Reptile Fight Club - Herping One Area Repetitively or New Spots?

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

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Hey, this is Zach. And I'm Clintz, and we wanted to thank Exotera for sponsoring this episode of Calubrid and Calubroid Radio. Exotera is the industry leader in glass terrarium enclosures, and we are a big fan of getting to see the species we work with, both at home and at the universe. We utilize Exotera caging here at Metazotics, and in addition to top-quality terrariums, Exotera, offers an array of heating options, lighting, supplements, decor, and truthfully, anything needed or wanted when keeping reptiles. Thank you, Exotera, for supporting Caliburit and Calubroid Radio. Man, it makes me think we need to get some sponsors. All right, well, welcome to Reptile Fight Club.

Thanks for joining us. My name is Justin Jolander. I'm your host this evening, along with me, my co-host, Rob Stone. How's it going? it's going great good gotta love it yeah

uh well things are uh where's our buttons power lifting gloves commercial that's what i know that's what we need to need to get the sponsors for our podcast going mutton power lifting gloves i think we had a

short uh sponsorship by um what are those gusher the chusher's yep chuck chuck got the gushers folks but when he left they left with him so Yeah, no more gusher money.

Darn it. Well, yeah. Here we are. Not as cool as Cluberton, clobroid radio with their intro video. I listened to a couple of their episodes. It was, yeah, they do a good job. Go listen to them. I like it.

Yeah. Yep. Those guys are great. It was fun to hurt with them in California as well. So got to know them a little better. But, yeah, good people. Um, yeah, well, back from, uh, ever of this. Yeah. Yeah. I had travel, but not for herping. New York City. You know, the, uh, urban New York City. That was interesting. New York City. New York City. Yeah. There's old pace commercials. I kept thinking about it. Um, but yeah, kind of first time properly in the city. Um, that was interesting. Put in context to a lot of the terms and names that we hear culturally, right? It's so ubiquitous within our culture that, um, that, um, um, getting a much greater appreciation for what those things mean and what that looks like and all that.

Frankly, it was struck as very safe, easy to get around, wasn't problematic, you know, kind of village mouse goes to the city, but it, you know, still turned out all right for us. So, yeah, it was all good, but no reptiles turned up in, in Central Park. Oh, that's a bummer. Yeah, I was going to ask if you got to Herb Central Park. Well, we went to Central Park, but. No red-air sliders in the ponds? Not that I saw.

I'm sure they're there. Yeah. Great. Where can you go without seeing a red or it's lighter, right? Yeah. So we went out to Texas to the Texas Carpet Fest. So Michael did a good job putting that on. And it was really well attended.

There were probably 100 people there. But of course, I went a little early to get some herping in. And Jordan Parr was nice enough to pick me up from the airport, which incidentally, I found out that he had driven about a, I think a 10, 10-and-a-half-hour drive to go Herp West, Texas, meet up with Casey Lazzick and Jeff out there. So, yeah, Casey and Jeff were making their way across like Arizona and into Texas. And so Jordan drove out there for basically two nights of herping and then drove back to pick me up. And so he'd driven like 2,000 miles just in, you know, a couple, like 48 hours or less.

And then we turned around and drove back west again. And so it was kind of crazy. But I was really appreciative of him. And he's pretty good at driving and staying awake and doing the miles. So, you know, he's – but, yeah, really nice of him to make that happen. and kind of cart me around. Of course, we did the obligatory stop at Buckees and got to experience the whole Texas Buckees thing,

which is pretty impressive. It was pretty good stuff and got some good food and some jerky and other supplies for the trip. They had a pretty poor selection of diaducter pepper, unfortunately. But, you know, what do you do? So we made our way west, went out looking for, looking on the cuts for whatever we could find there. Of course, probably not the best time of year for herping in general

and specifically for like gray bands. Alternate usually are more a springtime animal rather than, you know, I mean, it's possible we could have found something. And we thought it was just going to be me and Jordan, but then Casey and Jeff said, hey, we're going to come out and join you. So it was really cool to, yeah, herb with Casey. And to meet Jeff, he's a great guy, really nice guy. So herping with them was a treat.

We spent more time, like, just turn off the headlamps and chatting and looking at stars and, you know, telling swapping stories and stuff. Especially a little bit out of season, right? Yeah. You know, where you weren't necessarily thinking, yeah, this is going to be great. Well, you still turn some stuff up, though. Yeah. So we were walking the cuts and, you know, lots of cool spiders.

And Jordan's really into spiders lately. He has a pet spider at one of the cuts where it's in. under the same rock every time he goes there so he's you know he refers to it as his you know pet spider and it's pretty cool um and it was there under the rock both awesome there so pretty crazy um so we yeah we walk the cuts and and there were these little oh now i got to look up the name but there are these little cactus and they almost look like rocks like they're just i think they're called button cactus some of them were fruiting so that was kind of cool they had these little red filaments that kind of came out of the middle of them, you know, but just looked like a rock with some red, you know, something stuck to it.

Really crazy. Like I wouldn't even have, like, we walked through there and I didn't notice them. And so, and he was telling me about, oh, there's these little button cactus, you know, and like, I'm like, oh, I don't think I've seen those, you know. And then he said, oh, you know, we got to the end of the cut. And he's like, oh, let me, let me show you these cactus. And so we walk over and, you know, we're looking at the cacti. And then all of a sudden, he's like, oh, a lepidus. And there was a modeled rock rattlesnake crawling through the button cactus, you know, so it's a good thing we went back to see the cactus or we would have missed the, you know, the rattles. Yeah, absolutely. So was that on the top of the cut? It was events, but that was down near the road, like maybe.

Oh, near the road. Yeah, just off the road. So it was heading up, you know, up into the cut or whatever. And we didn't see it on the road, but that's, you know, we weren't staring at the road too often. And it's kind of funny because we were just talking, you know, in that area. So it could have crawled right behind us and we wouldn't have known any better, you know. So it was, yeah, I was fortunate that we have other interests other than reptiles. And, you know, looking at cactus was something we did because otherwise we probably would have missed it.

It was kind of interesting because I did that thing where, you know, we took photographs and everything. And then I walked away. And then I think somebody had like, oh, I think I left the hook there. I went back and the hook wasn't there, but I was like, maybe I'll try to see if I can find that rattlesnake again. You know, I looked. Last place I saw it and all around, I could not locate it. You know, it was just, you know, undercover somewhere or just kind of dipped. So it's kind of funny, you know, if you really do need to just time it right where they're out on the crawl and you're in the right spot and they're in the right spot or else you just might not see it.

So it's kind of cool. So we did that that night and stayed out, you know, for quite a while. It was really nice time until we were all pretty tired. And obviously, poor Jordan, he'd been driving so much. So he was understandably beat, but he was probably wanting to stay out more. He's like, it was kind of that torn between hanging out and chatting and like, hey, we should be walking the cuts more or something. Let's talk while we walk or something. But he was, you know, we all just kind of let it happen.

happened and saw a few more i was thinking from his pictures i was wondering if maybe that was where your story was going around the cactus because i think in his picture especially you can kind of see what you were describing of like a small cactus with a red filament type flower you know i was thinking yeah i wonder if this is where he's going with this that's great exactly yeah so you'll see it in jordan's photos i i've got a couple photos with it in the background or in the foreground as well. And seriously, like, you, you know, you kind of have to pay attention to see that it's a cactus and not a rock and some, at least the ones that don't have the, the fruits on them, you know. But it was kind of cool, really mini cactus, you know. And then if you look really cool,

like if you zoom in, you can see their little interlocking spines and stuff, you know, I don't think if you touched them. I think they were rigid spines because I touched one. It didn't like poke me or anything, but you could feel like the rigid spines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of cool. There were a lot of neat cacti there in that area too, you know. I guess that's just Texas has some cool stuff. So yeah, we went and the next morning we went out looking for indigo's and it had rained a little bit and the sun was out, you know, so it was like great conditions for looking for indigo's. And as we get More into Fall and Winter, right? That's more the time that they're active as big dark snakes, right?

They have to get, you see them less in the summer because they're so presumably either if they're up and active, then they're just so quick to do what they need to do and then they're back on the ground. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, winter's probably the better time to find them. It's just like that's the only thing you're really going to be finding is those guys. And there's still a challenge to, you know, see. I still haven't seen any of them. Right.

my jelly well i don't know you know it's it's one of those things but uh so yeah we're we're going along and and jordan spotted this giant i mean it looked like a python had crossed the road he took a picture of me next to it because actually he'd seen a very similar site um in pretty much the same spot uh many years ago with his brother so he has a picture of his brother standing next to the the tracks and so now he's got one of me standing next to these huge tracks so it's pretty cool and he spotted another one that was good size. So they were on the move. They were moving around.

And I mean, it couldn't have been, I guess it could have been maybe a large atrox, but it wasn't, you know, the rectilinear straight line. It was kind of a calubrid, you know, but serpentine motion more so. But so that was cool to see. And on the way to the spot, we passed by and there was a DOR. And it was about, you know, six or seven foot. long, you know, just big old head, big old snake. It was unfortunately, you know, unfortunate that was dead, but we kind of got a up close look and it's hard to get that

when they're alive. So we, you know, drove, drove some roads and just kind of did some road cruising and saw some lizards, you know, lizards were moving across the road. We didn't stop in time very well. And there's actually some a rare lizard out there that I would have liked to have seen, but we were like kind of indigo focused, you know, thinking we're just going to see one at any time.

And after a while, Jordan got to thinking like, you know, sometimes you find them just by when you're sitting still because you'll look in the rearview mirror and you'll see one crossing the road behind you. You know, it's not like going fast is going to ensure that you see one more so than seeing still. So, but anyway, we

we were cruising along and we came up kind of on this area and there was there was this you know pattern on the road and and Jordan's like how is that not an indigo or how is that not a snake you know and we come up a little closer and it starts to move and you can see the scales he's like it is so we jump out of the car and run down but it was like really thick grass and it went down kind of steep into a wash and so it just I could hear it and I was trying to track it and but yeah it was gone so we got a glimpse at it yeah we got a you know it was nothing else it really could have been but it was definitely a younger indigo it wasn't a huge one it was kind of a medium size you know a smaller one still i mean we i guess we only saw the back half of it so you know who knows how big it was and didn't get long enough of you to to kind of figure out how how big this thing was but you know cool to i guess add a new species although you want to get pictures, you want to, you know, have something to show for your fine. But I guess seeing one is better than not seeing one.

I guess you're Florida. My first coral snake. Your first coral snake would speak to that, yeah. Although at least you have Jordan there too, you know. Right. Yeah, to confirm it. Yeah. But not that we're doubting you, Rob, of course.

Yeah. It was interesting, too, being in Texas, you know, we see, you know, you drive along, you look over and you're like, what is that? That's some sort of antelope. you know, it's like this, we saw a black buck, really nice looking male and a bunch of females with him and saw some other kind of unique or, what's the word, non-native? Yeah, non-native, game animals, whatever.

Yeah, yeah. And Jordan said sometimes you'll be cruising out there and you'll do a U-turn and your lights will hit like a water buffalo or like a zebra or something, just all sorts of crazy stuff out there on the ranches. So I guess they're, making money um and then another really cool cactus that he he introduced me to is called the horse crippler it's like a it almost like a landmine it's got some pretty good sized spines but they're pretty sparse so it's just this like just below the surface of the you know the dirt and it's got

these big spines sticking out of it so i i think yeah i don't know why i don't know if horses have actually been crippled by it i could imagine they would just smash those but that's the name of it kind of a graphic name, but yeah, the horse crippler. So, you know, we walked a few more cuts, found some shed skins. Like there was, one was obviously from some sort of whip snake or, or coach whip. The other one looked to be like a bull snake, had some patterning to it and kind of the more keeled scales. But so, yeah, snakes were in the area. We just didn't get a get to see him at that time.

And, of course, the fun peds on the pets. Yeah, some cool scorpions, other spiders. Really neat. We saw some of the North American huntsman spiders. So that was kind of cool. I didn't know there were huntsmen in the U.S. So really, really neat. And Jordan's kind of getting into that,

and he's made like several range extensions for different spider species. and he's like some they can only get to like the the family level like you're the genus you know he don't even know what species is let alone even some they don't know the genus on so it's like oh that's something in this family but that's about as far as you can go without like microscopy and you know like looking at the hairs on the belly or something weird like that so kind of cool we talked about that a lot on the the Arizona New Mexico trip you know kind of him the what he's doing there and just it's really interesting right relative to reptiles or birds in terms of the lack of kind of scientific how much you know uh more there is to learn right as opposed

than reptiles for the most part we're arguing you know it's uh politics around known entities with you know few and far between unless we're talking limestone cars in southeast asia that always seem to hold new species that uh yeah it's more about the dynamics of how we're parsing what exists as opposed to hey he's in this space where it's oh this thing could be entirely new no one has ever described what it is that we're looking at right now exactly kind of wild and it was kind of funny because i think jordan was telling me a story about how he when he started getting into it he's like found one he's like oh wow you know this is this is crazy this has never been documented from this area and then he goes back and he finds pictures of the same species from you know

years past that he logged into i nat he's like oh i guess they were we're here and I found them. Yeah. Kind of crazy. So, you know, that idea of, I guess that's why it's kind of appealing in that way. It's kind of the frontier, you know, not a lot is known and the range hasn't really been well delineated. And so kind of cool. And so much variability and diversity, right, within those groups, too, as part of it.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, lots of different species, you know, it's kind of crazy. So, yeah, after we did the indigo searching and found our indigo, we kind of as the weather, Jordan was keeping his eye on the weather. So we were going to head further north, but yeah, it wasn't looking good. So that's kind of way we stayed in this area after. We went back to the same cuts that we did the night previous. And so we walked the cuts, saw, you know, a couple cool things.

For some reason, there was so much traffic on that road. And everybody kept honking at us. we're like what is going on and so finally like we're we were going to go down to some of the lower cuts and it like started blowing really hard a couple of raindrops and jordan's like i kind of know how these you know storms go so maybe let's get close to the car he's like i don't want to get my camera wet you know so we start walking back to the car and then just the heavens opened and the deluge came down and uh we started driving and like you couldn't see more than five feet in front of the car like sometimes you couldn't even see the white line like

it was that and it was just kind of you know the wind was blowing sideways like 80 miles an hour and you know it's like um cyclone winds or what hurricane winds kind of thing and yeah but still people would like come up right on our bumper and like pass us and you're like what are you doing and where what are you in such a rush to go you know so yeah it was ridiculous and it just yeah just the rain just was insane and so we're like well i guess i guess we're done for the night so we went back into into town got a got a room again and then uh um just kind of hung out and you know talk snakes and yeah not much else you could do and then in the middle of the night we get woken up and it sounds like a brick is like hitting the the hotel roof you know

and you just hear this loud thumping and then all some car alarms start going off and it's like these giant hailstones so we went out the next morning and jordan's like i'm afraid to see you know i don't want to see how much damage there's yeah but i think he had like two or maybe three dents you know it wasn't too terrible and they weren't in the worst spots and they weren't very deep but yeah all the cars in the parking lot had at least a couple different dents and some fared better than others but man it was just insane weather you know so um woke up uh then that next morning and that was the day of carpet fest and so um of course we wanted to go get a little more herping maybe try to see a bigger indigo this time and so we start cruising

the roads in like the sun comes out and it's just a very nice day like perfect you know with all the rain and cold maybe thought this will bring him out so but the rains also brought a lot of debris so like you know everything was kind of trash there's mud and you know like like puddles of water everywhere. So we were driving along and we see this falcon or some sort of, you know, looked like some sort of falcon or, you know, like a Cooper's Hawk or something. And it was flying kind of low along the road and then it would like dip into the tree line that was lining the road and like try to grab a bird or something.

So we're kind of following it trying to ID it or see if we could figure out what it was. and then it went to the other side of the road and was flying, and then it went into the trees and then it didn't come out. So we're like, oh, maybe it got something. So we walk over and we're trying to find it. It didn't find it, but saw some new species of woodpecker that I hadn't seen the golden-fronted woodpecker. So, you know, I added a couple new bird species on the trip. Driving along still, you know, a few lizards.

We saw garter snake, checkered garter. Yeah. Marcy Zanis, what's the name? Marshaunis, yeah. Definitely smelled like Marcy Zanis, but it was just sat there in the road. We got pictures of it in situ. It was just kind of doing the little twig thing where it's, you know, kind of curved up on itself. Got a horn lizard, saw a big old DOR, A-Trox on the way out, but unfortunately no indigo's that day.

so we drove out and it was a bit of a drive from where we were so i think we got there like maybe like 530 or something so the party had started you know we were kind of late to the party a little bit and then we were kind of focused on getting things set up and checking out reptilandia and stuff so i talked with eric and owen for a bit and we took a picture with like some of the old MP Morley Python Forum crew. I saw the picture. I was wondering. So what?

It was Eric Owen. Eric Owen. Berlin. Mike Pinell. Yeah, Mike Pinell. And Sean Christian. That's who I thought it was. Okay.

Yeah. So there were the six of us there. Yeah, it's pretty cool to think about that. I mean, it's what, our 30-year reunion just about, you know, like back in the late 90s, I think was kind of one. am I exaggerating that or is that when the forums were I mean yeah it was up I would say it was still doing a lot of activity through at least 05 oh 6 yeah you know it was still pretty pretty heavy so at least 20 years you know 20 25 30 years depending on yeah yeah when we all kind of chimed in or stopped in there but yeah good times you know so kind of crazy to think about how how much time has gone by you know and so yeah it was really fun to see those guys visit with some of the other folks. I got to meet Brett Bender in person and a bunch.

I mean, several people who have been on the podcast. And, you know, so it was really a cool, cool gathering. That's very cool. One of the cool interactions was this younger guy. His name's Kip. And he's like maybe 12, 13 somewhere around there with his mom. And she was, you know, they just got him his first carpet python. So kind of cool.

So fun stuff. He was, they had me sign, they had my, a couple of my books, so they had me sign those for him. And so, yeah, it was fun to, to meet Kip and his mom and to visit with them a little bit. Just see that excitement, you know, because I just saw myself reflected in him, you know. It was pretty cool. And what a good mom to encourage him. Absolutely. Yeah.

So that was fun. And then we, we. Jordan and I put on our, oh, Reptalandi was really cool, really fantastic, you know, just great displays and all sorts of cool setups. And so it was really fun. I feel bad that I didn't get a, you know, walk around thoroughly. And Ketzel had, was, you know, he's kind of the guy in charge there and set that up and done a really good job with it. And he was like, oh, we were talking about it. He's like, oh, I've got some, you know, children's pythons.

And we were just chatting about children's. And he's like, oh, come check them out. So we walk in there and check out the children's pythons. I'm like, oh, those look like Ryan Young's. He's like, yeah, that's where they came from. I'm like, oh, wow. I guess I have been doing this a little while where I can kind of guess the breeder they came from. But fun stuff.

And he's like, yeah, they're locking up. I'm like, yeah, this is when they, you know, lock up. So. And then Jordan and I gave the talk. It worked out pretty well, you know, it's, you know, despite a few challenges. But yeah, Jordan projected it up on the side of reptilandia. So it's like on the on the building. So it's wow. It worked out really well. It's just this huge projection up there. And the projector you had did a really good job of, you know, so it was you could see it pretty well. And the words were legible and the photos were. visible and stuff so it's pretty cool we just kind of tag teamed and talked about the different experiences we've had with different trips and different species so it was really fun and then i was really uh lucky or glad that uh jordan let me kind of join in on the on the talk um yeah because he could have easily given the you know a talk and yeah um but that was really nice of them to get me looped in and yeah have me come out there for that so that was really cool

Um, yeah. So, uh, that was a great night. And, um, like the talk was done. And I brought, I, I made a few new, uh, poster versions of my poster. Right. You were working on it on. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a couple, um, drawings on the, the previous carpet python poster that I wasn't very happy with. I didn't like the inland or the gammon ranges. And since Jordan had found a gammon's, he, he had a, you know, reference photo that I used to draw. new one that turned out much better than the old one. And then another inland that I just based off one of my captives because I haven't seen them in the wild yet. But yeah, I was much happier with the new drawings. And so I did a different layout. I made the size like more poster size, you know, traditional or typical poster size. So easier to frame and deal with. Yeah. Exactly. Not some weird random shape that I just kind of went with, you know. So and I think. they turned out pretty well. I need to send you one. And people were excited about, obviously, you were going to bring some to give away or sell or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah. I was selling a couple of them and had some of the old ones that I was selling, you know, just for just a bit. But then, like, people just came up and started grabbing them by the handful, like, just like a mass rush. And then they were gone.

And I'm like, okay. And then it started to sprinkle a little bit. So I'm like, quick, everybody into the you know to the back room of reptilandia and and Jordan had brought a case of books and so that we'd gotten on the on the trip to Arizona so he took a case of books and I took a case of books and so we were so I was selling a few books and the posters and then um Robert Moss from Moss family reptiles um okay yeah yeah he was there he bought like he's like, I'll just buy the rest of your book, so you don't have to worry about it. I'm like, oh, that's nice. Yeah.

Yeah. Jordan's like, can I, can I get one of them? I'm like, yeah, Robert's like, yeah, you can take one. So, but yeah, it was really just a great interaction. And Robert's a fun guy. He was pretty entertaining. But yeah, good conversations with a lot of people and really fun to put some faces to names and meet people in person. And, you know, so just a overall great trip. There were about a hundred plus people there.

So, yeah, it was really well attended and just a fun event. In a great spot. I mean, Reptalandia was amazing and just really cool. Yeah, how would you describe it relative to, so I know on the last trip, right, you had headed back out before we had the folks over, but you were there for one of the big year, Carper Fest at Eric's house. How does the different context of being at Reptelandia, But it'd make it a little bit less kind of wild and crazy?

Was that still the thing? Or is it, you know, how did that impact the experience? How do Texans do it compared to northeasterners and all that? Yeah. I mean, it's hard to compete with the OG, you know, Eric puts on a good thing. I think having it somewhere else, you know, not at your own house, probably takes a lot of the pressure off. I'm sure, you know, if Eric had it somewhere else, it would be a lot less. work and effort and stressful yeah and he doesn't have to worry about different things you know

people going in the wrong places or you know messing stuff up or something but um jumping off his roof you know things like that so yeah there was no wheelering going on although brandon wheeler was there so you could have wheelered in some way i guess but uh yeah it was good to see brandon as well um but the uh yeah i think that's probably the biggest difference is that was somewhere else and then you know having a talk and things like that and um you know they they weren't sure how that was going to work you know and and uh and so it was kind of a see what happens as you go kind of thing but a lot of people stayed and i mean we spoke for probably a couple hours you know it was a you know it's kind of a long talk we talked about

all our trips to australia so it's hard to make that quick and short and it wouldn't be interesting you know if you didn't right that's the thing you have to do that way that's another picture yeah so it was really yeah it was kind of different in that way but I mean just hanging out with you know people you've known in the you know over the internet or something like that and I mean that's kind of the best part about the carpet fest and wherever you're having one is just getting together with different people with the same interests as yourself so that was great um so yeah I think uh Eric and Owen, you know, they should be commended for kind of starting that ball rolling and doing this cool thing.

And so, yeah, a little different, but basically the same, you know, and having Eric and Owen there was kind of made it even more so. Yeah, that was, that was really cool. I don't feel like I got to talk to Owen very much. He kind of, I don't know, I guess he was busy talking to more important people than my sense. Hanging with a different crowd. Yeah. But, yeah, it was great. great they came out that was really neat and yeah i was surprised i didn't realize jason balin was coming

out or um i saw i guess sean shon lives in texas so that you know it's not as far of a stretch for him but yeah cool that mike panell was there it's good always good catching up with him too yeah um the shirt they did was really cool too the texas carpet fish i don't know that i saw it what what does it look like um it's got a just really nice looking carpet you know i think i'm trying to think if it's a morph or just a, you know, kind of graphical representation of a cool looking carpet. And then it's just got Texas Carpet Fest over top. But just colorful, lots of yellows, whites, that kind of thing. So pretty cool. And, yeah, hard to beat Reptilandia for a venue. That's kind of neat, you know, neat to have it there. And nice of Quetzel and Ari and Ryu to let us have it there. So pretty fun.

Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So, yeah, we were the last ones to leave the parking lot, Jordan and I, everybody else had kind of left. And after, I guess we, so we kind of closed it down. And the next morning, so we stayed kind of close to that area at night and didn't really go out herping anything. It was kind of, you know, overcast, a little bit of rain here and there. So we're like, yeah, we were both kind of beat from the long day and then the talk. And, you know, I guess, you know, sometimes those social interactions are kind of make you a little more tired than herping.

Yeah, exactly. So the next day we went out looking for, um, uh, scloperus, scloporous, scloporos, cyanogenes, genus, something like that, you know, um, the blue, blue spiny lizard, something like that. Yeah. Really cool little species. They're not sure if they're native there or if they've been. introduced. They have been introduced into areas of Dallas, I think. You know, so there's some populations that pet stores kind of released, but they're mainly a Mexican species that kind of come up to the border. So you can find them in Texas. And so that's why it's like,

were they here before or not? Sure. Are they relic populations? Or are they introduced? Yeah. Are they not? What's the deal? Yeah. Yeah. So we pull into this park where they're known to be found. And so we're chatting with the rain. your guy that's there at the booth, you know, taking our money or whatever. And, man, that guy could not be less interested in anything that he had to do with his job. You know, we're like, oh, we're, you know, interested in this. He's like, yeah, there's some rare bird here, but I don't know, I don't really care. You know, like, okay. Like, you know, maybe have a little more excitement for what you're doing here. I mean, he was really friendly and happy and excited to be, excited to talk to

people, but just like, oh, yeah, and there's supposed to be some weird snake, but who cares? You know, just that attitude is kind of funny. It was a really interesting contrast. So while Jordan was talking to him, I look over at the building across the way, and there's one right there, blue spiny lizard just sitting on the side of the building. And so, of course, I, you know, get out of the car and try to get photos of it. And they were very shy and skittish. As soon as you, like, they knew you were looking at them.

were dipping under things. So I walked around to the other side of the building. There were like five or six on the walls and they just like all just started scrambling like one dropped and landed on the pavement and just shot underneath the building. And like I'm like, well, I found them. They're around here. So we just parked next to the booth and walked around these buildings and, you know, saw a few more and kind of waited them out until they kind of came back out into the sunlight and got some photos. But really beautiful species. I didn't see a lot of blue on them. So it's weird that they're called the blue spiny lizard, but a lot of yellow, a lot of orange-y kind of. So really a pretty lizard, though. I guess they had some blue, but not as noticeable as the other colors, it seemed. So we thought,

well, let's go see them in more natural setting. And so we went out to this area. There was a lake. And the guy's like, oh, if you want a cliff jump, here's some good spots. We're like, oh, I guess there's cliff jumping. So we weren't interested. interested in cliff i mean i would have cliff jump i was going to say yeah i'd love to do that they had like a ladder rope ladder you know so you could get out of there but it was probably a 20 foot jump or maybe more it was pretty pretty good height there and uh so we're checking out the lizards we found a couple and of course you know they're scattering and and jordan watched one just run and jump off the cliff and land in the water and then like swim and get back up on the rock like they're cliff jumping

to avoid people taking their picture it's just really really kind of crazy so we just walked along the edge you know trying to get pictures of them and rocky you know and there were a couple that kind of posed and set up shop did well enough yeah yeah which camera did you bring did you bring that i brought my brothers yeah and so yeah it was kind of fun so i got some pretty decent shots of the lep and a couple of the cornuda the horn lizard and uh i got some shots jordan let me borrow one of his lenses too he gave me his like 200 lens so it's a cannon lens and really nice lens so i was using that to get a couple more shots i i wasn't um i i didn't get the best pictures um but i don't know if it was a matter of you know using a new lens or not you know not knowing

how to work the camera properly so yeah but um so then we started driving and uh robert uh jordan's buddy was with us you know just i've heard a lot of stories about robert he's like the man and just a really yeah in the same sense right we were hearing in Arizona New Mexico right about yeah super nice guy and all yeah yeah so it was really cool to meet him and went and got some lunch and um before we went out looking for the lizards but um he we were driving along he spotted a rough green snake just sitting in the crook of a tree you know and so we get out and we're taking pictures of that and just kind of sat there let us take pictures and I reached up and kind of picked it up and held it for a bit and put it back in the tree and we went on

our way but so another another lifer for me so several lifers on this trip you know including the lizards and right yeah and that lep lep good to get shot yeah on the board for that three different uh yeah And speaking in terms of the competition, yeah, I've got five more U.S. crudalists to find, I think. Or no, yeah, five more, right, 27 forms of 27. So gaining on you a little bit here and there. Yeah. I think, does Dustin still have me by one or we're about even? You're close.

Maybe across the combo, right, out of 30. You know, certainly you guys are close. Yeah, and I was thinking maybe I get, but just probably the wrong time of year, but I thought maybe Jordan has some spots for cane breaks and for Massasagas and pygmies and all sorts of stuff. So we did go out looking later on, but yeah, I didn't have any luck there. So, yeah, after we hunted lizards, we went down to Jordan's place and went and herped his backyard. Right, which sounds amazing. Yeah, yeah, it was incredible.

Like, and we did, we did a little bit of herping on the way back to, and, like I said, looking for the other rattlesnakes and stuff. But just kind of cold and nothing moving really. So went down and, yeah, his backyard had a couple different frogs. You know, I think, I don't think I'd seen a Gulf Coast toad that I could recall. So, and then there were two species of frog, the southern leopard frog and some kind of little. random frog i can't remember the name of it right now but uh yeah i think i i logged in nine nats i just need to check there but um didn't think about that before i started talking about it you know one of those things but then the next day uh was the day i was flying out so we just kind

of hung out at his place he showed me his collection oh my goodness just very uh enviable collection and uh just some great animals and great setups like i was really impressed with the way you had it set up and just really clean and cool and lots of cool stuff. Everything I would anticipate, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly, what you would expect of Jordan. So then we went out herping his yard again in the daytime and, you know, he has this pond in his backyard and a bunch of turtles in the pond. I didn't have, you know, my Nikon, so I couldn't zoom in and identify them, but I took a couple, you know, distant shots. I don't know if I'll be able to get an idea out of it, but could have been a new species

there waiting for me as well. But we walked over kind of by this little creek that drained out of the pond, and we were walking along there and just kind of chatting and stuff. And then all of a sudden, Jordan's like, oh, there's a snake. And there was this dark, dark snake kind of coiled up. And he's like, yeah, it could be a hog nose, because the hog nose is. are really dark here. I'm like, oh, hog nose. He's like, it could be a banded water snake or it could be a cotton mouth.

And I'm like, well, I guess I think, because I've seen the Florida cotton mouth, but I hadn't seen the cotton mouth for Texas. So he's like, any of those would be great. It would be kind of a lifer for me. I'm pretty sure. So I went over there with anticipation. I kind of went down to, and I couldn't see its head, right? It was kind of down in the hall. And so all of a sudden, it just started, so I was trying to get closer. And it just started to go down the hole. So I jumped down there, grabbed its tail and pulled it out. And sure enough, it was a cotton mouth.

I'm like, oh, well, it's a cotton mouth. So I kind of laid it down on the bank. And then it dipped down into a burrow, that same hole that was kind of pointed down in the first place. So, yeah. Did you catch all that? Did you hear all the story? I think I heard most of it So hopefully it comes through it

Hopefully recorded But yeah We had a little technical glitch there So yeah That was kind of the The icing on the cake Fun to meet Jordan's family

His son and daughter wife They were great Really great people And we did some lunch with his wife And then he took me out to the airport Made a special trip to Buckees because I didn't think to grab some gifts for wife and kids. And Buckees is a great place for that because they're all into Buckees.

So especially Ashley living there, she was like, oh, you got to go to Buckees. You got to, and so we went to Buckees three or four times. And gas there's like 2.30, something like that. Oh, my God. 2.20. It's ridiculous. So I'm like, man, what would it be like to live down, have such cheap gas? so just a great trip and the flight in the flight home neither them were delayed neither

them had any issues so it was yeah pretty smooth saving beautiful all around yeah green lights all the way home from the salt lake airport so i can't complain yeah so great trip yeah it was a lot of fun but yeah i mean i just can't speak of how you know speak too highly of jordan and you know just a great guy and um yeah i did give me a new wardrobe, camera lens, publication on the espeditis, you know, taxonomy from back in the 80s or something. It was just just great, great time. So fun stuff.

That's awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, I can't wait to get back. I think I've kind of changed my tune on Herp and the Cut. So I might be willing to go do that again at some point. I still, I wouldn't. Different cuts than what? what we've done before, you know,

right, right, that's true. The far eastern side on the last trip where it was Phil and I, we'd gone out east, but not that we were further north from that. But kind of getting into some of that similar, I think some of that similar habitat and you see different things and sort of what the focal point is. I think there's some more a greater abundance of life in some of those eastern it's wetter, you know, and so in general, I think maybe they're a little, a little bit more productive.

It seems like it's easier to find Alterna, certainly, in the eastern populations than it is in the western population. So, again, maybe we've been playing on unnecessarily hard mode, not least our own sort of the skill or lack there of that we're bringing to the party, but I think we've been trying at the harder end and things, too. So maybe there's something to that.

And plus all those different species, right? all the things you were mentioned in, I was like, wow, you really could have done even more damage than you did to the little challenge if you'd been putting up some of those things. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, with, we'll have to figure out how to make it work, you know, if Jordan will have me as well. Certainly can do some damage out that way in terms of finding new things and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be a really cool trip.

And, you know, having somebody that's so familiar knows, you know, seeing a lot of that stuff over and over again, you know, And it's hunted there pretty much every year for the last 30 years. You know, it's like, yeah, he's just got stories about finding all sorts of stuff. And, you know, it's really fun to listen to his stories in general, let alone the stuff. You know, just so experienced. So, yeah, I think I've changed my tune a little bit, you know, because I was kind of, you know, ah, herping the cuts kind of sucks. And he's like, no, no, no, wait, wait, you know, like this is like before people. realized herping the cuts was an effective way to find alterna. Nobody was finding alterna.

Like very few people were finding alterna because they were out looking for them on private land or in national parks. And he's like, once people kind of figured out the cuts, that's the easy place to find alterna. Otherwise, they're very, very difficult to find. So be happy for the cuts and enjoy the cuts because that's your best bed of finding stuff. So I've kind of changed my tune a little bit. bit. I won't grumble so much about the cuts. I think, you know, it just comes down to if you're, A, the power of company, you know, and having it. If you're confident in what you're doing because of, you know, the lived

experience is saying, nope, we're doing it right. You know, that with the very first time we went, right? It's especially that one spot, you know, again, further over to the west where there's park benches and all that. And it just seems like, it almost seems ridiculous. It's like, are we even doing this, right? Or are we misimagining what this is. whole thing entails that when you see nothing and you're not with someone who's an expert in it, it can make you a second guess your research or what you're thinking. Yeah. That's, that's kind of the other trick too is, you know, having somebody with that experience is just makes it, yeah, all that, all that easier. Although, I will say, you know, when you hear about

all the successful trips, you know, you don't hear very much about like, oh, yeah, we came here many times and didn't see anything. Sure. And didn't see that. But, you know, that's, I guess, just part of it, too. You know, you're not going to talk about the boring times. You're going to talk about the fun, exciting times. And I think, too, Jordan has been very successful. Like, I think there's very few trips where he hasn't seen something good, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And especially having a diversity of interest, certainly, that's something we've seen, right? The more broader your interest, the less likely it is you'll get because something will be out. Right. Right. Yeah.

Heck, if he could find, you know, Milipede's fascinating. Then, you know, every trip's a guarantee. So there's some of that, too. And then if he's out there, you have the pro with you, then you're less likely to wind up in a spot where you think, we're just missing it. You know, it's our own, those thoughts in the Arizona, New Mexico, right? Particularly roads and things where it's going, well, he's right here with us,

you know, has found plenty of X, Y, or Z here. and we're not turning him up. Well, he's here with us, and we're doing what he would do, and we're still not turning him up. So I don't think we're missing them. It's just not today. Right, right. Yeah.

And there's also some things that, you know, he hasn't seen and looked for very intensely. You know, same kind of thing where it's like, ah, you know, this is kind of that white whale type thing. So it's nice to have those shared experiences as well. Absolutely. So I don't feel bad about not finding some knowing people, have put in such great effort and hasn't haven't seen them so that's the way it goes but yeah well um

how about we uh do a little fighting you ready yeah i think we can um at a minimum right kind of introduce the topic i think this is something that we've briefly touched on before i think and certainly probably want to get a diversity of opinions on so it might become something of a a question we ask other folks and things too, but we might as well get our own opinions out there or get something started to get the idea floating around people's brains and maybe then they'll want to bring their own opinions on about it. For sure. Yeah. So this was a topic brought to us by a German listener, Eric Vachtel sent me an email saying, you know, asking if we might discuss this topic. So appreciate your input.

there and happy to talk about the topics that are sent in. I tend to sometimes forget. I was approached by a few people at the Carpet Fest like, hey, sorry I haven't been in the or gotten back to you or whatever. So I guess I saw the topic a couple days ago. And so I'm like, yeah, let's do it this week. So I don't forget it. So forgive me if I've forgotten your topic and don't hesitate to contact me again and say, hey, you didn't get my topic in there. And I want to come on the show. So just let me know. But thanks, Eric, and hopefully we do this justice. But I think, like Rob said, this would be a good topic to have people come back on. So this is, we're going to be talking about herping, you know, an area over and over again or always looking for new spots

and, you know, experiencing different things. So I think there's great, great things on both sides. So we'll go ahead and flip the coin and see what side we take. So go ahead and call it, Rob. I'll take tails. Tails, tails it is. Tails it is. Okay. All right.

Coming in strong. What side would you like? Same spot or new areas? I will take, I suppose it mostly represents what I do, so I will take new spots. Okay. I was hoping because you do like the research for new spots. so yeah and currently probably doing some research in that regard so would you like to chuck me or go ahead and go first um you know i love to play play the

chuck so okay sounds good got to keep uh keep chuck's memory here absolutely um i didn't realize he'd become a verb but um all right so i i do i think there is something to kind of herping, especially a spot that you know well, going back to kind of the same areas. Maybe, you know, getting to different parts of that area might be kind of a way to mix it up a little bit. But there's, there's, there is a nice feeling about kind of getting back to a comfortable place. I think in many regards it can make it enjoyable in different ways. I think one is if you've seen stuff there, if you've seen most of the stuff in the the area. It makes it easy to kind of have a list of maybe things you haven't seen. And so you can

focus on certain species or times of year where you know you're going to have a better chance of seeing the species you haven't seen yet. But also the fact that there's less pressure to see things that you have seen before. And so seeing maybe repeat animals like that Heli Monster comes to mind, old key that we've seen three or four times in this, you know, five or six years is just a really cool experience. And so if you go back to the same spots, you're going to have more chances of those repeat findings of the same animals, you know, and just having, finding really cool specimens or really cool examples of the animals in the area. I think about that Oreo, you know, cookies and cream,

lutosis that we found out in that area where we found the Gila monster. And, you know, finding new animals, finding another Gila monster in the same day as the old Gila monster or the different desert tortoises. You know, I've kind of got a list of desert tortoise burrows that I can go check and remember, hey, there's a tortoise burrow right around here and go see if somebody's home or near the entrance or something. So a lot of cool things to be done.

seeing in an area where you've been a lot. I'll start out that way. I think that's totally fair, right? And even I had to give thought to which side. I think this is really something where there's utility to both things, for sure. Right. I consider my choice because I think there's something to be said for going to a place and then at least going back a second time.

And part of it becomes, are we talking about a specific location? Or is it, you know, in the context that I'm most, mostly thinking of it, it's saying like, okay, do we go to Florida multiple times, central Florida multiple times, you know, Arizona, obviously, now we've been quite a handful of times, you know, three times. And I think there's, when I'm thinking about it that way, it's a little bit different even than just sort of my local handful of spots that I might go to, right? There's kind of two different things. And the, there is certainly utility. You learn so much from going the first time that you almost have to go at least twice to figure out.

right hey okay what did i lessons learned from the first time what were the places um you know when yeah so many different thoughts simultaneously i'll annotate some notes and i guess i'll focus on my own side but uh you're helping me quite a bit here yeah yeah the coolest part of going to new spots if we're talking about going to new states to find new things that you know the utility of the species checklist you know trying to the lifer list to try and go find new things is getting hysterias that we otherwise might not go to. And so, as you alluded to, a big part of the fun of herping to me is putting in the research to try and figure out where we should go.

And that's sort of a double-edged short. There's a component of it that helps both sides here, is that going to new spots, I get to put in a ton of research and try and figure out where do we want to go. The allure of going a second or third time is that validating, what I've learned, you know, you can only learn so much and have so much of an opinion from looking online so that you need to kind of have boots on the ground to figure out, okay, does this make sense? And then as we saw with the Northern Territory, that can change

over time, right? So that it made sense the first time and fit and gave us an approach didn't work the second time. At the same time, you know, I think for me, the new spots is so there's a big allure because, like, I didn't play. that much for our Northern Territory trip this time around because you actually got kind of, despite it being a second time for you, you got a lot of the joy of researching into it because you were spending, we were going to spend a lot more time in areas, you know, areas that you hadn't spent time before. So, honestly, there wasn't as much of a thrill of discovery beforehand for me.

And I kind of said, you know, run with it, see what you like, see what makes sense to you because all, there are a lot of places that we can go, but simultaneously I had already, I had spent nine or ten months before we went the first time looking and thinking about all of it. So I was pretty confident that you wouldn't have anything that I hadn't, that I didn't feel like I had a, either that we had been to or I had researched. And so it was more, hey, let's chat through whatever it is you find and figure out if that makes sense. But for me, I didn't have that same joy in the planning because it was kind of like, okay,

let's just sketch it out this is what i certainly we can do um you know generally speaking will be in this area and we can go kind of a b or c depending on conditions or what makes sense or how we're feeling about it but uh there wasn't that joy of discovery for me on that northern territory the second time um it uh so i i recognize the utility of it but for me half the fun is i think spending that that time on the front end doing the initial novel research go. What does this look like? Thinking through what are the specifics within that habitat that would make one area better than another. It's both. So it's kind of both things. It's not only what of other people, you know, scoping other people's research. It's also the ideation that comes from that. Okay, what are the critical factors that seem to be driving where they're being found, not just sort of trying to replicate someone else's result. Yeah. And I think you, you know, you kind of hit on this a little bit, but like kind of the one of the pitfalls of, of going to the same area that you've been as you maybe take things for granted, you know, like going into Cairns area, there was a great place to road cruise and now it's closed down

to motor vehicles and you can only get in there with a, you know, cycle or a bicycle or something. So it's kind of if you, and I think too, part of that excitement of the research was that I hadn't been there for like a decade. So it was really cool to be able to think about, okay, what did I miss the first time? What do I not want to miss this time? What do I regret not doing the first time? You know, what do I want to do more of this time around? So it was kind of cool from that point of view as, you know, doing the research again after such a long pause because it hadn't been as long between the two trips for you as it had been for me. So that was part of the excitement. And I think not in necessarily a competitive manner, but we both like to kind of plan and have some say in where we're going or what we're what what areas we're searching and so that was that was fun to you know the fact that you let me kind of do a little more of the planning that way but um just letting me have some of that input and in you know in retrospect i'm like okay if we went back to that area i have i'd have a different game plan this time around you know

at least for a certain species to try to try to find that you know there's other places i might focus on or go more frequently than than some of the other places that we've been because of new revelations and and also part of the research was talking to locals or people who had been in the area so they could kind of give you the heads up oh this area is closed now you know don't don't try to spend much time there so we didn't waste time like driving all the way out there at night and going oh it's closed what do we do now you know we had a plan for that or have and and And also where one place was on fire, it's not like you can plan for that, but we had plenty of B plans or other areas that we could search. And we did make, you know, make it to that area anyway, just on a different night.

So, you know, there's, there is some benefit of, despite pitfalls, you can still, you know, you know, you know the area well enough. Like, okay, if we go here, it's going to take me, you know, two hours to drive there or something like that. So I want to leave early enough to make it worthwhile and, you know, that kind of thing. But you're never going to have like a perfect, uneventful thing, you know, like I know when Jordan went a month after we did to the Northern Territory up to Darwin area. And all the places we had gone were closed. I didn't realize that a lot of these places closed down seasonally. So when I went to Western Australia, I was going to go to the Bungle Bungles and, you know, things like that. but it was closed for the season.

I'm like, wait, they close a whole area of the whole, you know, the Western Australia because it's too hot for people to go there. Like, I thought, you know, Australia is hot anyway. Like, what's a couple more degrees? But so not having that support or even having like a gate blocking your, you can't go in at all to some of the areas. So I was kind of disappointed there. I didn't realize that was going to be an issue. And I probably, you know, would have had a. better B plan had I have known that things were closed down seasonally. And I, I kind of had an

indication, but I thought, oh, there's no way they're going to just like shut down the whole road, but they shut down the whole road. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think, again, if I, if I could go back to those areas, so I agree with you, like going back to the same area two or maybe three or four times even is is probably very effective in getting you into areas. And I mean, it's hard to be beginner luck when you find an Owen Pelly on your first trip. You know, and you weren't planning to be there anyway. It's just kind of a random thing that happened that brought you to the area and you happen to find an Owen Pelley while you're there. So, you know, that's, there's no way to really plan or or get that done. You just have to put yourself in the right place and hope that you're

there at the right time. And so, um, you know, I think if I was going to do it a third time, it would be different than the first two times, you know. Um, so I think you can always learn and grow and improve and, but sometimes once you, especially if you've been there multiple times, you know, you know, the area, you know where you're going to go. You know what places are best to look. And so it's not like you have to do a lot of forethought. You can just kind of go and play it by ear. Oh, the sun's out over here. It's not over here. So I'm going to go where the sun's out or where it's shady or whatever, you know. Or, oh, it's hotter than normal. So maybe I'll go down to this area that has permanent water and, you know, spend more time there. So you know your

options a lot better. You can chase the weather or even say, it's not great for herping. Maybe I'll just go look for birds or look for something else. So once you know the area well enough, you can get enjoyment out of it regardless of the time of year or what's moving or what's not moving and have a good truth. Absolutely. I mean, in a big part of that, I think, comes down to have you had success finding the things that you have that have brought you to that area? And that could just be that it's really accessible and you just enjoy the habitat.

And that's great, you know, but if there's a particular motivator or motivators, then that can make a difference for both your experience of it, obviously, and then how you feel about coming back to it. So as you talk about right in the context of the O'Mpelli, if you have beginner's luck and turn one up, you know, when you get an extra debt, not that it was a new spot for us, but it was an unintended spot on that day or whatever. And you turn one up. Then when we're having our second trip, obviously the levels of pressure that we're feeling, at least, you know, if we're talking to Eric Keith and myself, relative to, you know, that you're feeling, I'm sure Teresa would have loved to seeing one, but it wasn't the same level of motivator that you're feeling. You're not breaking rules going on trails that are closed. Yeah, our ability to just start to be like, I'm just vibing, you know, as the kids say, and enjoying what's going on.

I think that that can then be a disconnect on those things. Obviously, if we go out with Jordan on any of this stuff, you know, if it's California, Texas, whatever it is, you know, you'd mention there. Well, he's the old pro, you know, goes all the time. We've talked about it. There's the joy of being able to show people new things to them. but it also, you know, sometimes it's fun when it's new for everyone, right? And there isn't, you don't have sort of the disconnect we had talked about on the first time that Eric and I went to Australia. We had gone with Chris Lemmy, awesome guy, you know, but he had just been there like a year before for most of the areas that we had been.

And there was a disconnect in our experience. And maybe that's sort of the worst case scenario, right? It's not his old stomping grounds that he's super comfortable with and kind of, oh, I know all the best spots. it's not the expertise, but it's also kind of like... I've been there, done that. Not the newfound joy that we're having. Same level of excitement. Exactly.

You know, at the first water dragon or lace monitor or whatever it is, right? Right. So I think there's some of that, right? It's kind of, is it, oh, this is our second time being here and we saw the things or we didn't see the things and how is that influencing how we feel about the spaces? because sometimes the best places to turn things up aren't necessarily the ones that speak to our souls from a, you know, naturalistic perspective or the environment or whatever. It might be the cuts, right? Right. The cuts and it's, I've now been doing this for, you know, I've come out three times and spent X number of days looking and it's just been looking at bare rocks and having semis rolling by.

That doesn't feel as great as if, oh, well, actually the pressure's off found, you know, we found this species the first time we came out. and so there's if we find one awesome you know if we don't that's okay too and we're just kind of enjoying enjoying the moment so our context definitely definitely impacts how we feel if we're coming back if it's new to everybody then we're all in that same boat and it's it just intrinsically is what it is right we're kind of saying well we're having a good experience or not things are going crazy or they're not and uh um that sort of i think drives so much more of the experience when when we're in that spot but right um i think too like i guess um you know especially when you're herping to a list or herping to certain you know when you're trying to find certain things so you're going to areas that you might not necessarily be your first choice but like oh i've got to find the species so i'm going to go here and this is my best shot at finding the species it may not be that enjoyable or you might not be finding much at all you know that kind of thing so sometimes that can be um you know when you finally find that

that animal you're looking for, you're like, okay, I think I'm done here. You know, I don't need to come back to this area. At least for a while. Right, right. It can be. Exactly. And maybe there's some of that in the West Texas things, at least in the way we've been looking. You know, and that you alluded to saying, oh, maybe you're changing your tune on it is, okay, actually having some success in that same type of habitat in a different place, reinvigorates the spirit of the thing.

It's not just so much, okay, I've only had these sort of, you know, non-fulfilling experiences with them. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, sometimes those bad experiences are hard to erase from your memory and you have to give it a few years before you go back to that same spot. But other times, you know, it's like you've had, it brings back great memories. You know, every time I go to the Cherokowers or the Wachukas or, you know, I'm just like, oh, this is like a second home. I could stay here forever or like Kakadu or, you know, Central Australia. I'm just like, oh, I could walk these gorges. for years, you know, and not get sick of it. I mean, it's tiring in the moment, but, you know, once you see that braddles, then you're like, okay, I could do this forever, and I'd be okay with that, you know. So I think it depends on what your, what your goals are and what your, what your experiences to some extent, but like, I don't know, I just, and I think, too, like when, you know, I was going to go with you guys and you're saying, oh, we're going back to the Northern

territory. I'm like, oh, really, why don't we go to somewhere else? because I had a few negative experiences, not with the herping or with the people, but not, well, not the people I was with, but the people that kind of screwed me over and, you know, kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, at least in the Northern Territory in Darwin area. Fortunately, I had really good friends in Brisbane area, the Kulagowski's that kind of said, hey, let's have your trip end on a good note. And they sure just made that a wonderful ending of a trip.

And so I just, those guys are the best. I owe them a debt of gratitude forever, I think. So, you know, and I think there are those places where it just feels like home. So you want to go back again and again and again. And, you know, it's hard if it's across the ocean. It's a lot easier if it's, you know, 15 miles up the road. You know, I love going to that rubber boa spot and just, you know, going up there. Even if I don't see anything, you know, just kind of cruise along and enjoy the time with

whoever wanted to come with me that night or listen to some good music and just, you know, cruise the road. It just makes you feel good to get back to spots where you've frequented and you have those memories of finding good stuff and, you know, or being with good people and all that kind of stuff. So I think it all factors in there. And when you have a stressful trip or a rough trip, sometimes it's kind of hard to say, okay, I want to go back there because it kind of brings back those memories to some extent. And I can see why, you know, people might avoid areas if they've had kind of bad experiences there. Particularly maybe if it's repetitive.

I mean, simultaneously, right? I think when I talk about, you know, trying to discover new places or make a plan for new places, a lot of those places that we're going to find are probably the ones that are most well-known, you know, and maybe that when we get the chance to go, we actually discover places that are not the known places or are less well-known. And so you need that second trip to either follow up on those places that you only got a glimpse of where you get kind of an additional information that you can use to then say, okay, actually, I need to go back.

And rather than, you know, doing what I did on this one, that first trip to Australia in 2018, right? We were based out of one place in the southeast suburbs of Cairns, right? And we were going, we went all over the place. Driving a lot. Yeah. And we were up down, you know, up down and east, or up down and west. Now, you can't go much east from there. But on a boat, you can't.

Yeah, right. Some snakes or something, but some turtles. But, yeah, we, you know, with hindsight, it was, oh, this area, actually, we could do better in this area. But logistically, it wasn't even the places that we went. It was logistically, I could have made this easier by that's probably staying in two different places instead of one. You know, does it make sense to be going out to Chilli go if you're saying southeast hands and to go down to Chile, you know, or to Tully? And, you know, like, is that what you want to be doing? Not chili, it's, what's the one that's down there, mission, you know, is that what you want to be doing?

Or is it, okay, if this is what we're trying to do, then you got to, A, needs to be longer our first trip, you would have found shockingly short. Still will, but, and that was a big part of it. Sometimes it's the places you go and, you know, experience around that, and sometimes it's just logistics that you say, oh, I actually made a mistake or the place we stayed wound up not being as good as it could have been. Yeah, I was just saying that so our, I don't know where exactly it had cut out, but when on that first, our first shockingly short trip, we just went to the extent we were up north, we were based out of that one point,

place and that wound up being more of a logistical mistake that was an issue with going to, you know, the wrong spots or even saying, hey, we need to do X, Y, or Z more. It was just saying our fundamental planning was off. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think some places like, I don't know, I was thinking about that in Texas too, like, where, you know, we had stuff during the day, but then it's like you walk the cuts all night in areas like that.

It's almost like just become nocturnal, you know, sleep all day and go walk cuts at night. or, you know, maybe get there, you know, have crepuscular activity as well, but sleep during the heat of the day in a hotel room with AC, you know, like, it kind of, that's kind of how I think I would play it in, you know, in that hot time of year just because it just doesn't cool down, you know, until like one, two, three in the morning. And then if you're having to get up at, you know, nine or ten to go do a hike or go somewhere else and then it's hot. And yeah, it's just kind of, uh, it's a you learn things i guess little tricks like that but i mean i do and and believe me i've led many a death march on you know a hike that people are like why are we doing this again you know shouldn't we be resting from i was up all night last night now i'm going to be up all night tonight plus i mean that's the hard hard of it right right you want to see everything like the time that we're there right it's hard to balance that dynamic of yeah be maximizing your time And so maybe that's part of a benefit to, as you say, a benefit to hitting a spot

repetitively is you feel less pressure to fill all the time with something, right? Right, right. Once you've had those explorations and things, maybe you would be a little bit more willing to say, okay, let's actually, you know, be calm during the day. And, hey, we can still turn up cool stuff, right? So when we were doing that, our second time in Texas, right, we had gone out to Big Bend National park and that was a lot of our day hiking and some of that yeah is you have some altitude to it so it's not you know necessary you're not feeling it quite as badly as we are when we're in the lowland

desert you know right but um what those uh the alligator lizards yeah on the trail you know there it's like well we wouldn't have seen those if we didn't do that right and that's or the bear basically you know yeah exactly my first wild bear was there experiences exactly it it's both things and I think it comes into well how long is the trip right if it's a shorter trip then it's you have more capacity to just be kind of going 24-7 I'll sleep when I'm dead sleep when I'm home sleep but I'm dead whatever it is if we're going to be there seven or eight nights then that's a long time to be going 24-7 and speaking frankly I think we saw some of that in the Arizona New Mexico thing and that was sort of a lesson learned for me was saying okay with the level

a physical difficulty of the task combined with the way we were situated staying out at the desert museum and stuff that was 60 to 75 minutes each way that we were coming back which was great because the diversity of things that were finding and being able to get a box party and all that

obviously there was a ton of great stuff and it put us back into Chiricahuas and gave us the capacity to see things and what we actually did see that was great I think if we had stayed down there if we were camped out that would be its own experience right we got our with all the rain yeah you know and some of those storms we would have been in it man and oh yeah that would be its own experience for sure right so that um you know the but it becomes okay if you're living

that hard life whether it's just going 24-7 or your camping or whatever then uh it's probably prudent as you say to say okay let's that's that's that's that's That's the actions of a short trip as opposed to... Right, yeah. And I mean, this Texas trip for Carpet Fest was, you know, five days, which seemed not bad. I mean, we did cover a lot of ground, and so it was a lot of time driving, but at the same time, we got some really good stuff. We saw some great stuff, and I don't know. I think...

I think it was new, right? Some of that might have been a little... you were at least getting towards being repetitive of where we had gone on that second Texas trip, some of those areas, but that was probably basically all new. I don't, I very much doubt that we'd happen to hit into the exact kind of spots that you were going on. Yeah, so the spots were new, but yeah, there was a lot. And I mean, Jordan admitted, like, he'd much rather hurt west than east. You know, he's like, it's miserable.

Hervin in the east, all the insects and bites and things like that. So he's like, Houston's kind of an interesting area. It's kind of just right on the edge. of where you started getting east and south and, you know, the, the humid and insect and stuff like that. So I think he's kind of a desert rat, just like, you know, I am and you are. And, you know, we like the West, West is best. So, you know, that might have shaped it a little bit. And the fact that Casey was headed that way, you know, it was a great opportunity to go hurt with him as well.

So I think that was a great place to go. And, you know, we found a lep. So that was icing on top. It turned out. Yeah. So, and I still want to see a lot of the things that are in West Texas, you know, broadbanded copperhead. And I mean, a lot of the, the Calubrids, I mean, kind of got skunked on, we've got a lot of, haven't seen a lot of those. So I'd love to see a Bairds and Sub-Ock and all sorts of cool things out there.

Baird, Sub-Ock, Alternah, yeah, plenty of. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess reasons to go back. And, and, you know, I think that plays into it too. I mean, I guess if you're a great herper and you find everything on your first trip, you may not have that pressure of going back. And, you know, I still, I do feel a little bit of that. Like, I want to go back because I do want to see an alternative in the wild. I would love to see that, you know. And I think I'm kind of past that negative grumbling about just cricking my neck and walking the cuts all night. So I can, I think. I can enjoy it these days. And, you know, especially if you're learning about spiders or different invertebrates and things like that. So, and, you know, the other company you're with. Of course, it was great with everybody, you know, I think I tend to be kind of more of a loner when it's like, oh, let's split up. So we cover more ground kind of thing rather than walking with people and chatting and stuff. So I could change my behavior and make those kind of things a lot more

enjoyable, I think, for myself. But I think that drive to find something, it's like, well, if I'm walking the same place they are, I'm not going to see, you know, anything besides what they see. So it's like, yeah, I guess I'm, I need to relax a little bit there too. Well, and I mean, I think part of it too, right, is a function of the nature of the task, right? So if it's something that where you think our chances are actually really objectively really good at turning something up, then maybe you kind of are engaging with it physically and emotionally in a certain way, whereas if realistically you can look at it and say, turning up an alterna in West Texas is an uncommon thing, you know, and for the most part, the people that have seen a lot of them have spent a lot of time looking. There are very few exceptions, right, where it's, okay, it turned out for them. you know, Chris Payne-Shob, the first cut he looks on, there's one.

You know, he went out at John Lasseter, who couldn't believe it because it took him years and years of going to find one. So the guy you go, if he takes him to the spot, it took him years and, you know, takes him to the first cut, and there you go. Yeah, there are definitely people that have that experience out there that just know, like, okay, this day is going to be the day to find one. You know, I'm going to have the best chances. And they live locally, so they can just drive.

you know, a couple hours and be there, rather than be like, hey, in six months, you know, how do you think this is going to be? You know, so, yeah, there's definitely an advantage to herping local areas over and over, you know, you're going to find a lot more of those alterna than you are, you know, than somebody who's coming in from some other state, you know, based on when they could get off work and that kind of thing. And, I mean, the, if it's accessible like that, you can even even be surprised at, that's, at spots, right? So in the spring, we had the folks out for the zoo tag meetings and had gone out to a local spot. And it didn't feel promising. It was 40 degrees in overcast, you know, it's like, well, we're going to try find hog-nosed eggs and milks and whatever. And it was like, well, this is the day that works to do it.

It certainly wasn't a function of this seems like the ideal day to do it. But sure enough, there was a milk snake that was sitting out, you know, hanging out in the 40, mid-40s. cloudy day you know yeah well there you go so you got to see one of the prizes of the area even on a day that wouldn't have seemed perfect certainly wouldn't have absent them being there i would not have gone out that day so sometimes that repetition can have that as well you can be surprised yeah yeah and also like i mean talking with jordan you know he was saying well we were kind of lucky to see that lepidus where we did because that's a popular area for alterna as well And so people will collect leps because, you know, they're there.

And, you know, they're looking for Alterna. But if they find a left, they're going to, and they're really nice looking there. Then they're going to grab that too because they have their license and they can, you know, that kind of thing. And when we saw some of those groups that were just going through with buckets and containers and just collecting everything they could get their hands on, even if it looked just like the crap in their backyard, you know. And you're just like, why? What are you doing? Oh, Jordan also said that that tantilla. The Hobart Smith eye, the little tiny one that I spotted on the Kai.

He said that's a rare find. You don't see Tantilla Hobart Smith there very often. So I'm like, oh, cool. You know. And so I guess having an appreciation, you know, for that kind of stuff where it's like, oh, well, you know, I thought all we saw was the Tantilla Hobart Smith. He's like, no, that's a pretty good find. Like, oh, really?

Okay. Well, I feel a little better about that now. And I guess it justifies the 45 minutes or whatever it took me to get a, Half-tees a pinch around it. Right, yeah. That thing was tiny and squirmy. But, you know, I- water bottle under the cap.

Yeah, that's right. Fit in a little cap. So, I mean, I guess appreciating those kind of things can, you know, you can have improved moments, I guess, if you have that understanding. And if you're going to a spot over and over, you're probably going to be more likely to have those insights or, hey, I've never seen this here. or, you know, sometimes we get lucky like the spotted leaf nose snakes where I saw 30 of them

and I'm like, huh, just another spotted leaf nose. And then you go back and you don't see any. And you're like, where did they all go? You know, they were out in full force when I was here last time, you know? Why am I not seeing them now? And some of those seasonal things where you have to go at a certain time of year, you're not going to see them. So, you know, that's kind of a neat thing, too, that you may not appreciate if you don't go to an area. multiple times yeah i mean absolutely i think there's you know pros and cons to each for the most part

if i'm not going back to a place it's probably because it it is the external factors as you mentioned more so than there hasn't been an area yet that we've gone to where it's like oh i don't have an intrinsic interest in coming back here it'll be driven by other experiences or just and not even to say that i won't go back but it'll be pushed down the list um but to me that appeal of the new and the joy of spending months ideating around it, researching into it, just the drive to do that. And there's something to it being a new place, not even just sort of ideating around. I mean, heck, I've seen it with the northern pines, you know, that was kind of fit into both boxes where it's a repetitive place, but it was kind of finding new locations, some new spots, some old spots, you know, and eventually it turned out, you know.

And it wasn't that we were wrong any of those times. It was just saying, like, yeah, with something like a ghost of the pine forest, you can make choices to try and improve your odds. You're trying all these different spaces. I do think, as we talked about with Bob Zapalorty, that sometimes the, and maybe it's like what you're describing with the leps, you know, the collection spot and whatever, that like we've had great times going to the Cauffeld. pine bearing spots and seen some animals there but that's not where we saw a pine snake you know um it is kind of i think there's something to being to having that additional research and knowledge and insight from having on multiple times to to say okay let's not focus on you know uh the places there crossly pines and corns you know literally have been written about

for 70 years and lots of people who picked up that book and gone to Crossley to look for fine snakes and corn snakes and we have spent a lot of time there in great habitat and not seen fine snakes or corn snakes yeah but i think even according to um carl himself they weren't common then either you know yeah it was hard to find them then too so yeah even more so and i think too you you wonder if like it's the if they're protected or if there's a heavy presence of fish and wildlife, like in southeastern or southern Arizona, where, you know, they're keeping an eye out. And, you know, you don't pick up a price eye and said I found one because you'll get a ticket for, you know, several thousand dollars. So, yeah, it's not, I think a lot of

those things play into it. And, you know, if you don't want to be hassled by law enforcement and, you know, maybe you skip those areas. Or if, like, there's a conference. And so there's 50 million herpers in town and you know you don't want to go to that spot that you've been before because it's going to be crowded and there's going to be people you know out on the road and um you know maybe it's cool because there's a lot of cool herpers and you could meet a lot of neat people and so you know it's a double-edged sword i guess and and maybe they're stopped on the side of the road and they have a really cool animal in their headlights and you can get out and check it out too and take some photos but you know it kind of takes away they're like oh i found that you know

somebody else found it and i just happened along to see it so can't count it on my list or whatever um so you know there's there's a lot of a lot of things to consider and you know i don't know if we're gonna get through all of them tonight and we're going no absolutely not and when you mentioned it to me i think there are so many um diverse opinions on this right as i say i think kind of i've fallen i picked the bucket that does agree with sort of my temperament for the most part but even then i wholeheartedly acknowledge the the pros of going multiple times and for the most part it's been i want to go to new places and then i want to go to those places again it's it's a prioritization of them as

as opposed to saying nope never again right even at the worst case it's yeah give me a year or two to sort of recharge my batteries on that idea and then yeah i'm excited for it again sometimes having low expectations or not a ton of research into an area sometimes makes you you know i I think sometimes, at least within my own brain, I think, okay, I put in all this work to, you know, really research the heck out of this place. And yeah, it's going to, it's going to just, I'm just going to knock it out of the park because there's not much more I could know about this area. And then you go there and you get skunked. You're like, oh, well, you know, what happened? What did I do wrong?

You know, not necessarily you did anything wrong, but sometimes, like, not having put all that effort into it. like, you know, Florida, for example, when I went there, we were just going to stop through a couple days early. We were going on a cruise with my family. And so it was like, and I wasn't thinking, I wasn't thinking July was going to be some great time to find a bunch of stuff down there. It was hot and, you know, kind of like, eh. And so we just planned to go down the keys and, you know, and Heidi was going to, we were going to hurt for one night. And so I'm like, yeah, let's, let's go for it. And ended up being great and find a lot of stuff. And I'd listen to a few podcasts where they're just, oh, man, you've got to have a gun and you got to make sure

nobody, you know, people were following us and cutting us off. And I'm thinking, man, what is wrong with four? You know, I don't want to herp in Florida. I mean, I think there's something to that. Yeah, exactly. And maybe, maybe the area we were in is, you know, less prone to have those kind of issues. But, and, you know, there were other herpers out there and they were friendly and would show us stuff. And, you know, it's kind of a good time. So I was really delighted by my experience in Florida. It was really fun. Maybe just the fact that I was with my wife and we had a nice time and saw a lot of cool snakes. The bugs were ridiculous, but other than that, it was about as perfect as you could get. I mean, of course, we missed out on an Eastern Diamondback,

which would have put the cherry on top for sure, but it was really fun to just get out there and see a bunch of stuff without a ton of planning. I mean, I knew kind of the general areas to go and check out and and we happened upon some really cool stuff like the the mother crocodile and all her babies like we didn't spot the crocodile somebody else was already looking at it when we got there but we did spot all the babies and that was kind of cool I'm like what is she doing it looks like she's picking something up and I zoom in with the camera I'm like she has babies there's babies all over here you know it's a really cool experience so um and I think too like I feel bad for the people who are chained down to a collection. You know, you hear people talking about like,

oh, you know, I just have too many animals. I can't leave them. I can't go on trips. And I'm thinking, man, you got to find a way to make that happen, you know. Go to Australia because it's during the winter, you're cooling stuff down. Do you really have to be there for, you know, 10 days or else your collection's going to go to pot, you know, like free yourself up, get out there, see them in the wild. It's just so rewarding and just so fantastic. Like, I, I, uh, just love the idea of another herb trip, you know, or perspective hurt trip and doing the research and getting excited about going out or, yeah, it's, uh, hard to be. Even when you're like, I mean, the Texas Carpet Fest, not the best time to hurt Texas, you know, like, I was very shocked because on the last, on the, the day I left, it was like 90 degrees in the day. I'm thinking, how are there not snakes out everywhere, you know, 90 degrees during the day and cools down at night?

Like, that would be perfect in, you know, California or Arizona. But in Houston, it's like, oh, it's too cold at night. We can't dare to go out. It's like, wow, it's crazy. And it was kind of funny, too, because when we found that cotton mouth, Jordan was just saying, like, oh, yeah, you don't really see cotton mouths. I don't see cotton mouths after at this time of year. And then we see a cotton mouth and he's like, well, I guess I need to rethink that. Maybe I do.

Maybe I'm just not out looking or mowing the lawns often or things like that, you know, like, because you don't see as many. So why go out and, you know, spend all that time getting bit by insects when it's not. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there are some things to like doing things out of season and, you know, getting, you know, getting different results than you're maybe used to or finding different species. Like, you know, the indigo is out in the cooler weather. You know, they're one of the few animals that can do that, I guess, out there. So, yeah, it's kind of fun.

And I guess that's the other big benefit of living in an area and going back to the same spot multiple times. You can go in off times and go in times when people say, oh, you're not going to find anything. Who was, they were on NPR talking about, they went out at, you know, it was 50 degrees at night and they found an alterna. You know, he's like, you don't find the things you're not looking for. And everybody else was sitting sipping hot cocoa in the, you know, in the lodge or whatever instead of outherpin. So, you know, even if it's not perfect weather, you're there, go, go look. You know, why not? So, yeah, I don't know.

I just, I think maybe that's, I was listening to Eric and Owen talk with Stephen Katz and great episode, by the way. Good job, guys. really enjoyable to listen to, but thinking about how Eric was talking about the love of the hunt for a new project or getting a new snake and things like that. And I really think I've replaced that with herping. Like I still, there's still a few projects that I would love to get into and, you know, and maybe down the road I will. But like right now, I'm thinking, when can I get out herping again? Not when can I get a new snake or I need to find a new project because it's kind of taken that place of that where you're have that excitement of finding something new of seeing a new

species in the wild that you've never seen before you know and experiencing that and it just really I think it takes the place of that that hunt for the next project so I don't know if you're feeling like you're overwhelmed with your collection slim it down a little bit get out herping because it'll fill that hole fill that void in you that can only be filled with reptiles in some way or another Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I obviously completely agree, you know, definitely in that same mindset and mentality that it, and I think part of that maybe is a reflection of the, and I frame it at least relative to myself. And I know this is true for some folks as well. I don't, not to say it's the universal, a universal truth. So to imply a negativity if it's not the way folks are doing it. But it's a maturity to, you know, the maturity of valuing experiences. rather than things and that both reflects in the in the trip itself in the context of the folks that you're out there with the memories that you're making shared experiences that you're having when you're doing that and the things that you find and find out you know and um yeah but i

completely agree right the the hunt the thing is um you know the rather than being something to try and um you know quote own you know to have that relationship with instead it's it's not a thing that you can uh try and contain it's instead the the idea of going and live in that experience in that moment and i do think you know we've heard lots of people say that and it's one of those things that if it speaks to you then it will when it does you know i don't know that you can import it as you can't pitch it to someone else you don't you can't make them buy it you know but uh if they come to have that feeling right yeah it's pretty great yeah for sure well and and as rob said we didn't even scratch the surface

probably on some of these things so if you've been yelling at your phone trying to get us to listen come on and and bring some of your ideas and your thought processes on this topic and love to have different perspectives on it so yeah well good times anything cool lately you've seen in herpeticulture or herpetology yeah a handful of things actually so um was listening to so much pingle as i always do and he had on a guest who has uh had a reptile podcast and has recently restarted it so this is the wood-fired herping podcast worth going there's about eight to ten episodes for back in 2022 and then has put out two episodes now with Marissa and Bob Hansen.

So he's in California. And so talk to a couple California academic, certainly folks who put out papers and things. Being the completest that I am, I started back with the 22 stuff. It's still there in the catalog, which is good working through that. But so the host, it was a co-hosted show originally. and now the host is just the one of them. But he was a chef, or is a chef in the Southern California area. So a lot of it is Southern California stuff, but also talking about going a field.

There is campfire meals sort of particularly, it seems like, in the original iteration. But, yeah, listen to him on So Much Pingle and then check that out. I found that to be very cool and definitely hours of content to get caught up. Right. His name is Steve? Dave? Yeah. Dinsberg? Yeah.

Sorry, I just, I just put that as a favorite. Yeah. He needs a logo, at least on this podcast app I'm using, because it's just the, no logo. Yeah, there's pictures on them on the one that I see. So maybe this isn't coming through yet or whatever. I recorded over the weekend with Adam for the expert in the idiot, which is good. Yeah, that was fun. Talked about various.

Have you not been on there? I had not. Oh, I thought I, I thought you were, you'd been on there. Okay. Yeah, so that was good. Yeah. He doesn't catch up. Yeah.

And then mostly, for the most part, it's herping stuff. I think he's, you know, ideating around getting to Australia and stuff, which is very exciting. So hopefully tried to give some useful kind of logistic ideas and things like that. I think that was a lot of what he was hoping to get. and then I know he's given you some ideas that we have in the hopper and things we'll have to have him back on and then he expressed an interest in having us on there together so maybe we'll make that work at some point yeah crossover show yeah exactly not quite a clip show but in the same vein um the although I did say you know I do think the different hosts bring something different so even you know as I was on there with them I felt like there was stuff I was talking about that I have certainly there's stuff that I've talked about that I have certainly there's stuff that I've talked about. about before you know we all have our greatest hits or whatever but there was plenty of stuff that i felt like because of the questions he was asking or the things he was interested in there was

new content that i don't feel like i've talked about either as plainly or you know at all or plainly as plainly as in that context so hopefully hopefully utility um other things i'm excited about uh lucas adventure yeah it'll be a carpets and coffee when he comes back to give his uh grand tour but i'm I'm excited. That's certainly exciting, you know. Yeah. It's turning up some good stuff. I'm excited for it. And I'll be excited to hear about it.

And then the last one actually fits in with the Texas Carpet Fest theme. Ari is putting out a podcast. Yeah. Bull and Spike on Roundtable kind of thing. Yeah. And it's not necessarily limited to that. It seems like I was a little confused maybe by the title of the podcast, to be honest. Yeah.

Because with previous episodes that I'd listen to or whatever, and I get, I get where he's coming from, but I didn't, you know, not quick on the uptake. So, but he just had Stan Chiris on and I just, he just had started listening to it. And I had to have a chuckle when he introduced Stan. He said, oh, and I'm sure you haven't been on a podcast before. And we, you know, Eric Owen and myself had talked to him on NPR or three and a half, four years ago or something like that. And so Stan had the great line of saying, well, I haven't done a video podcast, this is there. Yeah, my first video podcast. Yeah, so that was funny.

He didn't specifically mention that it was with us or a handful of years ago or whatever, but it was a funny line. It was just like, you know, have you, oh, I bet you haven't done one of these. And, well, I haven't done exactly this. It was probably, probably joy. And I'll be excited to listen to it. And I'm sure the context, as I said, different hosts, different topics. all those things. I'm sure Stan will talk about a lot that he didn't talk about with us. So it'll be great. Yeah. Yeah, I listened to his episode with Frederick and I'm almost done with the one with

Stan and yeah, great conversations, great stories. Stan's got some really cool stories and innovations I hadn't thought about. Talks about a basking platform that is pressure sensitive, hits a switch and turns on the basking light. So like the Bullens would know to if they went up there it would turn on a light and they could leave when they were hot enough. It was kind of an interesting concept that I'd never really thought about. That's kind of a fun way to do it. Yeah, good times. Yeah, some good content out there.

I got the seventh edition of the Complete Guide to Reptiles of Australia, the Wilson and Swan book. Yeah, pretty cool. I mean, I'm trying to spot the new species added, you know. They don't make it easy. it's like right they don't highlight them as particularly yeah i think i i counted up like tympanocryptus species the earless lizards and there were like three additional species in that genus in in the new edition versus the old edition but um sadly they've uh included the uh children's or stimson's pythons in with children's now, but they do show

Western Stimpsons and they say here's the Children's Python from Western Australia, that kind of thing. So it's like, ah. And then I was looking at one, you know, speaking of Timpano Cryptus, I was looking at one of the species, uh, fictilis. And I was looking on INAP

thinking, I thought there was more pictures of these. Like I ran across this picture of a, it's called the Harlequin Earless Dragon, Timpanocryptus fictilis. And it, I saw this photo is just absolutely gorgeous, like these white and red and black striping, you know, down the back and just a beautiful lizard. And then I was looking in the guide and I was looking online.

I'm like, oh, they're cool looking, but they're not as vivid as I remember. And then I'm like, oh, it was on Flickr. So if you get a chance, go on Flickr and look up the Harlequin Earless Dragon, it's a really nice photos of some of them that somebody's found. But I'm not sure why they didn't upload their observation. to INAT, but it's kind of cool. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah, they had a fleeting thought.

Oh, no. Okay. Yeah. But Jordan kind of, we were talking about INAT a bit as well, and kind of that idea of INAT is your kind of your observation. So if you were with a group, everybody had their own observations. So you're supposed to put on five observations of the same animal. You know, that's what it's for.

And so, you know, because each of you saw it, each of you experienced it, you know, not just. So that was kind of an interesting addition to our previous conversation around I Naturalist. And so I've been logging in, you know, all the stuff. And, and, you know, it's kind of a nice way to keep a lifeless to some extent because you can go back and search for different species. and see where you've seen them and things like that. And it also helps, you know, if you're going to the same area over and over, it helps, you know, them get the idea of what's going on in that area over time for somebody who finds the stuff well or goes out there frequently.

So it's very helpful in that regard. So I don't know, just kind of a different take on it. And maybe we'll have Jordan on here. He can defend Dinat a little better. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I remember. remember, and it is an INAT related comment.

I was one of Wolfgang's INAT listings showed an Apodora, amazing, you know, an amazing record or whatever. And, but within the, you know, kind of in the vein of the children's python, it was fascinating. So I clicked on the link and it opened up and it's calling Apodora the Erian Python. Erian Python. So. Oh, okay. Like Irian Jaya?

Yeah, yeah, not like Arian Python, which was an entire, I don't know if that was a taxonomic switch in terms of what the nomenclature that Aynat is using. I don't know that I'd looked up what I would call a Pop 1 Python previously, but it definitely was a little bit jarring. Yeah. When I pulled up that right, you just seeing that Urian Python, it struck me as out. I'd never heard of them referred to that, yeah. I guess, you know, it's fine, whatever, but I mean, common names are that way. but it seems like they kind of try to get a consensus common name to some extent. But, yeah, Eurian.

That's a little outdated. And, I mean, that was fun to hear Eric and Owen talk to Stephen about, you know, IJ versus Papuan. And a lot of times people just say Papuan Python when they're talking about a Papuan carpet python. So I made this suggestion just call them New Guinea carpet pythons. I mean, it's the island's New Guinea. Like, why not? They're not found elsewhere. So, yeah, then you avoid all the confusion because there's already a Papuan carpet or Papuan Python, so.

Well, there was. I guess now they're Aryan pythons. Going back to Erian, making IJ's very attractive to use that again. Indeed. Yeah, I know Nick. Now they're just eye carpets. They're irian carpets. Nick lobbied hard to get them called the Papuan carpet.

What would the power lifter himself have to say about this? Right. I didn't think he would like it. Yeah, I'm sure he'll be upset. Good stuff. What else? I think there was some, I got a couple, like, cheap guidebooks, the reptiles and amphibians of Hawaii. That was kind of interesting, because I think all of them are invasive, you know, except the sea turtles and the sea snakes.

But that was kind of cool. And then reptiles of Madeira Canyon and like the county or something like that. So that's kind of fun. They were like five bucks on Amazon. So I'm like, yeah, I'll do that. I'll get that. Yeah. If I go back to Hawaii some point, I can have a little better idea of where things are and where to look for them.

Where they came from. Yeah. Yeah, who put them there. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. about that time. Wrap it up and it's good chatting with you

and good to hear what's going on and fun to talk about this topic. But thanks again for listening and thanks to Eric and Owen for hosting us and we'll say, have a good one and we'll catch you next time for Uptafeight Club.