Reptile Fight Club - Get ready, it's clip show time!

Episode Date: July 2, 2022

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Welcome to the episode of Reptile Fight Club. I'm your co-host, Justin Julander. And I am your host, Justin Julander. What is going on, Chuck? Not much. You can't be the co-host. Oh, I can. No, you can't. We're co-hosts and co-hosts.

No. No. You're always the host. You're making me like Michael on The Office. I'm second fiddle. I'm second fiddle. I'm second fiddle. All right. We'll both be the host. How about that? You're the boss.

You're the boss. Well, man, it's been a minute, huh? A long minute. Yeah. I feel like I don't even know you anymore. You did a whole herp trip and you conquered all rattlesnake all things rattlesnake and um yeah yeah it was we heard together that was a good time yeah we did herp together that's fair yeah i had a killer a killer time for one uh for one day that was uh that was

fun man jordan jordan's the shit dude yeah that was awesome we got to herp with jordan and his brother was it i want to say steve i'm so bad with names i think you're right i think you're right because i'm i've i i need to like get embarrassed by like having to ask somebody their name and then i'll never forget it. But I always forget it. Yeah. If I, if I don't, but I think you're right. And yeah, what a, what a, what a cool, cool bunch of guys like, or two guys, you know, just, I don't know, a lot of cool, like experience they had and, you know, low and knowing all those, you know, they, they grew up out here. So they know, you know,

the Larry black and the Lloyd Lemke and the, you know they they grew up out here so they know you know the larry black and the lloyd lemke and the you know they they know the barkers and just just they know all those people who uh you know are are almost like uh legends of lore in the carpet community so it's kind of it was just kind of cool like talking to them and all the all their experience and just oh my gosh they know they know that they know that desert uh quite well uh yeah it was really impressive just knowledge base yeah a thousand nights of herping that is just blowing my mind that's crazy and everything we found was like completely sick like it wasn't at all just so nice i'm like oh my god yeah yeah over and over again it was it was great so yeah it was what what a treat what a what a good time what what a good

chance to see you and then yeah uh you got to leave your your sad little lonely co-host behind and and go have uh have a game fun with the podfather and the Nipper and the Wolf and, you know, all kinds. Bobby Pebbles. Bobby Pebbles. I mean, dude. The new NPR intern, Dustin Gran. Yeah. I just heard that they had a new intern I was listening to.

I was – well, I was actually – I've been so busy with work. And I was on the NPR chat and was seeing all this like stuff that was getting talked about from Carpets and Coffee 62. And I'm just like like what is happening what what what like i'm not you know i didn't read through the whole thing but i skimmed a little bit and then i was like i have to listen to the episode and yeah figure out what the heck is going on so yeah so i'm all caught up pretty crazy it was it was fun but yeah that was a good time herping with you and Jordan and Steve. And kind of that's their stomping ground. So yeah, they grew up and they were out visiting. So yeah, Jordan doesn't live in California anymore, but he was out visiting his mom.

And so they drove down, met us in Borrego Springs. And we took off and did a few passes around the area, found some good stuff. So I don't know. What were the highlights for you as far as the stuff we were finding? Oh, that spec was pretty nice. That was killing. I think it was like red and just almost looked like a river. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

I mean, and it was just so pretty, and it was like it posed, and just like the whole thing was cool. It was fun. I enjoyed talking to those guys. I'm not the herper that Jordan is. I probably felt like I should have sat in the back seat and just been quiet. What a fun you know and and you know me and me and him um me and him have guns in common so i could at least talk that with him uh yeah that was a

foreign language to me i had no clue yeah yeah no it was good i was like oh finally something i i don't sound like a moron about um so well of funny. We, we had some gun discussion because Phil works at a gun shop and Nipper is into guns. And so they were having discussions and, and, you know, despite Nipper's, you know, uh, enthusiasm for weapons and things, he was pretty baffled that the, the gun love that goes on in the United States and all the issues surrounding that, that we've seen, but, you know, not to get political, but we kind of jokingly solved the problem, you know, cause we were, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean, you know, we were discussing it back and forth.

And Eric's like, Hey guys, let's change the subject. Let's get off this. But then we rolled up to some people that were, they were going out birding or something. And, you know, I was like, I reversed the car kind of a long way. So it was like this long backup because it was all these people, they were piling out of a car, you know, a van, like a bunch of students or something. And I thought, Oh, maybe they're going herping, you know, but as we backed up to the, to their van, I'm like, Hey guys, uh, what you got going on what you doing they're like oh we're going owling so they're going to look for owls so i'm like you're like owling what is that i'm like i'm like have fun we're not doing that see ya drove off but like nippers like ah anybody in england would have just told you to f off or something i'm like that's why americans like

guns and everybody went whoa the debate is settled it's that's yeah it was kind of funny but well that's what that's what uh arizonans would say is everyone's polite because everyone has a gun right yeah so i i don't know i thought that was kind of fun that was a fun uh you know story it was cool to watch you guys uh get you know talk about that stuff and get all enthused so yeah yeah i mean it's you know story that was cool to watch you guys uh get you know talk about that stuff and get all enthused so yeah yeah i mean it's you know you and you know it's one of those things where it's like if you i i get i get both sides of it right because you see these horrible things that happen but like you know people who have never been to the range with me or been

around people who you know are responsible and and with me or been around people who, you know, are responsible and, and were raised around guns and do it, you know, follow the rules. And, and, you know,

I, I mean, yeah, it's not the same thing. Like, and so you're, you're kind of like looking at, at one thing and making a judgment about the whole thing.

And then people who are into it are like, you don't understand. Yeah. It's like, any issue is nuanced. There's a lot of different angles there's a lot of different considerations and to make it into a bumper sticker slogan of bad good you know is impossible i mean it's like it's like saying like uh irresponsible retic breeders are what what reptile people are like right like no dude that's not that's not at all the case so but unfortunately it seems that you know one bad apple spoils the bushel kind of thing

you know and that absolutely and especially when reptiles and lots of especially when there's a narrative to be pushed and there's interest at heart you know people will cherry pick what that looks like and um you know it's it's unfortunate because just like reptile keepers rights gun keepers rights you know um we should all be working to understand each other and not tear each other's uh right to to have things i mean and and you, that's on both sides for gun keepers and reptile keepers. Like, we have to be reasonable. Like, we shouldn't be opposing common sense legislation, but we also shouldn't be like all for stupid ass legislation.

You know what I mean? Well, that's the thing. It needs to make sense. I wish the reptile keepers had the lobbyists that the gun rights do because, I mean, if a cobra was killing somebody every other week you know they they banned they banned cobras very quickly but you know you've got a school shooting but you know the the the amount of of cobra owners in america versus gun owners is that they're you're you're talking apples and oranges well sure sure I'm just saying. Yes. Point made. And, and, you know, I mean, you know, it's just a, it's a,

it is, and you know, I, I. It's a hot topic. That's for sure. Yep. For sure. For sure. Anyway. I'm glad you guys could bond over that. Yeah. It was, it was fun. And leave me out, you know, I'm. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I, I, I know where your sensibilities lie, so I don't want to, I don't want to tread on you too heavily.

Don't tread on me, man. That's right. That's right. Yeah, well, I think that was quite a trip, and it started the other trip off on a good – Yeah. We found two rattlesnake species in California, so we saw the Sidewinder and the Speckled. you know started the the other trip off on a good uh yeah you know i found we found uh two rattlesnake species in california so we saw the sidewinder and the speckled yeah and over in arizona we found an additional seven so that made nine for me and in about as many days so we

basically yeah you know rattlesnake a day for those guys were there for seven or eight days so and then i i drove uh drove both ways i almost made it 10 but the i saw three great basin rattlesnakes on the way home but they'd all been hit by cars so gotcha but but i did get my life for a kingsnake out of it so and oh kingsnake in st george so nice that was very exciting i was really happy about that. And it was kind of a crappy deal, but it worked out okay. But I was driving through Arizona, getting to the top of Arizona, and all of a sudden there was a giant wildfire in northern Arizona. So I had to reroute, take an extra six hours to go over through Las Vegas and St. George. And it was made for a long drive. But I.

That's a decent detour. Yeah. And so I just kind of busted through St. George where, you know, I kind of know the area. So I took some roads that I usually cruise, but just kind of used them to drive through town. Or I guess I didn't really go through St. George. I was kind of on the outskirts, you know, on the, uh, out in the herping areas. And, and so I just took a pass through, you know, areas that I would usually maybe stop and, you know, road cruise or go hike around and look for stuff. But I was just like,

I got to get home. I'm just going to make a pass through. And I contacted Aspen and Chris and said, Hey, I'm driving through how does how do things look and they're like oh it's pretty hot and dry probably nothing gonna be out and i like you know kind of famous last words thing and there was like a full moon that night and stuff and so i'm driving along and all of a sudden there's a gopher snake on the road and it was a big gopher snake and i'd just been telling all the guys how calm the Utah, you know, the Great Basin is. And this thing was jumping at me and like hissing and like just kept repeatedly striking at me. Looked like a bull snake from Texas. Like he was a little confused.

Wanted to make you eat your words. Yeah. So once I picked him up and got him off the road, man, he was not having it that time. So got him off the road. Then I drove a little further. There was another gopher snake. I think I saw a total of eight gopher snakes. A couple had been hit by cars, but I think there were at least five or six that were alive. So, I mean, it was a busy snake night. And then shortly after I saw the cow king, you know, after the, you know, two or three gopher snakes and there was the cow king and then the you know

handful of uh great basin rattlesnakes and then i swung up a little further north and hit another canyon just to kind of take a look and see and saw a dor uh great basin rattlesnake and it had a meal poking out of the side of it like this mouse was you know it got hit by a car but it was out probably on the road to help digest its meal. But yeah, a little bit of a natural history observation. But, you know, that was not the last supper. I'd rather see him in the act of eating or something. But that's the downside of road cruising, I suppose.

But it was a it was a really cool trip. So even though it put me I think I pulled in my driveway at like 5 a.m. And then I got up for work at 7 so it was like a rough you know you went to work i went to work man what the hell do you have much flexibility at work like if you say you got to be at work you got to be i do no i i do have a lot of flexibility but uh i I had stuff that had to be done kind of thing. We just got a new contract and I was trying to get ready for that. So it's been a little bit of a busy couple weeks after getting back from her trip.

That's never fun to come back full into it. There's always a lot of catch up to do, but what you do gotta make those sacrifices i guess so captain insano shows no mercy uh so yeah i need i'm excited to get back okay so so seems like every herp trip a name is a name is coined uh yeah you know something of of yeah something of of merit is earned upon the uh you know the the npr radio network uh and and its brethren and sisters uh was was there a was there anything coined on this? I haven't heard anything coined on this trip. Oh, no. StatSig, man. StatSig.

You got to. Oh, okay. I did hear StatSig. What? So we were talking about how, I think it was Nipper brought it up. He's like, you know, you guys all say 100%, 100% or something. And so like they were talking kind of how funny it was that everybody started using that across the network. And I'm

like, I don't use that. Nothing's a hundred percent. I'm a scientist. I'm like, it's got to be statistically significant. And so I'm like, I'm going to start saying stat sig. So yeah, the whole trip was like, they'd start to go 100 i mean stat sig stat sig yeah it was so that was pretty good one of the coin phrases from the trip yeah no that's pretty good yeah so yeah it was a it was a good trip so yeah it's it's always fun to to hurt with those guys i i had a really good time it was fun to have nipper out you know have that you know i mean he'd been to the u.s before and he'd done a little you know kind of a little bit of herping but not not a full herp trip to the u.s so this yeah that first and it sounds like you guys found

enough rattlesnakes that he went home probably happiest oh as a as a crumpet at a tea party. Yeah. I mean, his level of enthusiasm, let's just say, is very reserved as a Brit. You know, he was like. Oh, of course. He'd have to tell you. We would not. I am absolutely buzzing, mate. That was like the extent of the, I mean, that's like jumping up and down and hooting and all that stuff. So it was pretty fun to see. We would not expect him to sacrifice his British demeanor in a show of cataclysmic American excitement.

We're like, come on, man. Just let it out. You're in America. You can do it. No, mate. No, mate. I'm absolutely buzzing. Yeah, that was the most excited, you know.

Did you almost step on a rattlesnake? Yeah, yeah. I got another close call this time. Yeah, I mean, you know, what would a herp trip be if I didn't almost step on a rattlesnake? Probably safer. I think the word is safer. Maybe, maybe. But then you wouldn't see it, you know.

So maybe. I don't know. It was you know so maybe i don't know it was uh i mean it wasn't that close i mean it was a big h-rock so probably yeah i was too close you probably would have tagged me you know so they're not known for their calm to me although he did sit pretty still i think you know that's the nice thing about probably because he knew he couldn't reach you yeah but the nice thing about rattlesnakes is they rely first on their camouflage. Yeah. Crypsis first. And then,

you know, defense second. And then, you know, if you're not going to leave them alone at that point, then they're going to use the arsenal. Yeah. Yeah.

But, uh, he, he was pretty well behaved. I got a cool picture of him coming out from under my hat from this hat I'm wearing right now. So that was kind of fun. Got the – and it was one of those nice pink ones from that area. Did you try to put a hat on him?

I just put it over him to get him to coil up, you know, and hold still for photos kind of thing. The old throw your hat over him trick, you know. I thought maybe you were like, you know, trying to put a hat on him. I brought a little cowboy hat and I put it on hat and I put the little strap around his chin. Oh my gosh. He held so tight. You're like, Pognos, we do Aatrox. I wanted to impress Owen with my skills.

I don't know how much he loves that. It's fun. That would be a second level of boop and snoots, right? If you're doing it with hots. For sure. Well, I'm not going to say that on the podcast, but yeah. I didn't boop a snoot. Good job.

Maybe I booped something. We don't know. I feel like you might have booped Keith McPeak's snoot with your trail pic. That was pretty funny. What's that? You guys did like going up the side of the mountain. Oh, yeah. Keith did the thing of like going over the side.

And, you know, and then Phil posted the one that's like looking over the edge, and I called it McPeakin. Yeah, that's right. That was the, yeah, that was the, that was another phrase that was coined by you. Well, I wasn't there though. I don't think that counts. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't, you don't get credit unless you were there.

That's true. That's true. All right. Well, anything going on in the herpetological world? Uh, with me herpetocultural world. Yeah. You got any, no, um, we talked about your, we, do we talk about your coastals on here? I don't remember. I, I, so doing coastals of hatch. Yeah. A hundred percent hatch rate. I had, i had one egg go bad early on yeah

still got 15 eggs uh eight eight point seven uh on sexing some some a nice range of of stuff in there some pretty red stuff so yeah there's gonna be some nice animals that come out of that i would predict i i tried to do a feeding um a few days ago and no i mean i i just tried to feed the females and nobody was interested so i was like i'll wait i'll just let them shed and uh try again but um yeah i just tried to try to do a a live feed and and nobody was was was going for it so i figured out yeah not not ready so we'll get closer to shed and and try it on the other end of that but um yeah so so that's been that's been cool um it's been really hot here so um and i just uh just did my yearly rodent order so i finally got food back in the house to start feeding snakes so i don't really feed you know until about now

i don't really start feeding again uh and i just kind of you know i have food for some of the smaller stuff but it gets all of it gets fed way less if at all you know yeah until around this time and yeah just just uh boned up on an order so yeah it's good to get monitor food back in the house and plenty of rodents and um so god everything's just getting so expensive though yeah i was like like that makes me glad i'm breeding my own rodents but i mean the rodent food is not cheap either it's yeah in price so yeah yeah i mean some of these some i mean i like you know i get them from lane labs and man i probably have a good product yeah oh yeah great it's you know they do a great job and um great job, and it's worth every penny.

But, boy, the penny is not getting any cheaper. So, yeah. And then, you know, California gas prices make me sick. Oh, yeah. It's crazy, right? Did you fill up before you – did you fill up in California? Oh, no, I stretched it to Yuma as far as I could. Like we did fill up once before we set out herping, but I'm like,

I'm not going to fill up in California again. I'm going to try to make it to Arizona where it was, you know, two or $3 cheaper. Yeah. Driving over to Yuma. It was, yeah. A couple of dollars cheaper. Yeah.

After I left you guys, I went and slept in a parking lot of a gas station for like three hours. Nice. I did herp a bit after I left you, but there wasn't much going on like later on. So, yeah. Yeah. But, well, what do you do? It was nice to find that kind of cactus.

Yeah. Pretty cool. find that kind of actus um yeah pretty cool um yeah so i've i had a uh some really nice firsts since we've yeah you know been on here last uh i i was on the herp trip and you know as my daughter called so i'm like uh maybe i'll have her go check because before i left the blackheads hadn't hatched they were way overdue and i'm'm thinking, well, there's another failure for this year. And so I'm like, just go see what's going on there. And she went out there and she's like, dad, there's two crawling around in there. I'm like, what?

So I'm like, send me photos, send me videos. So she sent those to me. So yeah, two Western blackheads. I mean, it was pretty low percent hatch rate, but I was happy to hatch them out, you know, have, have anything come out of that. So that was better than none. Yeah. Yeah. Two is better than zero. So, um, I guess I can say I bred blackheads, but hopefully that's not the last time. And hopefully I've learned a few things that I can improve things. I don't know. It was a little, I opened eggs to see if they were, you know, see if the embryos were still alive inside. I opened the worst looking eggs and then they'd be moving around.

But then a couple days later they'd die if the eggs were open. So I've just learned my lesson. Don't open blackhead eggs ever. You know, the same I found with woma eggs i just you know i don't know what it is but opening them up too early or early at all just doesn't work out well so i think if i would have been home and i saw those two pip i would have opened the other eggs after that you know i think it's probably safe at that point but anyway and then uh i came out to the incubator the other day and there was a little uh babytail, a southern banded knobtail and their first wheeler eye.

So I got my first wheeler eye. I've hatched Cinctus before, but this was the first time I've hatched wheeler eye. I've got a few more eggs in there from the wheeler eye. So that was exciting. Really cute little things. They're just tiny little knobtails. And then i got some what was it oh i i was sitting at work and i thought i'll check on my spiny-tailed skinks

and so i have a little camera set up facing the all the agurnia cages and i mean by all i mean like three cages so it's not like a huge agurn gurney collection, but, and then, so I'm watching and I see this small little skink moving in the depressa cage. I'm like, holy crap, I have a baby depressa. And so it looked like it was going down the wood and into the water bowl. And I had a fairly good size water bowl in there. Um, and I had almost bought some Stokes eye from Joey Muggleston, you know, a few years back. And when I was driving down to pick up a pair, one of them had drowned in the water bowl. So I'm like, oh crap, you know, it's headed to the water. It's going to fall in and drown and I'm going to lose that baby.

And so I just ran out of work and ran and drove home to check on it, make sure it wasn't in the water bowl. And it wasn't. So I replaced that water bowl with a smaller one so that it couldn't drown in. And so I have a baby depressa, a little pygmy spiny-tailed skink. So pretty exciting. So those, oh, where'd you go? Chuck disappeared. Anyway, so three new species for me this year.

So I'm pretty psyched about that. Otherwise, hatched out a really cool jungle clutch. So this was from my striped line male to a zebra. Now the striped line male doesn't have any zebra or sorry, any striping. So he was produced by a female that had really nice striping and I bred him to a zebra female and you know, all the, had a really nice hatch rate and the there's a few in there that are just crazy this one zebra it's like totally striped and just really cool pattern it's like a almost like a negative stripe so it's got black going down its spine and then bordered by a thin zebra line you know kind of hairline it looks looks really cool. So I'm going to

hold onto that one for a while, see how it develops. But, um, and then clutch of inlands or two clutches of inlands in the last couple of weeks of hatch. So one clutch, I, I got out a few weeks ago and it was, I had kind of a lower hatch rate. I'm not sure what happened with it. And, and some of the animals that took a while, um, you know, uh, I, I think I got a total of six out of that, out of like 15 eggs. So it was kind of a crappy hatch rate, but, uh, there was, um, a, the sex ratio was crazy. I got, uh, I think 5.1, uh, or sorry, 1.5. So five females, one male, and I need to hold back a male. I need more males. So I was like, kind of bummed out. I'm like, Oh man. So then the second clutch

hatched out a hundred percent hatch rate, um, 15, 15, 16 babies. And, and it's like twice as many males as females. So kind of balances out. We've got a pretty even sex ratio from the two clutches, so that's nice. And I'll be able to hold back a male or two. And they look great. I'm really excited to see them shed and see what they look like. But the first clutches started shedding, and they look pretty sweet. So it's tricky with carpets, of course, because they don't hatch out the nicest looking. They kind of grow into their looks.

So just all that good stuff. So I'll have to wait and see how they develop. But I'm happy to hold on to them for a while to see how things go. So not a bad couple weeks. Now it's time to set everything up and get everything going. Um, the first clutch to hatch out, I believe was a clutch of Eastern Stimpsons. And so, um, I got those set up, uh, last week or a couple of weeks ago after they'd all shed and, um, starting feeding trials with them with the, the fun began with baby

anteresia. And then, uh, I'll work on getting all the, uh, carpet set up now. So the, the three clutches, and then, um, I've got two more, um, clutches of anteresia that hatched out as well that I'm waiting on sheds on those, uh, the, uh, Western, uh, Stimpsons pythons, wheat belt Stimpsons, and they're looking really nice. The, there's a lot of that white background color. So I'm, I'm predicting these are going to be stellar. I've got a cut, another clutch from the wheat belts from my stripe pair. So I'm really hoping to see some, some nice stripes in that. So that'll be fun. Uh, yeah, a lot of, a lot of good stuff going

on over here. I guess it makes up for a lot of stuff taken the year off last year when we moved. So nice to see them rebounding and, and, uh, producing this year. So it's really, really fun. Um, I don't think I'm going to get, uh, children's or spotted this year. So this will be the first time in a while that I don't, or pygmies. I'm not sure if I thought my, one of my female pygmies was completely gravid and ready to go. Um, but, uh, it doesn't look to be the case so and you're back you missed all my discussion on all the stuff i got hatched out so oh man i have to go back and listen to the i guess i'll have to re-listen yeah yeah sorry i might have told you on the phone already. Yeah, I feel like I knew, but I missed the collective we knew. Yeah, there you go.

So, yeah, that's what's going on over at Australian Addiction Reptiles. Did you talk about that? Did you get any of your jungles feeding or anything? How's that going? They just barely shed out, so I was just waiting for them to shed out. I need to start setting them up individually. I usually keep the clutch together until they all shed. So I can see which ones I like better. And maybe a little hint for the listener. When I do my clutch numbering, I usually try to pick out the nicest ones first. so the lower numbers are usually either my holdbacks or the nicest ones in my opinion in the clutch and that's not to say i you know i have the best eye or anything yeah i was gonna say that's sometimes that's tough man uh yeah but yeah i do

i do feel like you know if you've if you've seen a couple of nice jungle clutches uh uh color up you you you can do pretty well pretty pretty you you know i almost feel like a noob though it's it's been a little while since i've hatched out many carpets like i kind of took a break from the carpets and focused on the enteresia but so it's kind of weird to have jungle babies again it's kind of exciting right like yeah it almost feels new so i uh i kind of i don't know. You're like Madonna right now. You're Madonna with a new book coming out. Yeah, I guess I needed to refresh my memory on Cardinals.

That was a Like A Virgin reference in case you didn't catch it. Yeah. I do feel touched for the very first time. There you go. I got your reference. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. I got your answers. There you go. Thank you. Thank you.

I know. It's been a while. I feel like I've been away from the mic long enough that maybe I'm – I don't know. Maybe my references aren't hitting anymore. I'm not sure. I don't know. You wonder if some of the younger generation knows. I guess they probably know.

They know. They have to know. They have to know. Although – I don't know any of the younger generation knows i guess they probably know they know they have to know they have to know although i don't know any of the new music like you know yeah i i um yeah i i i've dated myself so many times where i just like bust out a caddyshack reference and everyone like when i was in college and you know like i'm significantly older than the college kids and i bust out like a caddyshack reference and they all looked at me like what the fuck dude and i'm like oh my god no no how can you not know like yeah exactly i'm like are you kidding me go go smoke some weed kids and go watch Caddyshack. Like you guys will die.

But, but maybe not. You know what I mean? I feel like the references don't hit the same anymore. Humor has changed maybe a little. I don't know. We've watched a few shows recently that have been pretty funny. I think Melissa McCarthy always makes me laugh. She's hilarious, but she's in with her husband in the show called God's Favorite Idiot. That one's pretty, pretty funny. Dude, you are, you are, man, you are, you are an apex consumer of multimedia. I feel like, no, no, no, no. You know how Eric is like, I always hear new, new and

interesting music when I ride with Justin. Like that's, I mean, I feel like every time you're, you're always putting out stuff that I've never heard of, but it's probably just the same stuff but i yeah i felt kind of bad but it could have been he was you know he's kind of you know section or cordoned off to the back and yeah in the back seat and it was uh did you quarantine the podfather in the back seat we put podfather in the corner so nobody puts podfather in the corner that's awesome yeah it was uh but it was i don't know i love herping with eric he's just really just fun you know he's always so upbeat and excited and it was fun good stuff it was just a good crew you know the genuineness and the excitement and er is always like just – it's right there. You know what I mean?

Yeah. That's my kind of people. I like that in the moment kind of people. For sure. So, yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Well, we ready to get into this? What is this? This is another clip show. Clip show but just for fun we're gonna

flip the coin so oh you gotta see if my luck's continuing on or if i used it all up in arizona this is a test of the emergency coin flip system if this had been an actual coin flip we would have done a real show and not a clip show there you go well i mean both of us have been pretty swamped at work no we need to get something out and so we thought it'll be fun to talk about some of the and we're we're up past uh we're we're up past a year so we've got to be going on like 55 or so shows so um you know we tried to do a clip show every 10 shows. We're past 50 and Eric and Owen are almost to 500. Yeah, we're toddlers. And they're an order of magnitude.

They're an order of magnitude bigger than us. There you go. As they should be. Yeah. Oh, my stupid dog. He's trying to chime in here. Somebody must be coming over or something. Okay. If you can't hear him, that's good. All right. You ready to call it, sir? Oh, my stupid dog. He's trying to chime in here. Somebody must be coming over or something. Okay.

If you can't hear him, that's good. All right. You ready to call it, sir? Oh, gosh. You're rushing me. Wow. I forgot. Wait.

That's heads. It is. You won it. You got the coin toss. All right. Well, that means you get to talk about our first show or defer to me but so uh episode 31 i guess i as far as my reckoning goes i kind of skipped the clip shows as episodes so you know this is episode 31 by yeah by that count and this was the one on art that we did we had

robinson on so that was that was fun to talk to her and man she's got some cool artwork coming out killing it dude yeah she's killing it yep and she's traveling all over and doing all sorts of shows so it's been fun to kind of keep an eye on her and social media see what she's up to and some of her latest artwork but yeah she just did a william sigh the not too long ago that i saw like just there's one that needs to hang in your oh my god well i would i i might have been tempted but i'm like no no you're broke don't do it so yeah yeah so that was that was fun to talk about art and kind of talk about and i you know i i think um i i there was another artist that i've seen recently that's that does like kind of in the style of the old school like old her book

or like herpetological species descriptions or whatever where they used to paint them you know and so it's kind of in that old school and it's like uh there's one of a spider tail viper eating a bird or something you know he's like striking bird and it shows his spider tail but it's kind of like that old school look to it it's really cool i can't remember the name i i need to look that up i um but i should have done that beforehand but we're gonna focus on adeline's art yes but yeah yes but it was it was i think there is a a need for that and there's some good um outlets I was on the con side of that which kind of sucks but yeah and it's so funny like I hadn't really you know when we were gonna have her on I I mean I was super excited to have

her on just because I'm I'm interested in art I think art has a place in culture and in life. And yeah, why not in reptiles? But it wasn't really until we had her on and that I really just kind of started interacting with her art and how she actually kind of shows her process and how she creates. And I got to see her life. I really realized how amazing having a reptile focused artist in in the community really is right and and you know you you you have the tell hicks um you you know you you see um

you know i i think and they remember when we went to super show there was a there was a guy selling uh art like cornered us and god, his wife was the salesman. Holy shit. Oh, my God. He wasn't going to let us leave there without it. And there was a couple pieces that were good, but the others were not as Adeline quality. There you go.

Yeah. But it just, I guess that whole show, and I guess almost even moreover, when we have guests that push me into places in the reptile community where maybe I never lifted that doormat before or didn't know it was there, I am so struck. And this was definitely one of those episodes where I was just like, man, this is really awesome. This is really cool.

And she's just getting it. You know what I mean? Like, I just, I don't know. I thought a lot of it of her. I thought a lot of, I think a lot of her art. And I just, you know, in trying times that we have in this community, it's good to see people taking their talents

and their passion for reptiles and going out there and getting it you know yeah yeah and i mean it's so it's so exciting to see somebody make that passion you know into turn it into a making a living that's great i mean ah that sounds like a pretty cool uh life to you know travel the herb shows and sell your artwork and get to go see the country and get, you know, it got me excited. Like I, I went out and bought an iPad and an Apple pencil, like to try some of the digital art. It really inspired me. So yeah, that was a, that was really a fun show. I really appreciated that. And I, I think being on the con side, I didn't get to kind of put in my two cents, but I think there's a lot of benefit of, you know, continuing to have art

in science or in, you know, illustration and things like that. You can just do things that you can't do with the, with the camera. So there's a lot of benefits to having art, you know, in herpetology. Well, and I mean, art gives a portrayal of society and it's interesting, you know, I mean, I, you know, it seems like a lot of her art focuses more on the animals and less on, you know, more, more social kind of social commentary, like a lot of art tends to do. But I mean, I guess art is across the board, you know, you get all aspects of art, but, you know, like you had said, like, it is really, it is really cool that, you know, you, you, you see somebody who takes their talent and their love of, of reptiles and goes out there and,

and makes a, you know, carves out a, a, a, you know, a living for themselves doing that. And, and, uh, you know, it's, it, it, it's, it's refreshing because it's, it's like, it's easy to watch somebody be like, Oh, they breed that. I'm going to go breed that. I'll do what they, you know, and it's like, okay, cool. And, and, you know, um, and she's not the only person doing reptile art, but she's definitely the only person I've ever seen doing, doing it her way, you know, doing, you know, um, doing her kind of style and kind of, you know, the media she uses, uh, and, and, um, you know, just the documenting and, and kind of the, the social media aspect of it is, is cool. Really stepping it up. Yeah, definitely. Well, that was, yeah,

I really enjoyed having her on and getting to know her a little bit. So yeah. Thanks again to Adeline. Yeah. Let's move on to the next show cohabitation with Philip Leitz. Oh man. He's a. He's a cool guy. That was a lot of fun to have him on. Is that you, man? Phil! Sorry, that's Eddie Murphy

when he's in the strip club in Beverly Hills Cop 1. They're going to hold up the strip joint and he pretends like he's drunk and he's like, Phil! Is that you, man man phil what's wrong you changed man you changed oh man if you haven't watched it go watch that that's like that's one of my other favorite movies where eddie murphy just kills it in that movie it's hilarious

so anyway back to back to the real phil the mr leeds yes um but i i But I think, so I kind of have a rule that I only look at Instagram like for, you know, natural reptiles in a natural setting. So I don't really follow many herpetoculturalists, but I kind of made an exception for him. So I follow him on. And man, he just puts out some amazing animals, just beautiful, uh, Urimastics and other species, uh, uh, you know, kind of the desert lizards is his niche. And that was really fun. So I think that was a good nipper. It's his nipper.

Gosh, dang it. Yeah. I mean, you went herping with him. Yeah. And then we, I had to tell him about that. I'm like, oh, I guess you're not a listener. He's like, oh, he doesn't know about nipper? What the hell?

I know. It's like, come on, man. I kept waiting for something from him. But yeah, it was pretty funny. But yeah, I explained the whole thing to him. So anyway, yeah, those desert the whole thing to him. So anyway, those desert animals. Mate. Mate.

So yes, Phil, you're right. Phil absolutely crushes it. I mean, the stuff he produces is insane looking. I really need to take him up on that offer to go herping with him and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, and what a cool guy, you know, just very grounded, very hardworking, you know, just has a, just has, just has that ethic of, of, uh, you know, discipline and excellence and, um, you know, very thoughtful guy and, you know, just, just cool, man. I, uh, And has that upbeat, you know, excited nature and he's just like really excited to learn things and

share things. Like he doesn't just kind of, you know, keep it all to himself. He's out there trying to help people figure things out. Yeah. And you know, he, he he he's one of those guys doing, you know, doing Euros really, really, really, really high end game. And he's trying to help other people do that. And it's like, man, that, you know, we always talk about, you know, setting examples like that. And to see people who, you know, who walk, you know, it's easy to talk the path, but it's not always easy to walk the path but it's it's not always easy to walk the path and he's clearly a guy who walks the path uh and and and does it exceptionally well and and so much so that he's helped you know euros um be you know do better people have done better because of him uh in a lot of ways i i talk like i know a lot about euros but just listening to him talk, I would definitely stand by that. You know, I think he definitely has helped a lot of people and is helping establish stuff that people weren't doing so well with before, you know, before he came

along. Yeah. It seems like there's kind of few and far between that have really figured out your mistakes. It seems to have a really nice handle handle on them i remember there was a local guy around here that was trying to make a go with the uromastyx and just ran into all these different troubles and was having trouble getting them established and having them thrive and live long and so i always thought oh man they're difficult but yeah, Phil's really easy to do something at small i'm not gonna say that it's easier to do something difficult at a small scale but to do something difficult at a larger scale is enormously more difficult and unless you've done it people don't't understand. You know what I mean? And he's definitely crushing it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I, I really enjoy the, I mean, I've, I've been a cohabit my whole

herpetological career, it seems. And, you know, I, I really like the idea of keeping animals together, um, letting them kind of figure out their own cycles and rhythms and stuff. I mean, it does make for a challenge, you know, during feeding time. But, you know, keeping them in larger enclosures definitely helps that. And having multiple hide areas and things like that can also improve the situation there. But I've always been a proponent of co-having animals and, you know, pairing up animals. Now, you know, there are some risks in, in regards to disease. If you, if you're keeping stuff together all the time, then

if you have one sick animal, then now you have two sick animals for the most part, you know, unless you have something that's resistant, but anyway, yeah, it's, they can have its challenges as well. But for the most part, I really liked the idea of, of housing animals together. And, and I think it, it works pretty well. Like I don't see my stuff breeding for days on end or anything. I mean, they just get the job done and it's productive and I may never see it or know about it, but you know, I know about it when I see the eggs come. So yeah, I'm, I'm like a kid who got caught by his dad with the pot. I learned it from watching you, Justin. So, um, yeah, I know cohabiting. I definitely picked up cohabiting from you. Uh, and I mean, I, it's been fantastic for me. And, and like you said, I don't

see a lot of breeding behaviors. I just, I just watch for the signs of reproductive progress, and that's what I see. You know what I mean? Yeah. That sometimes can be misleading. But, you know, when the Tracy A went, it was pretty obvious. When the Coastals went, it was pretty obvious. Some animals don't fool you. Some animals do fool you.

Yeah, it's you know, that's the tough part. But but I definitely I definitely think the benefits far outweigh the same cage who smell food, kind of difficult to separate out. I try to pull one animal out when I feed, and sometimes that's a wild bunch evolution because they're both all keyed up. They know they're getting fed, and they're trying to chew on you. Can be a little sketchy, but yeah. It's a little dicey at times. It's a much better method, in my opinion. And I really enjoy doing it that way.

Now, I mean, if you have a commercial business where you've got to worry about which ones pair up for which years. You may not want to leave stuff together all the time. And so I see there's definitely reasons not to cohab and to kind of mix things around. And it sounded like Phil knew guys that cohab your mastics, but he keeps his all individually. Yeah. So, you know, it just depends on the keeper. It depends on your setup. It depends on the situation or what you're trying to accomplish. And, you you know maybe a

lot of people don't want to breed so they're just keeping their animals separately so and and i've you know separated stuff so i wouldn't have to over produce or produce stuff that's being produced you know to by too many people already so that's kind of you know and i do i do separate stuff when i've you know the tracy a when once i kind of figured out how they cycle and like figured them out, it's like, all right, I don't need to have them together from, you know, these months to these months. Cause I'm just going to feed them. And, you know, I, I get like, I've seen it two years in a row and their reproductive cycle was like almost to the day the same. So it's like, yeah, I don't need to like, I don't need to mess with that. You know, I don't need to experiment with that anymore. I know what it is. And,

and so then, you know, you can separate for your convenience and, and, uh, you know, that, that, that's that. But, but, um, but definitely, you know, um, I, I, I am pro cohab, but, but I get, you know, I get why it doesn't make sense, especially in euros where where they can be they can be a little brutal on each other for sure yeah they can beat each other up so yeah that was it was a really good uh discussion and it was fun to have phil and we had him on again later too so yeah i think he he's got all sorts ideas and i'm sure he'll be back for another episode we maybe gotta reach out to him again but yeah he's really all sorts of ideas, and I'm sure he'll be back for another episode. Maybe you ought to reach out to him again. But, yeah, he's really fun to discuss with and have those fights with.

So good times. Yep. Phil is Wang Chung. Yep, yep. He's a Wang Chung tonight. There's another old reference for you, youngins. Chuck's following tonight. Of course. I'm old, dude. All's holding tonight. Of course.

I'm old, dude. All I've got is old references. All right. Next topic, sketchy ethics. This one was kind of a difficult one to do, but it seems like there's a lot of sketchy ethics in the reptile trade. And so you've got to be aware of those and kind of keep an eye out for them and stuff but you know it is what it is i guess what

do you yeah anything to add there i think i can't remember if i was pro or con there but uh i mean obviously people use them and they must work to some extent. And it seems like people are going to buy animals from you, whether you're sketchy or not, if you have the animals they want. You know, if you have something rare or something hard to get. And I mean, we've seen this with certain, you know, importers that can import a species that nobody else seems to be getting. And so people almost are forced to deal with them because that's the only option for certain animal and and you know i i do i i do have to say like um and you know i'm thinking out of a particular person i got a pair of uh uh mangrove monitors from and my mangrove monitors came in they weren't bad um yeah you know they

they they started feeding like i took them to the vet their fecal was clear like it was not i mean did they come in a little rough yeah they're they're you know they're wild caught animals like yeah yeah so it's like so it's kind of like i think it's it's it's kind of uh you kind of got to know what you're getting into right a little bit like but yeah that's sometimes it's it's it's you know when stuff comes in heavily parasitized or or just on death's door you know that's when it's kind of like ah what the you know like yeah why are you sending that on yeah yeah and and and you know i i think i think that's the hardest that's the bad part of of the sketchy business ethic is like hey but but you know you you so like in in america today In America today, we don't think twice when corporations pass costs off to the consumer.

That's almost like to be expected. But when an importer pass risk off right to the consumer, we're like, whoa whoa what the hell like yeah you know so are they supposed to take a sick dying animal and keep it and knowing that it's gonna die or do they give it to you you know and like neither one of those is good like you know what i'm saying like neither one of those is good um and and i can tell you ethically what the right thing to do is for your customers. That's not – there's no like, oh, I don't know. It's a toss-up there. But at the same time, we can't act so shocked when people pass the risk on to the consumer. Is it right?

No, it's not right. I don't think I don't think my power company should do it. I don't think, you know, my clothing manufacturers should do it. I don't think my reptile importer should do it. You know what I mean? But yeah, but they do trick is that whole industry, you know, the, the import of, of live animals, that's already kind of, like you said, kind of a sketchy, sketchy base ground, you know, like you're already starting on a sketchy surface. And so it's really difficult to choose the, you know, to be ethical and to, you know, care about your customers and stuff is probably very time consuming. You're losing a lot of money doing that. And so there's a lot of them are just like, ah, you know what he did. I guess, I guess thinking about it though,

on the other side of things like imported tree monitors and imported Bolini and imported, like imported scrub Pythons, they're fetching big dollars now. Oh, yeah, they are. They went from, you know, I paid $500 for my trio of Tracy A. Not anymore. Yeah, no. Probably at least $500 a piece or more.

At least. At least. I mean, $700, $800, $900 probably wouldn't even be. If they're going for those prices, I don't know how they can justify passing on the risk at that point. And I think that's what I was driving at. At some level, it becomes so obscene that it's like, wait a minute. What are we doing here? Like if you're selling a bowline for 10 grand, that's wild caught. Oh, I'm sorry. Farm bred in big airboats.

You know, is that even acceptable to, to, to have an animal that, that potentially croaks within, you know, a couple of weeks of being received? Like, yeah, I get it. You know, it's live animals anything can happen but come on man like you can't pass that kind of risk on no dude no that not a 10 grand animal that keels over and dies because then they're coming back to you and i and i and i will give credit to some of the of the bull and i um you know resellers that i see or importers that i see is they're

keeping the animal they're they're you know they're establishing it and when they sell it that you know or or they find a buyer for it they send them a quality animal um and and and you know i don't like the way they price but i have to give those people their just dues because they are, you know, they are they are, you know, they're doing a service in that sense of like, for sure, you know, protecting their customer base. But in that sense. And granted, those those prices are a little bit high. But really, I mean, I think we should kind of be pushing for that. You know, I don't think we should be having a disposable pet industry in any way. So, you know, I think good riddance to that sketchy practice. And I mean, it's still around, but with certain

species, it's seems to be going away. And as animals fetch higher prices you need to import fewer and you need to take better care of them you know it's like i i don't know i i kind of think maybe that's that's something that's better in some ways um so as long as they're doing the better care associated with the higher price but maybe that's not always the case yeah and i just i do i definitely feel like you know if you you can look at importers and you and they're an easy oh that's that's a sketchy practice that they do there but really you know it's it's that keeper who buys it who who's well skilled and has the potential to establish that species they need to do work they need to to to work at a high skill level they need to do the hard work to establish that species

and then they need to fill leets it for everybody else so that you know you can tie you can tie that sketchy shit off because now america is making captive bred tree monitors at a much higher rate and they're making captive scrub pythons at a much better rate well maybe you know um yeah i mean you would hope that the imports would be a limited thing you know you'd only need them once in a while to bring in some new bloodlines to people who are well versed in how to keep them and how to establish them. You know, Tracy, you're a great example and you've done really well. And, you know, you're on your way to, you know, keeping the U.S. market supplied with captive bread, you know, in the U.S.

Fingers crossed. Yeah. Well, I mean, you reset the clock a little bit there, changing them up in their cages, you know, and you got gotta stick with what works I guess but you know they probably needed the year or two off anyway so

why not yeah and Shane had a I don't know if you saw Shane's post yeah that's a bummer that sucks man I was like lost his mail it was his mail right did he say he picked up another female or what was that?

Boy, I thought I knew and now you just threw me in and I'm like, I don't know. I thought he lost his female, but maybe I completely, I mean. It seemed like he lost his male and then he had another female that came in or something. So I don't know. I think that is correct. That'd be good. I mean, if he got a new female,

then he could breed it with one of his captive bred animals. Yeah. I'm not sure you guys probably, you probably know. I imagine he held on to some. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

Yeah. So just sucks. That's not something I ever want to see, you know, like, you know, it was just, I think the moral of the story is don't engage in sketchy practices, even if it's successful in the short term or even in the long term.

Don't engage in sketchy practices. Let's do ourselves a favor and be good citizens and do good work and help each other out. All right. Next up, Ven, venomous mentorship with the wolf. Phil, Phil Wolf. What a great guy. Uh, it was a pleasure herping with him, man. He's, he's just same kind of thing. Just really upbeat. Always, you know, excited about stuff, just a wealth of knowledge, what a what a cool guy so that was fun to have him on you know he's really an expert in that um venomous area and um i saw a video from him the other day on like i think it was on facebook or whatever i mean by

the way he put out a really cool video of our trip kind of a summary video of the trip showing the different landscapes and animals that we saw so that was cool was i think it was like seven crotolus in seven days or something like that but what a what a fun guy to herp with and what a pleasure to be around him um but yeah he he knows the venomous really well and i the, the, the video that I saw that I was going to mention was him setting up some new either babies or new imports or something, but he was like, you know, doing everything with a hook and keeping well away from the pointy end and, you know, setting them up and doing it and like not doing things with his hands until it was in place, you know, and he's like, yeah, venomous keeping what a thrill, you know,

it's like, if you do it right, it's pretty boring, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that's the idea, right? Like, yeah, you don't, you do not want an exciting venomous career because those, those can be short, right? Yeah. They tend to end poorly. Yeah, exactly.

You can always call it a venomous keeper of many years because they're usually missing a finger or two or, you know, they have missing digits or. I mean, if Terry Phillip can get bit, anybody can get bit. That's for dang sure. Yeah, that man is a legend. But yeah, so it was good to hear kind of Phil's take on that and to understand that, you know, there are some guys out there who are kind of spreading the wrong information or not really the best mentors. So when picking a mentor to learn about venomous keeping, make sure you pick a good one. You want to learn from El Chapo, not El Crapo. Sorry, that was really bad. That was dad joke bad. Sorry, that was really bad. That was dad joke bad.

That was dad joke. Sorry, it was a long day. And I think, you know, there's not many, many excuses for, you know, learning about people in your area or learning about different venomous keepers or, or even interacting online, you know, with certain keepers. And even if you are limited in your, you know, selection of who, who can give you hours or who's willing to give you hours in your area, you can always interact with others online and kind of discuss the things you're being taught and see if they have, you know, ways of doing it better. So, you know, I don't want to I don't want to like, you know, but when we were talking to Phil, I felt like, you know, he in the examples that he mentioned where he was being taught and he was being taught in the wrong way. I felt like Phil knew that what he was being taught wasn't probably the best way to do it. You know what I mean?

Or or or maybe had some kind of an inclination of like, man, this is kind of sketchy. This is, this is, and I think that's, you know, that's an important part is, is, uh, applying that common sense and saying like, uh, yeah, no, maybe this person isn't the best venomous mentor for me. Uh, and, and if they're the only person around, man, I don't know. You know, like that's a rough spot to be in. And I guess, you know, I live in a big city. I probably have more people around me than I realize who, you know,

probably have a rattlesnake or something um but yeah i i mean you know i just uh it's it's well it's just i guess when we talk about like all this this stuff going on and and going back to the npr chat about um you know florida and the venomous keeping stuff and it's just like you're we're really in a time where we can't afford to be doing dumb stuff you know definitely yeah and and i you know i really appreciate experts like phil coming on the show to kind of you know help us understand these things because i you know i didn't we're idiots yeah Cause I, you know, I didn't, we're idiots. Yeah. We don't know. Yeah. And I kept a couple of rattlesnakes as a kid, but guaranteed I was, for God's sakes, every herb trip, you almost step on one. I mean,

yeah. Um, so yeah, I, I haven't been bit knock on, you know, all the wood in the area, but, um, that's, uh, that's something that, you know, it's the more, the more you're around venomous stuff, the more likely it is. So, you know, of course, keep yourself as far away from the pointy end and use all tools available. And, you know, don't do stupid things. Now, that said, I did tail that coral snake. I had a hook as well. But, yeah, Nipper chewed me out, called me a dirty free handler.

He did. What do you do? so he did yeah he was not happy he's like i can't believe you did that i'm like dude i don't even think the thing could get its mouth around me you know and i had a hook and i would have you know dropped it if it would have swung at me or something but you know you think you know what you're doing until you get bit and then you're like no i'm an idiot i don't know what you're doing until you get bit. And then you're like, no, I'm an idiot. I don't know what I'm doing. Well, that's why they always call it an accident. Because when you started out, you didn't intend for that to happen. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, it was good to hear Phil's take on that.

And, you know, hopefully that was helpful to somebody that's interested in keeping venomous. And, you know, man, seeing those cool rattlesnake species, it's like, ah, I would love to keep some of those. They're just too, too cool, you know, too cool. But yeah, that's something I'll have to do. No, especially after like being around that speck and then, and then all the serastis we found, I'm like, you know, it's easy. It's easy to be like, this isn't a big deal. This isn't a big deal. You know what I mean? Like you're okay. So I use a hook and I'm safe and I, you know,

I keep my distance and like there's just so much thinking that goes into it. And you have to really like everything that you do has to be well thought out. And I, you know, I, I recognize the fact that I'm probably not as well thought out as I, you know. Yeah. They're talking about that on Carpets and Coffee, the last episode. And, you know, that making that mental switch between venomous and non-venomous, you know, because non-venomous, who cares if you get bit? But, you know, one bite from venomous could be because non-venomous who cares if you get bit but you know one bite from venomous

could be turned very turned south very easily so you need to be you know have that mental switch and even have like a dedicated day like i'm only working with venomous i'm not distracting myself with this or that or the other and everything's deliberate everything's well planned out and thought out and thought through and you know's, that can be a challenge, especially in our hectic lives. And it's just like, I don't know. What's his name? He's the, is it Alan? He's, he, he does a YouTube channel, but he's like the, is he the venomous keeper?

But he does, he does, he, he, he, he keeps a lot of venomous in his rooms really crowded and he brings stuff out and he's like jumping on the floor it's really yeah it's it's like it's it's tough to watch you know what i mean like it's just kind of like oh my gosh i'm so worried for this dude right now and i mean viper keeper that's what it was that's what it was and yeah i mean you know he's been doing it a while i i don't keep benefits so i i'm not gonna criticize him but i watch the videos and i'm like oh my gosh i would not have that snake in that cluttered area but i don't know you know what i mean like i'm not that's the that's the problem with a lot of these youtubers that have you know decades of experience behind their belt.

So they make it look easy and make it look like, oh, this is no big deal. Even if they put the warnings up like, oh, it's dangerous and stuff. Still, by their actions and their sketchy practices, they're sending the wrong message. And they can really lead somebody down the wrong path. Like, oh, I want to do that. I want to interact with my venomous snakes like that, you know, but then they get bit and then who's, you know, they're not taking any responsibility. Oh, I had a warning that said, don't do what I'm doing because you know, I know what I'm doing and you don't kind of

thing at the first of my videos, but how often does that stop stupid behavior? And then it can be a legislative issue. So it's just really, you know, I think on the on the MPR chat, they were talking about that guy with the big gauged ears and all the tattoos. It was just free handling his big Western Diamondback hybrid or whatever. Like a ball python, right? Yeah, that's what they say you know and people are sent like people who don't know reptiles are sending that video to reptile people saying what is is this you know is this real is this yeah yeah is this what you guys do you know is this what you do in your spare time i and i always get asked how many snakes that you keep are venomous

how many that are poisonous you know that kind of thing and so and i'm just like none i don't have any venomous snakes and they're like really i'm like why would i do that yeah like yeah i have kids yeah i got you know yeah there there are some very cool venomous reptiles i would love to keep but yeah yeah, it's just the, the risk versus reward is, is difficult to justify in some ways. And I don't have the money. I don't have the money. If I get an event and venomated, that's for sure. And I have, I have stuff get loose.

Like just the other day, I was like, I went over to my, uh, Hosmer, my, uh, Hosmer's, uh, spiny tailed skin cage. And I'm like, ah, I haven't, you know, I haven't seen him out very much basking very often lately. So I lift up the rock and there's one in there. So I lift up the other rock and I, there's just one in the cage. I'm like, there's nowhere else it could be. It's gone. Like, where did it go? And when did it go? When did it get out? You know? And I do remember like I left the, I didn't latch the cage correctly. Like the little spring locked in. Yeah. And so,

you know, I came out there and the cage was open, but I thought I saw both of them in there. So I just closed the door. I'm like, they don't try to get out. They're just going to hang out. That's what I mean.

I mind tricked you, dude. It was like, yeah. All of a sudden I'm like freaking out because i've got a loose you know hosmer i was in the room and so i'm looking everywhere and and then finally you know i push over my wheel cart and there's a shed skin right there and so i'm like okay she's got to be somewhat and i look and she's in the rack you you know, in one of the racks, like behind a tub on the heat.

I'm like, oh, good. She's still alive. And so I got her back in the cage. And so she's been back in there eating and doing her thing. But that's what I like about scrubs and carpets is you lose one. You just look up and they're up there somewhere. Like someone usually starts knocked off a shelf. They give you like a path that they went and they found a spot up high to hide.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. So yeah, that would make me a little nervous if I get venomous cause you know, I do stupid things like leave a cage open and don't, don't think about it, you know?

So yeah, be, be mindful and be safe if you're going to work with venomous. And learn from somebody like Phil who knows what they're doing. Phil! Takes all precautions. Thanks again, Mr. Wolf of Wheeler Eye. Yeah.

We need to have him on again. Yeah. I'm ready. I know you got your Phil of Phil, but I didn't get my fill of fill. My fillet of fill? I'm still hungry like the wolf. Oh, man. You got some good ones, Steven.

All right. Another fun guest show, Power Feeding with Nick Mutton and Casey Cannon. This was a good episode. That was a fun one. Yeah. And again, I mean, yeah,

Nick and, uh, Nick is a wealth of information. Casey as well. I really like Casey. Casey brought it on that episode. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

I, I, I, I personally don't, I don't think that, you know, uh, you can argue with Casey's, uh, I, I personally don't, I don't think that, you know, uh, you can argue with Casey's, uh, I mean. Yeah.

Some of the points you brought up were very solid and you really couldn't refute them too easily. And I, and I actually got some feedbacks from some of the listeners that were like, oh, that was a great episode. And I really, you know, I think, uh, I was uh i was thinking oh you know how can you defend power feeding then all of a sudden casey did it and you know i was like oh okay that's how you defend it so yeah casey kind of got the well and i think and he did it against the guy who you know by all by all of his own admissions doesn't feed very much stuff at all like he's a mister keep it small keep it and you know that's a strategy and i mean we you know we've talked about we've talked about the

golden spoon hypothesis you know uh probably ad nauseum on this show so you know um i mean i think it was just a great a great debate of of that paper and and, and, uh, that idea. And, um, yeah, you know, it was, it was some good stuff all around and I, you know, it's really, uh, I, I like to, I like to think things through, you know, think things, uh, you know, it's not always a simple yes or no. And again, that's the beauty of this podcast is we can see things from different angles, consider things you may not have ever considered or thought about. And so it's really good to hear people say, yeah, I'm, I'm changing my view on this a little bit because am I going to, you know, chain feed my, my snake so I can get it to breeder size in 16 months? No, but am I going to, you know, maybe feed a juvenile more

than I'm feeding my adults? Sure. You know, or, or cycle feed or something because I think people would be fairly shocked at how I feed my Tracy. I, when, when I'm feeding them, when I'm not feeding them, people would be shocked at how I don't feed my Tracy. You know what I mean? Like, but, but they get, uh, they definitely get a prolonged period of metabolic rest where they're not being fed. But they definitely get a workout, and they put that weight on. And by the time these animals are ready for food, the mom would be off the eggs. My male looks very skinny and very hungry right now. But he was huge rolling into this past season.

So, you know. Yeah, that's the way it goes. So I really appreciated the insights from those guys. And, again, it's hard to get a better guess than those two. And they did a really good job with the topic. And Nick even let Casey have a word or two in there once well i feel like i might have had to be like casey did you have anything to say on this you know maybe once or twice maybe once maybe yeah you, you gotta be a good host, you know? Um, and I, I, uh, I'm,

I'm looking forward to Nick's new podcast with, uh, Lucas. So that should be fun. And, uh, curious to hear that. I heard them announce that on, uh, really pythons, uh, a bit back. And so, yeah, looking forward to that should be good to hear. Um oh speaking of nick we we uh approved the blue line so the book should be off to the printers now and we should have books with you know in the next month or two so pretty exciting can't wait to have that thing in my hand it's gonna gonna be good all right we on to the next one let's go on to the this i was just thinking about when you're really going to get the book in my hands yeah i know yeah it'll it might take a little bit but rest assured you'll be one of the first to get ones progress is progress

you're on the podcast with me i'll'll give you top billing. I just need my copy first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, on to the next one. Reptile Choices with the man, the myth, the legend, Ron St. Pierre. Who, buddy? I mean, I'm just still in awe of that guy. Yeah.

All the experiences he has, all the skill and herping and all the knowledge and just what a cool guy he is. I mean, so many of the kind of that group of herpers that have been around for a while and know their stuff, they're not coming on podcasts and chatting with us. They're off being hermits or hiding out from the world. And it's like Ron's out there in the forefront and talking to people. And, and he's said really nice things about our podcast. Just what an all around class. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's definitely my, he's definitely my flex. A dude. I, I, you know, just everything he says, I'm like, ah,

we would totally hang out and have fun. Yeah. Um, there we go. We need to make a road trip. Yeah. Dude, I'm telling you, like that was some no bullshit committal for me, man. And you know, you know how non-committal I can be sometimes. Let's make it happen in the spring or something.

Yeah. Get something going for the right time of year and go out and do some herping with Ron. That'd be fantastic. Dope. Record a show or two or two from the field with Ron. That would be fantastic. Record a show or two from the field. Yeah. That would be cool. But, yeah, I really like this topic.

And I remember having a conversation with Terry Phillip back in the day and hearing some of the stories, you know, working in a zoo and trying to figure out different species and getting them established and reproducing and things. And just some of the things, like, they just wouldn't make good choices. You know, they bask when they shouldn't be basking or, you know, they freeze to death because they didn't have, you know, so I think they have to understand their environment. And, um, and, you know, like Ron said, you know, these, these, uh, keeping things outdoors is, can be very challenging and, uh, they, they often will understand, you know, how to make very straightforward but effective methods for

helping them you know in the outside environment to be to have safe choices you know yeah yeah and his uh screwed down deck you know what they can go under and kind of thermoregulate from throwing bags of mulch on top so that it's like yeah that mulch goes in there but i use it as an insulated layer like just bagged up like ah that makes total sense that's a great idea you know very very no nonsense you know you know not a no i don't want to say no frills but you know it's just very like you know simplistic yet highly effective yeah and i mean he's got some pretty cool innovations in those pages for sure i didn't mean it's not you know but but no yeah no but um you know he's using you know when he was talking about the roaches.

I love that story. I mean, that's like he's using science-based nature to really, really screw down things that work really well. Yeah. Oak leaves in his yard, the sand, you know, from his yard, the, the shade and the sun from his yard, you know, everything's just, he's, he's really thinking it through. And, and, you know, like he said, he's learned from hard experience too, where, you know, you don't realize like, oh, this time of year, the sun's in the right place, but, you know, in a few months, that giant tree right there is going to shade it and make it very difficult for that animal to get you know the thermal regulation

and things so i think he you know he really did a good job of of you know bringing that point across and and oh man what a just wealth of knowledge and just just a cool guy i really talking with him you know he he his stories and his personality he he like can tell a great story but get your gears turning at the same time and i just i appreciate people with that level of like man you're personable you're you know you're fun like you have great stories uh and man my head was spinning after I got to talk to him. I'm still spinning from his talk about the dew point and all that kind of talk. That's just such cool observations.

It makes so much sense. And yeah, great things we need to incorporate into herpetoculture. And I've been doing a lot of different things because of that, you know, I, I'm not sure how much of a benefit because I don't have a control group where I'm not doing that or, you know, doing the things that how I used to do it, but so, you know, but just cool ideas and cool topics. And I think, yeah, should, should make a lot of great strides in, in the reptile and herpetoculture in general so definitely what a what a legend man what a legend my man yep we we need to have him back on again we've had him since that yeah and we'll hopefully have him on again if we can find a worthy topic for the king so yep um next was

reptile stress and uh i i think this was was an interesting topic for sure. And, you know be good to revisit that one. I think it was Bill Bradley was talking about some ideas for a guest or for a future show. We need to take him up on that. Speaking of Bill, we ought to have him back on too.

I know, right? We've had some really good guests on here. He's got his own podcast and I enjoy listening to his stuff. But yeah, we've had some really good guests on it i mean he's got his own podcast and you know i enjoy listening to his stuff and so it's uh but yeah it'd be fun to have him back on but yeah reptile stress you know fun to talk about but limited knowledge base yeah yeah for us yeah and i mean i i think it's you know it is kind of tough and you know i think like especially you know from my experience of tracy

and stuff animals just falling over dead and you're kind of like what what what was that about you know and yeah the thing we know about a lot of somalia is that they stress easy they're high strung they stress easy so people are taking it as a as a stress issue and i tend to think it probably has something to do with it. I think there's probably multiple things going on there. But certainly stress can be bad. But man, it's hard for me. I think stress has a place.

I think resource stress can cue animals to do lots of things. Uh, you know, I, I, it's hard for me to believe that all stress is bad stress. I think we see stress in our lives and, you know, and, and maybe the, the, the stress we see in our lives is maybe anthropomorphizing a little bit for, for sure. Yeah, definitely. little bit for for sure yeah definitely but i think you know if if if you can see how stress affects humans and and and you can say like okay stress doesn't always affect me in a negative way why you know like why couldn't that be true for reptiles right so to me like maybe not anthropomorphizing but just saying like,

that's potentially, you know, a good premise that, that not all stress is bad stress. I guarantee that males battling each other for females is a very stressful event. Definitely. Takes a lot out of them, but a lot of, a lot of species still do that and it, and it plays a very important role. So, yeah yeah yeah and and i think it was a good kind of primer to think about it and to you know kind of dip your toes in the water even though we didn't have maybe a scientific background in that regard we do have some practical experience with that so you know it's a good start hopefully we can maybe flesh that topic out some more and i think this

show is is designed to do that to revisit some of these topics and kind of see it from a different angle or get some different input or hear from an expert in the area. So, you know, definitely something we could revisit in a few days. I mean, I think if we just had somebody who could talk about the hormonal effects of stress on reptiles, we really would be a lot further along than us two dumbasses just talking about stress and reptiles then how do we debate and that's the question but yeah there um there's a professor we don't we we lose we lose with grace and humility like we do so well when people know what they're talking about there you go yeah so anyway yeah something we can visit but there is a professor at our university that she specializes in kind of – she's done some studies on reptilian stress.

Nice. I like this already. Disease and things like that. So, yeah, immune system function. Hit her up, dude. What are you doing? What are you doing? I know.

I haven't seen her for a couple of years with the pandemic and stuff. So, and you know, I, I, I'm not, I've been on a couple of committees with her and, you know,

have seen her in meetings or here speak here and there, but I haven't really, I don't really have that close of relationship or she's probably in Ecuador and the Galapagos studying, you know, lizards there, some or grand Cayman or something, looking at the island iguanas or something but anyway

I'll have to get her on down the road if she'll be willing to come on alright next was Taxonomy with Phil and Casey this was kind of a fun more of a funny background on that one but yeah Phil Wolf and Casey Cannon came back on

we talked about them a couple minutes ago and they're back on already. So I guess they were having a late-night discussion on taxonomy. And Casey thought it was pretty BS, and Phil was defending it. And so they're like, hey, why don't we go on Reptile Fight Club? So we got them on, I think, that same day or same – Yeah, that was one of the easiest bookings I think we'd had for two guys. It was like right on the heels of like, Hey guys,

we have this idea. Okay. Tomorrow. Yeah. We do have some no nonsense guests and those two are definitely no nonsense. Yes. So, and it was, it was a fun show. And then, you know, I mean, taxonomy definitely has a place, but it's got its failings hey man rumors chill dude chill dude oh she's so wound up right now yeah so i mean it is fun to talk about taxonomy even though none of us are really experts in the area. So, um, I, I, I still, yeah, I still have my, my issues with some of these, uh, some of the papers and things or information that's put out

there, but, uh, what do you do? I mean, I guess we can, uh, debate it or, or, you know, rag on some of the things we don't like, but, uh, you know, it is what it is. And it's been that way. And I don't see it changing too much. But I will say that, you know, if you don't have to agree with a published paper, you can disagree with it. That's the beauty of science. There's nothing set in stone. Just because somebody publishes a paper doesn't mean you have to adopt that or you have to say this is how it is. I mean, and that's the big difficulty in herpetological publications is that there's not a lot of funding. So usually it's just one paper, kind of one and done.

And unless somebody feels really strongly against something that's been published, it's just going to go, you know, it's just going to be the new, uh, the new thing. So anyway, that was, uh, what Justin is saying translated is the children's paper is crap. And I don't know that it's all crap, but I don't agree that, uh, all of Stimson eyes should be sunk into the children. I, and, and, And, you know, that whole thing was very interesting with people who, you know, maybe or I don't want to say do, but probably should recognize the problems with that paper who seem to just kind of, you know, recognize the paper as semi-valid, even if they don't maybe fully agree. And, and what does that

mean? You know, how, how does that shake out? It, it, it is kind of interesting and taxonomy is kind of a, you know, a funny nut. It's a, it's a strange animal for sure. And yeah, I mean, what can you do? And I, I guess, you know, herpetoculturalists have really had a long history of kind of ignoring some of that and we still call chondros chondros even though they're morelia viridis and not chondropython viridis or azuria yeah but but you know if we if we stuck to the taxonomical nomenclature would taxonomists take herpetoculturalists more seriously anyway? No, not really. So just call it a chondropython because that's what you, you know, you know what I mean? Like it all boils down to communication. If you know what each other is talking about. And I mean, if you're out there using scientific link, you know, uh, nomenclature and nobody knows

what species you're talking about like sometimes when people get into you know arachnids or something they'll use scientific names and i have no clue what they're talking about you know it's like whoa whoa whoa you dial that mumbo jumbo back come on jive turkey um so yeah it's it's it can be a challenging topic but you but I thought it was a fun debate between Phil and Casey. Yeah, definitely. And had a good time with those guys on again. And yeah, they do come up with some really cool ideas. I enjoy listening to Snakes and Stogies or some of the other shows that are on the other network, network that shall not be named.

But, you know, we enjoy the collaboration with that group as well. So, yeah, I really enjoy it. The collaboration, the collaboration. The collaboration, the collaboration. I want to have Justin Smith on again. I really like his ideas. He has a fun way of thinking about things too he did take uh take uh some i wouldn't say offense but he was he was debating

the use of schmitty tears scale so he's like i mean he's like i finished the hike and it wasn't about finishing the hike just no no listen it was about complaining about the hike while you were on the hike no no do it or don't do it but don't whine about it no naval aviator ever gave himself his own call sign you get named your call sign and it's usually because of something you fucking did right and guess what everyone's calling you you're by your cosign whether you like it or not so that was i i still enjoy that and and nipper niche had a very no no you gotta use it in context you just can't call nipper niche when you're talking about nipper you gotta be talking about niches to call it nipper

and he had a whole like ranking like one through five of the amount of humidity tears based on you know like millennials on a hike or something it was pretty funny so i'm now i just want to call him the artist artist formerly known as as as niche yeah all right next up on the list was breeding for localities i think this is a fun topic yeah i like it and it's it's kind of a an ever-raging debate among carpet python fans you know like you know i've i really feel like i've settled down with this and uh i think you can take your locality and shove it right in your butt like i i don't i don't i mean you know dirty morph maker well no it's not about being a morph maker now now stop it now stop it that you know, I like my Western blackheads. I'm not breeding them to those.

Sure. Well, Oh my gosh. This thing. He agrees. He's like, don't do it. Don't breed a Western to an Eastern.

No, I, I mean, I, I get, I get it. It's all snakes in boxes. It's all.

Yeah. Sorry. It's all snakes in boxes. So it has no bearing on anything really and and some people are gonna read localities and some people are gonna care yo yakupori depot is a road it's not a place it's a road yeah so how long is that road i have no idea i have no idea i still couldn't find it i they said it was kind of outside of brisbane but then i'd have to go i'd have to go back because i was given i was given our hyper a bit of a a poking you know where it was like between two two two two towns and so i took like half of each town and merged it into one word and said,

we should call it this, you know? And he didn't like that at all. Uh, and I'm just like, well, it's all made. I mean, it's like, so it's, it's, it's a locality based on a road. Like. What? Hey, you got all sorts of localities like that. I mean, great. But localities are all roads you know yeah yeah or mountain ranges or you know or road intersections or you know things like that so and i guess i guess coming from a guy who's like carpets travel long distances is that how valid is that yeah i mean do they just travel along that road do you have any indication on that? I don't know.

If I found something within 20 miles on the same road, I'd probably think, they might have met up. Are you saying that Mr. Iper's assertion is bullocks? I just wanted to use that word. I don't really mean that. Good use of the word. Thank you. It's like in your Fight Club bingo.

Yeah. Crack stay in bollocks. I mean, that would be a difficult square to fill on most episodes. Word. This one, you got it. You got it on this one. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I like localities.

I like trying to keep things as, you know, locality specific as possible. But I understand their difficulties with that. And there's the and, you know, people try to make certain things probably more than they need to be. But I don't know. of a sudden you're splitting species if you're breeding like a uh gyapura green tree with the with the um aru green tree all of a sudden you've got a hybrid once they separate the species you know so locality at least keeps you within the same species for the most part the gypu yeah the gypu or the what do they call the bia b a ruby x yeah the ruby x yeah yeah that's a good one those hybrids or ruby x or hybrids so you know i don't know it is what it is they're snakes in boxes yeah i mean i just i do think that locality has a place in naming something. Sure. When you say Brisbane coastal, to Americans, we know what that means, right? We understand what that is. And so when you say, oh, this is the – even if you didn't keep that coastal bred to, quote, unquote, Brisbane locality lines, you forever understand what the Brisbane locale is

until we find another, you know, locality Brisbane brought in, you know, and then, and then you're kind of like, Oh wait, what? Wait, there's two lines of locality Brisbane. Oh, I don't get that. Right. Like, right like so so for us when it's nice and simple right yeah it's a name that helps identify something that we recognize but yeah in the way that it's like oh this is you know like well it's yeah the the when we simplify it and say this is what it looks like for example the gelatin jungles like yeah you know there's those really cool kind of gray and black or white and black examples which they're like that's what people think of yeah that's what you've seen yeah but when you go there

gene pool that's available in the u.s or europe or whatever but yeah if you go there that's 10 percent of the population. Exactly. The rest look, you know, and we've actually got a cool panel in the book, a figure that's got six different, you know, little pictures of gelatin locality jungles that are all different looks to them and all, you know,

so you can see the diversity. And I think when the book comes out, it will do a lot of justice to reinforce kind of what I'm saying here. Yeah. Is that locality has its place, but don't get it messed up with subspecies appearance or don't make broad generalizations about it because there's stuff that crosses subspecies that you wouldn't guess is the subspecies it is right like they look so crazy um yeah well brisbane brisbane coastles are probably a fantastic example that you have a huge range and i would say in that chapter in the

book most of the individuals that we have photographs in the wild of are from around the greater Brisbane area. You know, they're concentrated in that region because so many people live there. So many people interact with them, see them in their yard, see them in there, you know, down the road from their house on the street or whatever. Pull them off the road, get a picture in a tree. There's a picture for the book, you know. So there's a huge variety and look to those. So when you think of Brisbane coastals, I mean, there's no one look that's a Brisbane coastal.

They range, you know, from a hypo looking thing to, you know, black, reds to the silver kind of peppery looking coastals. Like, I mean, they have, and that's the icing on the cake for me, man. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's what going over to Australia does for you. You get over there and you see, oh, I'm finding something that doesn't fit my idea of what it should look like. You know, the Mount Glorious coastal carpet that I found looked almost like a jungle, you know, black and yellow and banded and just looked really jungly.

But it was not a jungle and it was from near Brisbane, you know, kind of that area. But, you know, when you are heard that, you know, jungles are rainforest carpets, you know, you're like, oh, well, then I guess when I see it like that, that makes sense, right? So, you know, when you see it over there and you see it in context and in gene flow around other stuff, you like oh okay i get that yeah now now when you're 20 miles up in and you're in a kind of more of a grassland area with with you know sparse trees and all of a sudden they look like a typical coastal you're like okay so it is an adapt adaptation to a jungle or a forest or a grassland or whatever you know know, so. Yeah. You can see that, you can see it and sit you, it makes more sense. Yeah, exactly. And that's, you know, I think in herpetoculture, we get, we have such limited gene pools and we have such limited variety that we think this is how it has to look or else it's not that, you know, we can say, oh, and I saw something recently,

somebody posted a picture of a green, a wild green tree python from the iron range. And typically they have that vertebral stripe of the individual, you know, white scales. This one had very little, if any at all. And they're all, that can't be, you know, I'm taking a picture of it in the iron range. It's an iron, you know, that kind of thing. So, oh, wow. Look at, you know, It's an iron range. That kind of thing. So, oh, wow. Look at it. There's no white stripe.

So, yeah, there is variability. And so, yeah, I think that's the downside of breeding for localities is we get that idea. This is the look. It perpetuates. It definitely perpetuates a mindset. And it's no problem for Aussies, right? Because, one, they're like, yeah, okay, locality. I mean, they can't just go out and catch something.

Well, I get that. But they can also go out and herp and see like, oh, mate, these Americans don't understand what they're talking about. They don't see the variation. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They see it. They definitely see the variation. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. They see, they definitely see the variability and we, we look at our captive populations as like an example and it's not,

it's not, it's not a true representation. And I think they look at us and kind of laugh and say, these guys don't know what they're talking about. And I get that. I mean, you know, it's, it's not, I don't, I don't always want to say it's a fair assessment, but, but they're, you know, their, their point is taken. And, and I mean, we, of course we're focusing on carpets cause we like carpets and there's a carpet book coming out, but that was one of the cool advancements on the book is that we took the range maps and, and took all the pictures in the, in the species, you know, species, natural history chapters or whatever you want to call them. And for each of the figures, there's a corresponding number on the map to show where that individual was found. And so, you know, you kind of see the diversity across their distribution.

Now, some are more concentrated than others. And we have a lot of individuals like diamond pythons from near Sydney, but we have very few further, you know, down South in their range because there's just less people down there and not as many people taking pictures of diamond pythons apparently. But, you know, that kind of, I really like the idea of the, you know, the range maps and seeing where things come from and kind of what looks are in, in the population. So good, good topic. It's always gets our, it always gets our ire up on, on the discussion. So that was a fun, fun discussion. And then the final topic for tonight is a mental health. And I think this was a, you know, a needed discussion, You know, people need to be aware of their mental health and keep that in mind, especially when you're keeping something else that's alive.

You've got to be aware of your own mental health, because if you're not taking care of yourself, you're not going to take care of another animal very well either. So, you know, it's a real thing. And it's just like any other medical condition. If you're having those issues, then get it checked out, you know, get professional help. There's no shame. And I think that's a nice thing about current times is that stigma and shame of depression or, you know, anxiety is going away. Now, maybe the pendulum swinging a little bit the other way and people are saying, oh, I can't do that because I have anxiety or depression. And they're using it more as an excuse or a crutch, but, you know, be aware of your own mental health, especially if there's another animal on the line.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, yeah, bottom line is everybody experiences, uh, some sort of a mental crisis in their life. Uh, I don't think any human gets away from life unscathed from, from mental illness of some form or another. So, you know, I mean, it's not a question of if it's when, and, and if you own, you know, just like if you own dogs or cats, or, I mean, you, you know, you have an obligation to the animals that are under your care. And, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, plan in good times for what you're going to do in bad times. And, you know, obviously people fall apart and, you know, there's an adage about best laid plans but um you know kind of you know make

sure you're doing trying to do your best um yeah and sometimes you know that are the animals that we enjoy um can help us through those times you know you can kind of throw yourself into it and focus on your animals when you may not be in the best spot. And, and that kind of helps you get back into it because you're, you know, you, you get some joy and enjoyment out of, out of the reptiles. Not to say that external things can necessarily help all, you know, these, uh, uh, mental health issues, but, uh, you know, definitely, uh, keeping animals and interacting with nature and going out. She's telling us to wrap it up. This is, I think might be one of our longest shows

we're going on a minute 50 here. So hopefully we still have some of you out there listening, but, uh, you know, we, we, uh, definitely appreciate all our guests and, and have had a blast doing these shows and, and hopefully you've gotten something out of the discussions we're having. If you have any new insights or see something from a different angle, hit us up and we'll get you on the show. We, we're in, you know, trying to round up some people that come on the show and give us some more content. So let us know if you're interested, reach out to Chuck or myself and, and we'll try to schedule you in and get you, get you on. Uh, if you've got a good topic, you got to bring the goods, none of this weak sauce in here. That's right.

We don't do weak sauce. Well, we do do weak sauce once in a while. It's, it's good weak sauce in here. That's right. We don't do weak sauce. Well, we do do weak sauce once in a while. It's good weak sauce though. It's like, it's like the sauce they put on the In-N-Out burger. It's good. Yeah. It's good. It's like American salsa, you know? Yeah. It's like, they say, do you want extra hot? And you say, sure. And then you get, and you're like, this is not extra hot. This is American extra. Yeah. All right. Well, my friend,

thank you for being here and doing this. I know you've had a rough work week and it's been pretty brutal. Yeah. Things will settle down a little bit, but yeah, we'll, we'll get back together soon and get another, uh, hopefully you'll be able to catch us again next week for another Reptile Fight Club.

But thanks for listening, and we'll catch you again later. Until then, it's the crumpets, Nish. The crumpets. Thank you. Outro Music