. Yeah. Yeah. Great things to. But, yeah, what? a great how did it compare with the previous years because this was my first year going and you know how did it compare with the other years as far as like the some of the old school guy you know is Dave Barker there every year folks like that or is that just kind of yeah so I mean this was I think

the last couple years have been between 100 and 150 people and so this was 300 people so double Yeah. Yeah. Easily double. And, yeah, like, I've seen, you know, Craig Trumbauer there before, and I'm going to miss other people. Russ Gurley and, yeah, some of those. Russ. Wayne came to, from Daytona, came to the one when it was at Fort Myers.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. More local. Tom Cushfield showed up to that one for a little bit. But, yeah, not the whole panel of people the way it was. Right. For sure.

Yeah. A little more of a special event for that kind of thing. But I feel like the quality of the talks was pretty similar. Right. And I feel like that event space is so uniquely reptilian. And so that's particularly fun. At the other, the two I've been to, there's like a distinct time that you go to a zoo or like to a facility.

Like, so Knoxville Zoo. Right. You not right? Yeah, Noggle Tennessee. Yeah. And then Thai Parks, Aguantaland, were the last two years I went to. And so there wasn't like that this time,

but it was herping constantly. And you could always go into the museum whenever you wanted. Into the amazing garden. That garden was awesome. Yeah. So that was a difference. But that was about it. Like the quality of the talks, the camaraderie of the people all felt very similar.

That's cool. how far out you were in kind of the middle of nowhere was pretty different. You know, like I never ever had to rent a car for the other ones, which is actually makes herping challenge. And I have to find, I've had to find people to ride with. And so there was nights previously that I didn't go herping because I'd be like, I don't really know who's going out. I don't want to like barge into this situation.

So I'm going to call it a night. And I'm going to, you know, get some, get some emails done or something and go back. Yeah. Versus everyone had cars and rentals and stuff. And the trick was to know that you had to like have a 40 minute drive to get gas. Right. But yeah. So that was different.

Yeah. And there have been times when that gas station wasn't functioning. And so you're kind of like. Yeah. You mean the address one or you mean the one on the highway? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I was thinking the one north.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so that one's pretty, that one's more reliable. The animus one, sometimes that just doesn't work. And then, yeah, you're. Mm-hmm. You might be right in north. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm driving north with an extra 25 or 30 miles to go. Right. Yeah. Yeah. At least it's good herping towards the, yeah, along the way. It can be. well cool um anything else that's exciting these days as far as herpeticulture or anything that's got you really excited lately

yeah i don't know i've been doing so much monsters of god that uh really has been consuming yeah uh yeah it's been monsters of god it's been uh figuring out that big tank and then i've spent i've spent time learning more about invertebrates is another thing I've been doing so yeah I've been I've been kind of oh go ahead the podcast I've been listening to

the most reliably like not missing episodes is the Iraqnerds podcast okay with Justin Smith and Phil those guys are are good and

yeah so both reptile people that are And also, taking on all of the arachnance. So I think that's fun. But yeah, looking forward to herping with Phil here soon. Yeah, he's a, he's a good guy. Different Phil from the Iraq. Yeah, I just assumed.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I haven't listened. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. But Phil Wolf is a good guy.

Yeah. And Phil Wolf has been on that show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. my ignorance is shining through here. No, it's fine. Yeah.

It's a good assumption. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we definitely appreciate you coming on and it's been fun chatting with you and hearing your, you know, takeaways from Monsters of God. And where can people find you? Put that out.

Instagram is the easiest place. I spent way too much time there every day. So I'll message you back. Um, uh, creepers, her pediculture there. Um, and, uh, all of it goes to Facebook too. So if you like Facebook better, I'll eventually find your message there. But it might have confused. I'm, I'm, I'm usually opposite. I'll check Facebook Messenger quite regularly. But I'll get about Instagram messenger. So yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, um, check either regularly. And, uh, you know, I'll talk to you when I talk to you. But I appreciate you. All right. Well, thanks again, Billy, and we'll thank the NPR crew. And thanks for you guys for listening. And we appreciate your support. And we'll catch you next time for Rept Off Fight Club.