Reptile Fight Club - Lizards vs. snakes, which is better? with Eric Somers.

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

Justin and Chuck tackle the most controversial topics in herpetoculture. The co-hosts or guests take one side of the issue and try to hold their own in a no-holds-barred contest of intellect. Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of Lizards vs. snakes, which is better? with Eric Somers.        Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

All right, welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. My name is Justin Juliner. I'm your host this evening or day or morning or whenever you may be listening. And with me, as always, is Chuck Poland. Say hi to the people, Chuck. Hello. How are you, Justin? What's going on? I'm doing a little better now. Getting over a cold, but you know how it goes.

I literally have not heard from you in like two weeks. So I was like, oh my God. I had a feeling something was up, but you know. But better now. I have some weird tooth pain, but hopefully that's on its way out too. But I'm not sure what caused that. But hopefully I don't need to go to the dentist. My poor daughter, did I tell you, she knocked her front tooth out. She had to give a blood sample and she walked out of the room

and passed out and hit into the wall and knocked her front tooth out. Poor girl. Yeah, that's always what a 14-year-old wants to do is knock the front door. Doing a great service donating blood. Well, she had to get a blood sample taken. She wasn't really donating blood. Oh, I see. It was not a charitable donation. She was probably a little too young for that, yeah.

Yeah. But she, so they were leaving, and they were at the hospital at the clinic or whatever, and the doors were locked. And so my wife and other two daughters walked out of the door, and so it closed behind them and locked. And then they're like, where's Summer? And they look back, and she's laying on the floor. And some lady stopped and, oh, are you okay?

And she kind of woke up and saw her tooth laying on the floor and grabbed it and said, yeah, I'm good, and ran out and came out and just spit out blood so i i may have told that already i can't remember what i what i say from week to week but yeah so i don't know that i've heard that luckily we were at the the hospital or there i wasn't there but my wife was and i came as soon as i could but um they just took her over to the emergency room and uh oral surgeon came over and put it back in and gave her a little temporary brace but a little excitement you know going on but kind of crazy yep hey what's new with you what's going on uh nothing really um just kind of low key here for, for, uh, the time of year. So I'm just kind

of busy doing other life stuff. Um, yeah, I, I, uh, I thought I tore my calf muscle, uh, earlier this week, but yeah, it was just a calf strain. So yes, Okay. Yes, I planted and went to throw a switch kick, and my calf went, no. Rough getting old, isn't it? Yeah, it was rough getting old. Yeah, it is rough getting old. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where you're like, dude, can I still do this? Am I being an idiot doing this?

I don't know. I can't stop, you know what I this? And I don't know. I can't stop. You know what I mean? Yeah, keep it going. It's admitting an age defeat that I'm not willing to omit yet. Yeah. Well, that's the way it goes. But, yeah, I'm glad you're staying active and doing some good stuff.

Well, we've got a guest with us tonight, Eric Summers. Thanks for being here. So welcome to the show. We appreciate you. Oh, he's frozen. I don't know if he can hear us. Oops. Well, I guess we'll continue on.

We had a guest. Say hello to Eric in a bit. We laid all the groundwork. We really did. We did our part. Yeah. There we go. What would a show be without a little bit of technical issues?

I feel like for absolutely no reason, my audio was all messed up when I came on. And I don't know why, because I haven't messed with my laptop since the last episode that we did. Isn't that a joy? Yeah. I'm like, yeah, not sure what's going on there. But yeah, challenges. Like, what would life be without challenges? Okay, now everybody is gone

and it is just me. So I guess I get to entertain you guys. There you go. Oh man, you freaked me out, dude. I was like, what in the hell is going on here? Everybody's leaving. I am not prepared to carry the show this evening. You got this, man.

I'll just dip out and let you do a mono solo. There he is. Be back. I see a little bit of movement there from that. So, yeah, I went and bought an ultrasound machine. Get the hell out of here. Get a play with a new toy. Have you messed with it?

I haven't received it yet. It's on its way, so hopefully it'll get here soon. How does one buy i mean i i get like but like you buy it from like a uh medical uh laboratory uh place or like what's the what's the what's the process on that this uh great medical supply shop called ebay had a i bought a used one but yeah and so i i kind of they they were asking uh quite a bit and so i threw a low ball offer on one and they accepted it so i'm like oh i guess i'm buying one so yeah it worked out but nice yeah that's cool so so

you're still waiting on it um yeah it should be here this week and then i've got a an appointment with one of the herpetology professors who uh works with ultrasound quite a bit on small little uh scoloporus lizards so she's going to show me how to use it and i'm going to bring a snake in and then try it out and see what's going on. But yeah. Nice. So that'll be fun. Yeah. So I'm, uh, hopefully, you know, hopefully I use it well, you know, and like, I don't just, uh, it doesn't just be gathered dust on my shelf or something.

So that would be a horrible waste of money. Yeah. Right. So, but, uh, I, I don't know. I think if I focus and like have kind of like a study going on you know and and uh do some kind of um study with you know a different species and track their reproductive cycle measure follicles do like this year is western stimpsons and you know next year is pygmy pythons or something like that you know uh but even i mean it's one that i'm curious about or is so you

wouldn't do successive years to see like if they're uh if their follicular development is is syncopated in the season or i would be interested to see like the same animals year to year to see how to see how close they you know like if they vary a lot or you can kind of figure out where they're at it'd be kind of fun yeah that would be really cool to just kind of track and see year to year how they how they change or how they are the same um my black-headed python is as gravitous as can be. Like she's huge and going to lay pretty soon, I think. I've got pictures kind of when I think she ovulated, so I should have some idea of when she's going to lay.

So hopefully that'll be a good clutch and I can try again. Eric, are you here? Are you there? Yes. Yeah. I can hear you guys. Oh my God. We hear you.

That's good. I still can't see it, but that's, that's all good. We were so touching. Go there for a minute. So yeah, glad I just got a message.

You have, you have warnings. I don't know what that means. I've never seen that message before. So hopefully we're okay with this recording and it will work out. But we've got you now. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. We can dive into stuff or get to know you a little bit. So Eric Summers, welcome to the show. And let's hear kind of how you fit into herpetoculture. All right. I guess, you know, like everybody, I started when I was a little kid. You know, I grew up in New York. So in New York, there's salamanders and snakes and things that, you know,

I'd go out and find and stomping in the creeks and stuff. And then my life really changed, and it might sound kind of silly, but I was watching the old show, crocodile Dundee. And, uh, and I don't know if it was like the didgeridoo and all that, but like mysticism in it, but like I saw, you know, uh, a Gawana and I was like, Oh my gosh. And, um, so my love for that, you know, specific, um, you know, geniusus started then. And so I started keeping lizards in early 2000, got married, went back to college, gave it up.

And then about two years ago, my son was catching desert iguanas. and he was like, oh, I want to breed these and sell them. And I was like, it's just like something reignited in me. I was like, really? You don't say. Yeah, you're probably not going to make much money on those, but these other ones. And so I jumped into Aussie dwarfs only because I could afford them. You know, in the early 2000s, I had to settle for, you know, the Indonesian stuff that which in retrospect, they probably should have kept some of those that are super hard to get now. But, you know, so I kept, you know, Varanus or to call this Varanus.

Well, they switched it to the Peacock Monitor. But it used to be the Rhode Island Blue Spot Teamer. Yeah, yeah. They had those guys because they were cheap. But that's kind of where I fit into herpeticulture. I mean, I kind of do it for a living as well. Nice. I consult and work on infrastructure projects.

And so I'll do, like, migratory bird treaty stuff. But the biggest portion of what I do has to do with the desert tortoise. Oh, nice. That's awesome. That species is close to my heart, or I guess there's a couple species now. But, yeah, one of my first pets was a desert tortoise. I get, my friend found it in a ditch in our neighborhood, and he's like, I found a snapping turtle, and so I'm like, what? There's no snapping turtles here, so I go running over,

and I'm like, that's not a snapping turtle, that's a desert tortoise, and they don't belong here either, and so we were trying to figure out where it came from, and he let me take it home. You know, he knew I was a reptile guy. And so it had a little, like, hole in its shell, and, of course, somebody had taken it. You know, it had been a pet for the last 20, 30 years or something, so it was kind of grandfathered in before all the regulations. And so my dad, I showed my dad, and's like, oh, I know who's that is. And so we went and talked to him and asked him if, if I could keep it.

And they're like, sure. Yeah, I guess you can, you can have that. So, um, I kept that, kept that, uh, tortoise for a long time. Um, we did fill in the hole that was in his shell with some epoxy. Um, but yeah, that was kind of of a um he was a a great tortoise he was huge too like this monster male but um i i met this uh woman that was local just a couple you know and the larger town east of us and and she had a a big group of different tortoises. She had radiated tortoises and all sorts of crazy stuff. And just, like, it blew my mind.

I'm like, holy cow, you can keep those here. Ended up moving to California so she could keep Galapagos tortoises. But she had a bunch of desert tortoises as well that were rescues. And so I brought my male over, and he was, like, ramming all the other males and flipping them over and breeding the females and stuff so yeah he he uh had a a good time for the few days that i left him there but what a party animal yeah but he was a tough tough dude so oh did we lose you can you hear us no come again this is gonna be a touch and go interview yeah this might this might again this is going to be a touch and go interview

this might be a short one this is going to make the coin toss hard man yeah well I guess we can I don't know if we need to reschedule I know that Eric was on his phone

so that makes it a little tricky I don't know if we need to reschedule it. I know that Eric was on his phone, so that makes it a little tricky. I don't know how. Or he's out in the high deserts of California. Yeah. I don't know how great the signal is, but he's still showing up on here. Anyway, yeah, I love that desert tortoise. And, you know, I go look for him every chance I get down in southern Utah and southwestern Utah. There's a pretty good population down there.

I can usually find one no matter when. I was going to say, I know you've talked about finding them before. Yeah. I know you've definitely. Very cool. Have you run into many in Southern California? No. No.

That's one I have not. that would be pretty cool to run it. Yeah. I'm trying to think if I've seen one down in the, down in like the, um, Borrego Springs area or anything like that. I don't know that I have maybe one. I don't remember. I mean, oh, we did. Did you? Yeah. Yeah, we did see one. I think it was before you got there when we went up. Didn't you go with us on that big hike to the palms? Yeah. In the desert?

Yeah. Yeah. We saw one on that up the stairs. Do you remember? Really? Yeah. No. I don't remember that at all.

I can't remember where the population ends but i think there's because there's gopheris agassizi which is the desert tortoise that ranges up into utah and i think that's the one that's in california as well and then gopheris moro fikey or something like that um down in arizona and i haven't seen an arizona one for a number of years so need to find another one of those someday but that must have been that must have been your other co-host need to spend more time in the in the low low desert down in arizona i've done a lot of high desert herping to find those montane rattlesnakes and green rats and stuff. But we need to get down into the low desert.

To the low desert. Hello. You back? Uh-oh. I see another warning. You've got one. Are you guys able to hear me at all? Yeah, we can hear you.

Can you hear us? You're setting off warning bells according to Justin. Shoot. Can you not hear us? I guess he can't hear us. We can see him, but he can't see us. I can see you guys now.

I got off the phone and I'm just using it for my internet hotspot Because For whatever reason you know at the trailer Or the RV park That I'm at the internet's not working Oh gotcha okay

So I will try to Get back on My headphones Yeah that audio is pretty rough Right now with echo Yeah All right. Yeah, that audio is pretty rough right now with Echo. Yeah. Yeah. Is that better?

Yeah, yeah. Yes, that's better. I was just talking about desert tortoises and my fondness for them. They're a very cool species for sure. A couple of them. Now, the ones in california those agassizi are they agassizi yeah yeah okay yeah yeah that's the same ones we get up here in in utah kind of in the southwest corner of the state but yeah i really i really enjoy those enjoy that species for sure yeah go try to find them all the the chances I get in southern Utah.

Yeah, there's some really good spots in the, well, few and far between. There's some good locations in the western Mojave. Okay. But as a whole, they're not doing very well. Oh, really? With land use, you know. Yeah, yeah. The same thing with St. George.

Like, they set aside a pretty good chunk of land for, you know, the Red Cliffs Desert Preserve. And you can see, I mean, I've got locations of several, you know, boroughs and kind of know where to look for them. But I usually see a couple, you know, when I go down to St. George and I have a couple hours to look, I can usually find one or two. So, yeah, they're pretty good. Yeah. I think on every like major project when I was in school that we kind of studied for environmental science, like the desert tortoise was an impacted species in one way or another. So it was funny. Yeah. so well it's funny i it was sorry yeah uh so i went to school in new york and i was uh halfway into my graduate program and things weren't working out with my advisor um and i saw this

job posting on on park partnership reptile amphibian conservation um and they said it was in the mojave desert and to be honest like i didn't even know that was in the united states i was like oh that's exciting and then it was you know so and then i yeah i came out here and that was kind of uh i was yeah yeah that's very cool so what do you what do you like better you you uh west coast fan now or do you prefer kind of the mountain or the the green east uh i think uh like the landscape out here i love much more um the communities and the people the culture i like that it's more of a midwestern culture even though it's in new york but it's not what you think of when you think of New York. Okay.

New York City, New York. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, there's always good things to anywhere you go, I think. Yeah, I really like the desert. I'm definitely a desert rat.

Me too. I do enjoy the mountains up up here in northern utah as well so yeah well and right now the project i'm working on is in whitewaters which is it's epic that's such a cool spot oh yeah yeah well so do you think that the decline i mean the declines obviously from the the land use but like on are you seeing the also similar declines on like preserved areas or are they still disappearing from uh they are even so a few years ago i worked on a raven survey because ravens are a huge huge problem for the the desert tortoises and um so the campaign was we would go out and we would you know identify raven nests we'd watch them and then the year that i did it they started doing

an oiling campaign so we're going into all the desert tortoise critical habitat units and trying to find as many nests as we can and then oiling them so that presumably they won't realize yeah and they won't that presumably they won't realize. Yeah, and they won't double clutch. They won't just, like, take off, you know. Yeah. And so that seems like it's been successful. It's very, like, intensive in terms of money and, like, man hours. But some of the CHUs are not doing it this year because numbers of ravens have been down so much.

So maybe they just want to get out of there because they don't see anymore. I mean, I don't know. They're a super intelligent animal. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like it would be a lot easier just to hunt the ravens or put kind of a bounty on them or something i i don't know that's a tricky thing because i mean they they belong there but we've kind of artificially you know expanded their their population and things because of the water

sources and things that we bring to desert areas that weren't there before. So yeah. Hard to find. Yeah. Yeah. So management is definitely, uh, you know, it's necessary at this point because we subsidize that new drive down the 15 and the 40 and like every gas station trash can is like a subsidy or even just the highways themselves are subsidies. Yeah. Because there's so much roadkill.

Yeah. I call them the morning cleanup crew, you know, they come and eat all the DOR stuff. Yeah. That sounds like a really cool project. Yeah. Yeah.

Be fun to come check out your study site or something. Well, it's not my study. I grew up doing that. But it's fun to be involved in, for sure. Right on. That's cool. Well, today we're going to discuss, you know, which is better, snakes or lizards? So kind of a fun, you know, fun topic to think about.

And I think, you know, we all have our preferred groups sometimes. I mean, I guess I like both, but I think probably with my job and other things, I probably am more suited to keeping snakes or lower-maintenance-style lizards. But, you know, I also try my hand at monitors and things like that from time to time. So I definitely enjoy keeping both, as I imagine you do, and I know Chuck does. All right, well, we'll go for the coin toss between Chuck and I to see who gets the pleasure of battling you today. You want to call it, Chuck? I've had some good luck this year.

Oh, it's tails. I win one for a change, I guess. I'll go ahead and take the fight. Moderate, Chuck. That'd be good. And then, Eric, if you want to call it, we'll let you see who picks the side here. Heads.

It is heads. You got that one. I think I'll stick picks the side here. Heads. It is heads. So you got that one. I think I'll stick with the lizards. I had a feeling you might. That makes sense. Do you want to lead us out or would you like me to go? I think you can start. As I mentioned, and I think this is probably one reason why maybe snakes are popular and easy as pets is they're low maintenance. They don't require daily feeds or even weekly feeds, especially like the pythons. I mean, of course, that depends. And, you know, I'm a python guy, so I'm probably going to talk a lot about pythons.

There are some, I do have some, some clue roids, just a couple, but I've got some shovelnose snakes that are insectivores and they obviously need to eat more frequently than my pythons do. But I still, you know, maybe feed them once or maybe eat more frequently than my pythons do but i still you know maybe feed them once or maybe twice a week and pythons you know once every month or two two or three times a month depending on the time of year you know if you're cycle feeding you could go for months at a time without feeding and and they're just fine you know they don't really change much and and so as far as that goes, you can still have that enjoyment. And I think, frankly, we probably overfeed pythons in

captivity. And so we could probably do with feeding them less, but that's usually how we interact with our animals. And so that's kind of the fun of keeping sometimes. And so people tend to feed them more frequently. Um, so I guess, um, from the aspect of, you know, I'm, I'm busy, I've got a family and a full-time job and those kinds of things and snakes, um, fit into that lifestyle, especially pythons, um, a lot easier than, uh, say a lizard would. So I guess from that aspect, you know, I would give snakes a point for ease of maintenance and less, I guess, less frequent maintenance required for keeping them in captivity. All right. Yeah, I wouldn't disagree at all.

I think, you know is it is simpler i think um for you know what i'm thinking like you know as a pet um i i feel i feel like lizards are are more rewarding because they tend to be more interactive um um but they are a lot more work you know even even a bearded dragon it's a lot more work, you know, even, even a bearded dragon, it's a lot more work. Those things eat a lot. They run at high temperatures. Um, but they also, I think they bring a lot of joy to like their keepers. I mean, you see the, see it all over, you know, Instagram and other social media platforms where they, you know, anthropomorphize the, and the, and those lizards just think like,

feel like they're like, they're up to the task. Maybe they're just cold and they're behaving that way because they're cold, but I think they bring a lot of people a lot of enjoyment. Of course, it varies by individual too. Like me personally, like I value, uh, the behavior. Um, and that's why I keep monitors, even though like I have to breed my own cockroaches and I have to do all this extra stuff. Um, it's, it's rewarding just to, to have that interaction to have, like, you know, I come, I come back from work and, you know, lights are on a timer, so they go on at night, and then they go off in the morning.

Oh, okay. That's just in case, you know, my AC fails when I'm at work or something. So they don't, for a while, but a lot of people come back and put on some music or some cool or something, and they're all like, off the glass, they know what's up, and they're all just kind of waiting. And, uh, so I, I mean, and then, and I know that it doesn't, you know, a lizard doesn't reciprocate like the same feelings that I have or affections that I have towards them, but it, uh, they're pretty good at like convincing me that they, they do,

even though I know it's not, it's not true. Um, I just think like, yeah, it's more rewarding. Um, but yeah, you yeah, it's more rewarding. But, you know, it's, you know, teach their own. Yeah. No, I mean, I agree fully. Like, I love to watch lizard behavior. And, you know, as far as pythons go, I mean, they're they're evolved to sit and wait and, you know, be motionless for sometimes months at a time where they can stay in the same spot and not move, you know, if they've had a good meal or something. And so, yeah, you know, if you have a lizard, it's going to be out moving a lot more frequently and a lot more often. Now, I would say that I can get that by observing them in the wild. And, you know, to some extent, seeing them in the wild kind of makes me feel bad for a lot of these things in

captivity. And, you know, you see people and they're asking, oh, what's the minimum cage size that I can keep this bearded dragon in? You know, you got a bearded dragon that would normally have a few square miles to run around in and it's sitting in it's sitting in a 20-gallon tank or something. That's always kind of been the struggle of keeping things in captivity. I always laugh when people talk about arboreal cages that are two feet tall. You know, I don't, I don't, if you see a tree that's two feet tall, you're not calling that, you know, an Arboreal style, uh, uh, environment, but, um, you know, to, to give them that the space, you know, that they deserve and, and that, and, and also if you, if you're giving them more space, you're also potentially seeing more interesting behaviors and things like

that. So I always thought someday I'll have a walk-in room, you know, that's, that's like a desert, you know, recreation in my house and I can go sit down and watch the lizards interact with each other and run around, you know, at least a, you know, an eight by 10 room or something like that. So, but, you know, and I think some people have done that and give, give their animals, um, enough space. And especially if you're living in Florida or something where you can keep stuff outdoors and, you know, and do it justice out outside. Uh, I think, you know, if you can do that, like, you know, Ron St. Pierre and his,

his enclosures and outdoor enclosures are, they're'm very jealous of that, and I would love to do that. But I don't think the lizards would enjoy the couple feet of snow that hit up here. So, you know, I think that's one of the difficult aspects when you're thinking about keeping lizards is the space requirements. And, you know, I just kind of feel bad with some of these things, keeping them in such small quarters when they could have a much larger thing. And, you know, I do think that sometimes that is dependent on the choice of lizards. You know, you can definitely get smaller species and a 20 gallon tank would seem, would be very sufficient for a very small species. You know, some of the geckos, geckos that Chuck keeps and, you know, some of those day geckos and other things don't, don't require a ton of space. But,

you know, I, I think, you know, the fact that herpetoculture is kind of latched on to bearded dragons and green iguanas and monitor, you know, some of the larger monitor lizards that have really been popularized. But, you know, frankly, are pretty bad choices for pets. So I think that that's another aspect of keeping snakes. Now, do we, as herpetocultures, often keep snakes in too small of enclosures? Most definitely. And I think we could definitely stand to give our snakes more room to. And, you know, I think there is kind of a push around herpetoculture to increase our cage sizes and increase the, you know, the amount of stimuli they have. And so they're not just sitting in a dark tub or something. But, you know, how much of that is anthropomorphism?

Do they need a giant enclosure to thrive? I don't, you know, it's hard to say. But I would say definitely a lizard would benefit from more space over a snake, a python anyway depending on you know the species but um just kind of and i guess it depends on the species of lizard too but you know that's i think that that kind of there's advantages of the of space uh in regards to snakes as well, you know, just from a broad perspective. Yeah, I think probably especially, you know, diurnal snakes, you know, pursue their prey. Like, you know, couch whips or trimarchon should probably be at a larger cage.

That's a big snake. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's one I would love to keep. Yeah. Ron St. Pierre was talking about his, I think on the last time we had him on here, but he has some set up in an outdoor enclosure, and he was watching them like he just is in awe when he goes out and just sees them in this large enclosure, and they just use every inch of that space, you know.

So, yeah, definitely a dry mark hunt could stand to have a room-size enclosure and would make good use of it, yeah. I love coach whips and whip snakes, but I couldn't bear to bring them into captivity just because they seemed like they would need a football field size cage for their activity level. Yeah, for sure. So I've done tortoise telemetry, and a friend of mine was doing his Ph.D. at the Savannah River Ecology Lab with indigo snakes. Oh, cool. And he had put some transmitters in them, and he's like, oh, you want to try to find one? So I'm trying to find it, and I keep going like this. And I'm so used to, I was so used to

just working in two dimensions and looking in two dimensions. I just kept going around in circles, and he's like, hey. I said, oh. So I was up in the tree. Oh, wow. That's cool. Awesome. But, wow. That's cool. Awesome.

But, yeah, I think, I mean, you know, with the monitors, like, they do take a lot of space, and that is definitely, like, a real concern and a real thing that people should be aware of before they, you know, jump into that. Because I think, you know, the first lizard I ever bought was a Nile monitor for like $100 when I was 16. Right. You know, brought it home. I think a lot of us have been in that boat, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And it was just, it was not, you know, a good experience for me or the lizard, really. Yeah. But, you know, the Dwarf monitors, I think, you know, because they got that Pilbarenzus and that's, that's two by two by four, but all the, the walls, they can climb on all the walls. And, uh, honestly, they only use half of it. They don't even go to the pool side.

But I guess it would depend on, I mean, there's, there's other factors in space, too. You know, thermal gradients. I mean, I followed a Pilbrensis monitor up a hillside and just trying to video him doing his thing, you know, and, man, that thing just covered ground like you wouldn't believe. If I got just a little too close, he'd just take off like a flash and just get up, you know, about maybe eight to ten feet ahead of me. And then he'd kind of slow down and chill and maybe look for a bug. But, you know, jumping over boulders and just kind of climbing up the sides.

And, I mean, you know, the amount of space that he moved, just me following him for 15 minutes, you know, we probably covered a quarter of a mile pretty easily. You know, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So snakes, I think, like, as a whole, even though they're not what I prefer to keep, I think the biology is, like, out of this world when you think about, like, a snake's biology and what they're able to do without having arms. You know, they can do just

about everything that like other things can do without the aid of having arms you know they're arboreal they can swim you know to an extent some of them you know can burrow um yeah so i think it's impressive and just the biology of you know they essentially have one lung because they can't be next to each other so that one of them is reduced and one of them is huge or uh you know selenoglyphs you know the vipers like that evolution of venom is amazing so i definitely won't poopoo snakes at all i think they're super cool i just don't they don, they don't hit that spot for me personally. Sure. Yeah. And I think your choice of, you know, working with dwarf monitors is, you know, very good.

And it sounds like from, you know, good experience, you know, keeping a large monitor and realizing this is very difficult to, you know, to keep. And those dwarf monitors fit much better into the space restraints that we often have. Yeah, I don't know. I think there's a lot of neat aspects of keeping the snakes, like you said seeing some of their behaviors and kind of seeing them do their thing um i i do think that you know we we can the the different and you know this may not just apply to snakes of course i think lizards fall

into this too but having all the different environments and being able to keep you know different species in different environments is kind of fun so um yeah i i don't know i i i always wonder i it's it's hard you know why don't i have more lizards but i think that's the main thing is just the the amount of care they they need and the amount of attention and food versus a snake where you can, you know, have a little less involvement and be able to still do them justice. I just feel bad, I guess, with my limited time if I'm keeping too many lizards that I'm neglecting them more than I probably should. I guess, you know, and this may not, you know, lizards also brumate and hibernate, but, tendency to lose species of lizard that I try to brumate too much, and I'm not sure what I'm messing up there. But so, you know, every time I've, or not every time,

but a lot of times I've tried to brumate my lizards, I lose one or two. And, you know, during the brumation cycle, where I haven't really had that issue with snakes, they tend to do a lot better. So I don't know what I'm missing, but I've got to figure that out, I guess, before I keep more species that require brumation. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, these guys are monitors.

I mean, they cool down and they slow down, but not like a real, like I don't completely brumumate them and i don't know how well they would do i'm scared to do that um but i do have a gambelia that i caught when it was like tiny um a long-nosed leopard lizard and like i brumate that guy throw him in a wine cooler and he comes out the next year just fine. Yeah, I had some Australian water dragons and I brumated them and I lost one of them during a pair

or I think I had a trio, but I lost the male. I was just like, what did I do wrong? I kept them cool and had a moist area for them. Maybe it was too wet, but yeah, I just have had issues with that. But yeah, I, I, uh, I don't know. I think the, also the, um, that interesting, uh, behavior,

people are fascinated by snakes and, you know, they're maybe people are a little bit scared or maybe it's you know kind of a people like to have something different you know and snakes are definitely in that different category and and you can generally hold snakes so you know a little bit maybe easier than a lot of the lizards the lizards are i tend to not really handle my lizards as often, and maybe it's the species I keep, you know. But for sure, they're more of a visual pet rather than kind of a hands-on pet, it seems. You know, with some exceptions, of course. But, like, you know, you're not picking up your day geckos or you're not picking up your, you know, the larger monitors or things like that too often. You enjoy them or try to interact with them in different ways,

but handling is definitely a little more difficult with a lot of the lizard species compared with snakes, I think. Yeah, and I would agree that snakes do have that. Because it's kind of innate in us you know some people have the fear of spiders and the fear of snakes and that's a natural thing you know because for a lot of history those things could potentially kill us and um and there's a lot more probably a lot more like creation myths and things surrounding snakes than than lizards like so i do i definitely see that there's an allure to it. Yeah, and I think, like, you know, with the lizards,

like, I can't really handle these guys. There's only a few of them that, like, really don't mind me picking them up. But they don't want me to hold them. Like, they won't let me hold them. Yeah, so you don't really get that. But I'm fine with that. Personally, I just enjoy watching them run around, do their thing, eat off the tongs, go chasing after bugs. Yeah, they're definitely a lot funner in a lot of ways. And where you're interacting with them more frequently for feeding and things like that,

you can watch them chasing and hunting the insects. Whereas if you've got a snake, you're probably, you know, if you're looking for that kind of interaction, you're probably feeding them way too much, depending on the species, of course, but with a python, yeah. I think if you're along kind of those same lines of the danger or whatever if you're into venomous reptiles you're you've got very few choices with lizards i mean i guess you can technically count uh veranids but you know for the most part you've just got the heloderma um you're beaded and helo monsters uh be lizards and gila monsters for venomous whereas with snakes there's a multitude of venomous snakes and you know the there's a pretty endless list of different species you might keep if you're into venomous reptiles or keeping venomous now of course that now is that

is that a pro or a con yeah yeah i'm just just going to say, like, you're probably not going to die from a Heloderma bite. It won't be fun. That's true. Well, I mean, you know, there's antivenom for different species. Do they have an antivenom for Heloderma? I don't know if they need one. There's probably so few bites, and they're not usually life-threatening. I mean, it's fairly simple precautions to keep yourself from getting bit with those.

And, I mean, I don't know, even the best keepers. You were just speaking of snakes, right? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Chop? No, you're good, you're good.

That was a good comment, Chuck. I was I heard I heard about a guy who got bit by a venomous snake in Australia was in a lapid and and it basically shut down his ability to respond. He was still conscious and he could hear everything and remember everything that was going on around him. But like his body just started to shut down and he you know he couldn't respond and so um he was talking he called a friend to tell him that he'd been bit and he was going to kind of wait it out and see if it was a real bite and then he could just kind of stop talking and his friend's like hey hey are you there are you there and so the friend came over to his house and found him on the ground and he heard his friend go, he's dead! He's dead! And he could hear everything, but he just couldn't move

a muscle and respond in any way. And so they rushed him to the emergency room and gave him antivenin. And he said as soon as that kicked in, he was up and back at him and didn't have any real long-term effects from that. So I don't know. And that is why

elapids scare the shit out of me yeah right they don't all look venomous you know yeah the vipers it's like okay that's venomous snake uh the elapids you really don't know yeah especially in america i mean if you if you uh hear a rattle you know there's a venomous snake nearby, you know, and that's, but, you know, a lot of the, I remember I was looking for snakes at night in Australia up in the Iron Range, you know, we're looking for green tree pythons, and I saw a black snake kind of go, you know, past me or close to me, and I went to grab it, and just before I grabbed it, I'm like, wait a second, you know, this is most likely a large elapid that will turn around you know it's probably some

you know taipan or or something so i i uh caught myself before i dove on it and grabbed it you know like wait you're not in america you can't just go jumping on a black snake. Right. Yeah. Not like chasing down a coach whip. Yeah, exactly. That's it. That's a pretty epic feat. It's almost like the diving touchdown catch to, like, catch these guys. I couldn't imagine if a coach whip was a venomous snake. You know, that would be kind of crazy.

That's what you got with the Uralapids in Australia. Long,ous snake you know that'd be kind of crazy that's what you got with your lapids in australia long fast uh you know snake but yeah those those coach whips are fun to fun to try try for it's a rare opportunity to get hands on one for sure there were about what's uh eight of us surrounding this coach whip that was at the base of this, uh, grubby tree out in the desert and in like border of Arizona and Utah. And, uh, we were trying to, you know, catch it of course.

And they were like, we were surrounding it and kind of closing in on it. And it went around the tree, I think three or four times. And we all were diving and trying to grab it. Nobody laid a finger on that snake and it got away from us all and went down a hole. It was crazy. Like how fast the thing was. Yeah. And how fast that bites you if you do catch them. Oh yeah. Yeah.

They will tag you so quick. Yeah. I always thought I was the snake whisperer when I was a kid cause my dad and I grabbed a striped whip snake. And it was just biting my dad over and over. And I took it from him. And he's like, oh, you know, it's going to bite you. And I took it and I was handling it. And it just didn't bite me at all.

It just kind of cruised around my hands and we let it go. But I'm like, see, Dad, this is how you do it. It bled your dad enough that it was like, ah, there's no point. These fucking hairless monkeys don't take the hint. Exactly. He took all the brunt of the aggression there. Yeah. Wait, what a good dad, though.

He totally pumped you up. You were like, I am the man. I can do no wrong with snakes. He still tells that story to this day. He's like, I gave it to him, and it just didn't bite at all. I'm like, what is going on here? And look at you now. Yeah, I know.

I've got the bug for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a lot of pros to keeping snakes, and I think that enjoyment or that diversity of different species. And, of course, there's more lizard species than there are snakes, so there's even more opportunity for diversity in the lizard environment and just, you know, seeing, I guess there, there are a lot of snakes that, and this is probably in the compile and goes to your side, but that are a little too

specialist to keep in captivity. They're very difficult to keep because they were, you know, they only eat blind snakes or something. And how are you going to supply a meal of blind snakes to this snake? I was really shocked. I got that Snakes of the World book by Mark O'Shea, and just seeing how many snakes I'd never heard of. I thought I was this snake guy, and I knew all these things. I get this book, and I'm like, I've never heard of that. I've never seen that, you know. Oh, it specializes in feeding on blind snakes or it specializes in feeding on caecilians, you know. There's no way I could, you know, anybody could keep that in captivity.

So, you know, that's kind of the difficulty. Whereas most lizards are eating, you know, insects or, you know, small rodents or things like that, that they're a little easier to get them to take a wide variety of prey. I mean, there are some specialists, but for the most part, you can get a bigger variety of lizards to adapt to captivity and do okay. It's probably cheaper to keep snakes, too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I yeah i think so i mean you don't you don't need the uv necessarily i mean they probably benefit from it but it's not necessarily

required to keep a snake as it would be much more important for a lizard at least to you know to some extent if you can get natural sunlight of, it's better. And I think just the dietary variety that lizards tend to benefit from. Not that snakes don't, but I think in what we have, the modern conventional herpetoculture, we're pretty rodent-focused when it comes to snakes. That's true, yeah. You know, it's pretty easy-peasy, and most of the captive stuff will go right on to rodents and be fine with it. But, you know, if you want to do your lizards justice, generally speaking, you're not feeding them a single type prey source. Getting away with that, you're having to, you know,

multiple different types of prey sources and supplementation and you know light augmentation like so there's there's quite a bit there's quite a bit to it there for sure yeah that's uh and if you can oh go ahead actually i'll shut up because this is not no no no no no no no i You're good. What were you going to say? No, I feel like I'm taking away from Eric's stuff. Well, I was just going to say that most of it's really available, though. Although it's more work, it's not that hard to get roaches or crickets or different types of, you know, fish or like whatever, whatever you're, and that's generally veranids I was thinking of where, you know, they eat, some of them eat quite a variety of food.

Okay. All right. Now I'll shut up. Yeah. And it can be expensive. And if you don't want it to be expensive, then you have to share your domicile with cockroaches. It took me a minute to kind of get past how gross it is, but now I don't even care. Well, a lot of the commercially available roaches aren't too bad. The dubious can't climb smooth surfaces, or they can't survive much cold.

They don't do well in the cold. So they're not bad. I found them to be pretty innocuous. They look gross, I guess. I bought some hissing cockroaches thinking like the Ackies that I have would try to eat them and I throw them in there, they go over and check them out a little bit, bit onto it once

I think the exoskeleton is so hard they just were not into it and I feel like they were just looking at me like you need to get an exterminator in here get this thing out of here so now I have a bunch of hissing cockroaches that I have no idea what I'm going to do. I just keep reading.

Yeah. I had a friend that had the same problem. He bought them as feeders and nothing would eat them. So, yeah. And I think the biggest con of keeping lizards is having to deal with crickets. So, you know, that's the one thing that I just did not enjoy about lizards is, you know, getting a shipment of crickets that had died because it was too cold or died because it was too hot or died because they were in a container for too long.

I don't know. Like, they just seem really temperamental, and they stink, and they're loud, and they're obnoxious. You know, I don't know. Crickets are a rough thing to deal with. So thank goodness for doobie roaches or I wouldn't be able to keep any lizards. You know, they're just, the crickets are a pain.

It's fun to watch Ackies go chase them around though. That's true. They are much funner to watch. Oh yeah, that's the speed that Aki's like right there, man. Yeah. Like, go for it. And like locusts, I wish there were better sources. Like in Europe, it seems like they breed a lot of locusts,

and you don't see that here. It would be nice to have kind of a wider variety of orthopterans to feed to lizards because they are fun to watch and chase around a grasshopper that's springing through the air, you know, jumping and chasing and catching it and stuff. Yeah, I catch them in the spring, and they get them in the springtime, and it's hilarious. I mean, they'll climb up onto the, you know, stick, and they're jumping through the air trying to get it. They're just so 110%, like, after the prey item um yeah that it is such a joy to watch uh but specifically with ackies and in some of the other monitors it's like

you know you could throw 100 crickets in there 100 you know copter 100 grasshoppers in there and the minute one gets one that's the one everybody wants. Like it's the strangest thing. Yeah. I would, I would say too, that's probably another benefit for keeping lizards is that the interactions and being able to keep multiple animals in the same cage, uh,

probably point goes to lizards over snakes. You know, I mean, I do, uh, cohabitate a lot of my snake pythons that I keep, you know, and but, you know, feeding time becomes a hassle. Like you said, like lizards will grab onto the same thing, but they're not grabbing onto each other and, you know, like trying to constrict each other or something. They usually let go after they realize, OK, this is not a food item.

This is my friend. I mean, yeah, you'll get some baby bearded dragons that'll nip each other's tails or toes or things like that. And kinks that might rip each other's limbs off if you leave them together too long. They do not do good together.

Yeah. I guess it depends. Even stuff that they say is communal is not communal. Yeah, yeah. I'm interested because I have the Gil and I that I'm raising up now, and so I have six of them, and I've been reading some literature on them, and they seem to live communal, in like single snags and these you

know under the mulga bark and i'm just curious how that's gonna that's gonna play out but and considering like keeping a larger group together how that goes yeah you kind of wonder too like if if something that is communal like that, if like having four walls of a cage actually changes some of their feelings about communal structure or whether it's, you know, it's a size thing or like, you know, having that having that ability to kind of expand their range or bring it in based on how they feel about the communal structure, that kind of thing. Like I was I kind of wonder how that plays into it as far as communal lizards. Have you guys seen Luke Netheim? He's the host of the Australian Herp to Culture podcast, Aussie Herp podcast on LA Pythons. But his gill and light enclosures are really cool.

Like that is good size. And they have, uh, trees in the middle and that is beach, beach of scaly beasts. Oh yeah. I've seen it on YouTube. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got some cool stuff. Cool. Pretty, pretty fantastic. Yeah.

And his photo backgrounds are just phenomenal. Yeah. But that's, yeah, his, his, uh his enclosures are fantastic. Yeah. I think, you know, so lizards are more work, and I think there's more time invested in things like that. But I don't think they're quite as, you know,

lizard keepers are quite as neurotic as some amphibian keepers have to be, like in order to keep you know the water yeah yeah i think both of our groups definitely have have things better over turtle keepers or or amphibian keepers yeah i can imagine like going turtle keepers just get kicked in the teeth all the time huh yeah well i mean they they enjoy their thing but you know like i don't do well with water animals they just you know i don't know what it is but i i think too like uh you know amphibian where you're keeping a pair of frogs and all of a sudden you have a thousand eggs and trying to raise up that many tadpoles all at once or something it's's pretty nuts. But yeah, I think I'll stick to my snakes primarily

with a few lizards sprinkled in. But someday I don't know. Someday I'd like to keep more lizards, I think, when I'm retired or have more time or something. Like chameleons are so fascinating. And I think that's another benefit of your side of lizard side, is the different modes of feeding. You know, it's fun to watch a monitor chase and grab something and gulp it down. Or watch a chameleon's long tongue grab that prey item and pull it back in and stuff. And lots of fun stuff regarding watching them feed. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, snakes are a lot of fun to watch, too.

You know, like the constrictors are the ones that just grab and start swallowing, you know. My indicus will hide all the time, but once in a while, the male will come out and he'll just watch me. Like, just like, you know, one eye watching you, like watching what you're doing. And if you move around, then he's like i'm gonna bail i'm gonna bail i'm not i'm staying i'm staying but you know like even even my scrubs like they're very alert snakes and unless you like unless it's dark and they're looking for food and you walk past the cage they're not you know they're not the the you know they need that very direct movement. It's not like they know you're there until they key in on it, whereas lizards are keenly aware of what's happening in their surroundings.

And so even the most alert of snake kind of still has some sensory kind of barrier to kind of how engaged they are, even when they're a very engaged animal. Yeah. Most snakes typically don't have great vision. A lizard usually has pretty good vision, depending on that. But overall, lizards are more visual uh predators versus a snake that um so yeah that's definitely true i mean i've never seen a lizard try to biting itself um trying to get a meal you know i had a california king snake that would he would chase like a mouse around and

sometimes he'd stop and bite him bite his own body and sit there and wrestle with himself. And we're like, oh, wait, that's me. And then let go and try to catch the mouse. As a kid, I just thought I was so dumb. Like, what is wrong with you? If you don't feed a warm enough frozen thawed rodent to a snake, it will. It will absolutely bite his body because it smells the food but it can't see the food so it's like without having those two senses together they're just like complete idiots they're like i don't know what's happening i know part of just bite and constrict yeah like

that's when they just open their mouth and they're like ah yeah trying to get anything that they can get their teeth on. Yeah, that's rough. Their evolutionary history, pushing them into that, just got to feed any chance you get because you may not see another chance for another month or two. It's got to be rough. Yeah. But, you know, talking about the lizards,

like I think about with the monitor lizards, you know, I'm looking at some right about with the monitor lizards um you know i'm looking at some right now and they're all eyeballing me and you can see that the lights are on that there's like you know i don't know if they necessarily have like a thinking mind but they're definitely um fascinating in the sense that like i'm curious as to you know they're considering me and what i'm doing is i to, you know, they're considering me, and what I'm doing is I'm considering them and what they're doing. Yeah.

Definitely. I mean, there have been some problem-solving, you know, skills from lizards that have been documented, you know, the blue tree monitors using their, you know, fingernails to pull worms out of tree hollows or things like that. The zoo is doing a lot of enrichment with veranus for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're smarter.

There was a veranus exanthematicus that could count to three. Oh, yeah, yeah. I love that. Is that the Lizard Kings? I love that program, especially that footage of the Kimberly Rock monitor chasing a lizard. Yeah, I don't remember what it was on, but, yeah, he would, like, learn to bite, you know, this ball, and it would deliver food items, but it only ever gave him three, so he just got to the point where he'd just go up and bite it three times and eat the food.

Yeah. No, he wouldn't. Is that really counting? I don't know. I mean, sort of. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like, you know, hearing about the studies, I think in their environment, they know where their homes are, where their escape burrows and where they're, you know, the other exits to their burrow in case somebody's waiting, you know, by the, by the entrance or something, they can go out the other side. So they kind of have some spatial

awareness and kind of know what, what home is and where to go in case of danger. So, you know, in terms of survivability and stuff, they, they definitely, you know, I think snakes have a similar thing, you know, they, they can drop down under certain rocks or know nowhere to go and and have their babies or find an den for overwintering and things like that so yeah definitely good behaviors on both sides but but i think i've got another point for lizards right here okay snake poop is disgusting especially you get like a big snake yeah like you don't have to contend with that that's true that's true well i would say some veranda shit is pretty nasty stuff sometimes that's for sure well i mean if you get the fish. Yeah, yeah. Big water monitor. It's got nasty poo-poos.

Yeah, that's for sure. Probably, definitely, I agree with you with more of the dwarf monitor species. You're probably much more on the safe side. But, oh, man, my indicates shit something nasty sometimes. Along those same lines, though, like the lizards will pick a corner of their cage and, you know, poop in the same spot. You know, and that's kind of cool for cleaning the cage. You just have to clean up that area, you know, replace that sand more often or something. So that's kind of cool.

Or some of them will just poop in their water. Their water will just dump it out. Exactly. Which can be't even get out. It can't jump it out. Which can be looked at both ways. Like, come on, quit pooping in your water. Yeah. But, yeah, I guess in some ways that could just be, hey, this is a toilet. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Snake, I guess depending on the species and how often you feed, you know, I think overfeeding can also result in some pretty nasty snake poop, especially with the pythons or something. But if you're eating in moderation, they're getting most of the nutrients out of that food item. They're pretty very good. What's the word? Very efficient.

They have a very efficient digestive system that can pull most of that. So basically you're just getting hair and bones or not much out of the other end. So it's not too bad if you're not overfeeding, at least for the pythons. I don't know. I guess a lot of the colubrids are pretty nasty. They poop a lot. I don't know. I guess a lot of the colubrids are pretty nasty. They poop a lot. And you're right. If you have a snake that's pooping a lot, it can be pretty gross.

Yeah. Good size enclosures. I don't know. Well, any other big selling points on either of these groups? I'm trying to think if we've missed anything obvious or we've hit them all. Yeah, I think that's, you know, I think it's covered quite a bit. I mean, yeah.

Yeah. Good discussion. I mean, I think, you know, if you're thinking about getting into one group or the other, you know, hopefully you've gotten some good points from from this discussion and and can make a good choice as to what would fit your lifestyle. Or, you know, I always trick myself and think, oh, no, I can I can handle monitors. I can do this. And then I get a pair of Accys or something and I'm just, I'm barely, you know, I'm just kind of maintaining them. I'm not really feeding them to, so they can thrive and breed and all those kinds of things. And then they just kind of, I don't know, I feel bad. And so then I get rid of them. And then a few years later, I could, I bet I could do hackies. And so just kind of, I don't know, I just need to accept the fact that snakes are probably the best choice for me at this point in life. But some lizards I found, like the blue-tongued skinks, are almost like a snake. You know, they're pretty bulletproof, pretty easy to take care of, you know, and they'll eat just about anything.

So it makes their requirements a little less stringent. I'm not having to worry about crickets every other day or something, you know. going to be a little more time consuming and need a little more space and more in regards to their enclosure, like the UV lighting or things like that. So just keep that in mind and make a wise decision when you're getting any pet, I guess. Research is always king, you know. But I do think, you know, lizards, like you said, are very rewarding. They're more interactive. They're more kind of fun to observe in a lot of ways. So whatever floats your boat.

I guess whatever is going to keep your interest for the longest time, that's probably the species you should pick. I feel bad for people who only breed species that are popular, that sell well. They're missing out on a lot of fun, a lot of cool species, by just chasing the stuff that everybody has. I would suggest getting something that's unique and cool and something that you can kind of have be your own project. I think that's a fun way to live life. So, I don't know.

Anything else you want to add? Yeah, I think, you know, what interests you, you know, and the resources that you have. You know, if you have the resources and you really enjoy, you know, more in-depth and difficult species. I definitely wouldn't jump in with both feet on some things, but research is definitely king. I think if it came down to it, if I could only keep, you know, well, of course I'm a lizard guy, but this would be maybe a question for you. Like if you could only keep one one herb and the resource

was there to do it um you know in terms of time and space like would it be a lizard or a snake oh man yeah i i think if if if no you know space and time and money weren't limits i'd probably keep a parenti monitor so So that would be my ultimate, you know, so I think I'd have to go with that. But at the same time, you know, that might not be the most rewarding species to keep just because they're not very social or they're not very, you know, they're not, they don't necessarily make the best pets, but I would just sit and watch it walk and, you know, eat and, and that would be good enough for me. You know, I wouldn't care if I could hold it or anything

like that, but, and I'd need a, you know, a giant enclosure, a big outdoor warehouse or something, you know, greenhouse on it, but, you know, pipe dreams, but that would be, uh, probably my ultimate what I'd really, if I could just keep one thing that would be probably my ultimate. If I could just keep one thing, that would be really top of my list. I could definitely agree with that. I brought the kids to the L.A. Zoo and they had Komodos and

I had a Perenti there and it was just like, I've seen Komodos before. They're cool, but there's something about the elegance and just the streamlined body of the Perentie and the patterning. I know. Yeah, it's probably, I think, one of the most handsome animals on the planet. For sure. But, you know, if I was being realistic and there are limits, then, yeah, there's no way I would keep a perentee. I'd rather spend the money and go find them, you know,

follow them around in the wild and watch them do their thing, which I got to do in Western Australia. It was fantastic, one of the best days of my life. So, you know, I think that's kind of where I'm finding that or I'm able to scratch that itch is through herping, you know, getting out and seeing things in the wild. And I can enjoy it in its natural habitat and like, you know,

the chuck wall is that Chuck and I saw down in Southern California, you know, on the boulders and we saw half a dozen that day and I'm just like, oh, I really love these things. I'd love to keep them, but then I think then I'd have to feed them all these veggies and I'd have to, you know,

you know, a little bit higher maintenance, the larger cage requirements. And I'd be like, yeah, I'm just going to enjoy them in Southern California when I'm down here, Southern Utah. I don't know.

But yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's definitely a fun discussion. I guess I like both, so I'll side with both sides. Yeah, I definitely like both as well. And I think, like, you know, a lot of times it's kind of like you just want the – and for me it's like I want the thing that I can't have, you know,

and so I have all these Aussie dwarfs. But if I go outside, outside you know in the springtime there's like amazing reptiles like here in the united states yeah and you know i've got and it's one of the coolest lizards like in terms of its biology you know it's aposematic like you know when it's grabbing it advertises the world that it's don't eat me. I don't taste good. Yeah. Yeah.

And they eat lizards their own size. Like, I mean, it's crazy. Incredible. Yeah. Oh, we saw those, uh, the banded, uh, rock lizards, the Miranzi down in, uh, in California, down on the boulders watching. They're like the American Varanus Pilbarensis like that's the American version of that lizard because they

have similar coloration and patterning and they're banded tails and they're just cruising across those rock surfaces, they're a lot of fun I did the same thing like I wonder how I could keep those in captivity and then I'm like no knock it off just

enjoy them while you're down here you know watch them run 40 feet across the boulder and see if you can provide that you know in captivity and oh yeah they're really cool species yeah that's actually on my list for the spring to go out to see it's on on my list because i'm you know you know in banning so like you know i to Palm Springs, and there's some INAT locations right there in Palm Springs. Yeah, that's on my list. I can give you a good spot. We're headed out there in May, too. Chuck and I are going to go down and do a little herp trip down in that area.

But let me know when you're headed out there. I can give you a place where we saw them pretty plentifully. They are pretty shy. You've got to kind of sneak up on them, I guess. But they're pretty fun. Have some binoculars ready. Yeah, they're cool. Is it the same?

How do we? What was that? I bumped the computer. Oh, gotcha. So, you know, we've kind of included a little segment in the show where we talk about, you know, different herpetological events that we've seen or any interesting things in the news or exciting things that you've seen. Any cool observations lately, you guys?

I saw that there's a new guidebook to the reptiles of the Northern Territory. One of my Facebook friends was that. I'm so bad with names. I can't remember who put that out. But they, Jake Meany, maybe? Oh, man, I'm probably getting it wrong. But anyway, they have the field guides.

So, you know, I get really excited about field guides. But then you get them and you're like, oh, it's a map and a description. So I could, you know, I've got a lot of a lot of those but you know hopefully there's more to it i'm i'll still get it but you know it's always fun to uh i i do like getting the latest edition of the reptiles of australia uh field guide but so this one would be fun because i i know there's a lot of cool species in the northern territoryritory. Something new that's out there. I still need to get a copy of Iper's book. I was listening to Venom Exchange Radio here and Phil and Nipper talk about

and talk to the Ipers and then talk about that book, and that was their number one choice of books and just said it's the book to end all books for Australasian or Lapids. So I need to get that, purchase that. But it's a little pricey. And, you know, it's an edition Chimera book, so they're usually a little more expensive. Yeah.

I don't know, two really cool books. Do you have Lizards of the American Southwest? I do, yeah. That is an epic field guide. I that that cover lizard was the one that drew me to that the the uh um what is it oh it's right up here let's say the uh greater earless lizard that's on the cover the yeah uh greater earless lizards this one yeah that so that lizard i just saw that picture I'm like, that is the coolest lizard. And then I saw one in Texas, and it was the same colors.

It was out in its breeding colors, and I'm like, that is a freaking cool lizard. I'm all going nuts and like, there it is. And I'm trying to get close and I just had my cell phone I didn't even have my my zoom camera and uh they're like what okay it's a little silvery gray lizard and I'm like no look look at these pictures like you zoom in and you see these orange spots and the blue and the bands and it's like that is a cool lizard and then on the back is the um one of the baja blue rock lizards i mean bright blue and orange throat i mean you can't get and then on the spine is the dickerson's collared lizards yeah blue uh yeah there's so many cool

lizards in the southwest for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I just need to get out and find more of them and just sit and watch them. Yeah. Yeah. The Bob, the rocks, those are the petrosaurus, right?

Like the same as the Merzai. It's the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, I think Justin may have lost the fight with that emphatic lizard speech. I know.

Just want to put that out there. No, I agree. I'm happy to let the lizard side win because, like I said, I think if push came to shove, I was only allowed one animal, it would probably be some kind of veranid. Probably more realistically, a gillens would be very high on my list so keep me in mind if you produce any of those yeah for sure yeah at least i could raise them up and sell them back to you or something yeah yeah so something like for snakes uh to come up on a

couple of podcasts i've listened to that uh uh they've discovered hemiclitori in some of the snake species which was and it kind of like i just assumed that they were there because you know they're squamates and like lizards it's known in lizards and i was just like i didn't know that it was unknown until it was made known yes Yes. Well, I think the interesting part of it was that they're functional, like that they have different functions in nature. They just thought they were some kind of, I don't know, non-functional unit or something, but they actually serve a purpose and surprise, surprise.

It's even cooler that it was women scientists that discovered that and made that known. The men had just ignored that, which is probably typical for men. I was just going to say that sounds exactly like us. Like, what could these things do? I don't know. They're nothing. We're not going to worry about them. Not as important as the hemipenes.

They have two. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool discoveries. Lots of stuff still in need of discovery I'm working on a manuscript now about some results that we had with our studies with antivirals against

Nidovirus or Serpentoviruses as they've been reclassified so I'll be presenting a poster at a conference in France in March, and then we're working on the manuscript to get out by the end of March, I think beginning of April. So it should be fun. We found some drugs that have activity against several different

Nidoviruses, so potential for future work, and hopefully being able to treat some snakes or lizards that are infected with, uh, serpentovirus. That'd be cool. And what was even cooler is this, this was funded by, um, reptile keepers. It was a, uh, a carpet fest, um, where they raised some money for Serpentovirus research or Nidovirus research so we got a few grand from donations

from these keepers that were doing an auction or something and sent us the money to do the research so I'm excited to finally be able to send them some results and show them the fruits of their labor. So hopefully this will be something that we can continue and find some options for treatment. Yeah, that's super cool.

So I know you're a virologist. Does it usually pertain to humans and that sort of virology all the viruses i work with with uh for the most part are human viruses that cause human disease um but uh where we got kind of a we do a lot of research like private research for people who want to you know pay for studies and things and so um this kind of fell under that and I was happy to, you know, to work with some snake viruses, just make sure I, you know, don't take any home with me. I'm not doing any hands-on with them, but, you know, just writing up the results. And, um, so yeah, but it's, uh, we found, uh, three or four different compounds that had pretty good activity against the viruses in cell culture.

And so I'm looking for some options or, you know, hopefully there might be a potential to have like a challenge model. And I know that they've done kind of that proof of concept where they've administered these viruses to snakes and then recapitulated the disease in, you know, live snakes. So there has been a challenge model. So it would be nice if we could get some animals challenged and then treat them with different compounds to see if we can prevent or cure disease. That would be the goal, I guess, is to have a treatment option. Yeah, that's cool pretty fun yeah that your work's able to

come together with your hobbies exactly yeah it's kind of been nice there was an opportunity a while back some universe or I think they were in San Francisco some researchers that discovered the stargazing,

the virus that causes the, what is it, IBD, the IBD virus in boas. We were looking to collaborate on some studies there, and I was going to try to set up a challenge model at our university, but it just ended up being too expensive and not really feasible from my side. So I wasn't able to move forward with that. But now we'll see. Lots of stuff to do, I guess. But we're as busy as we've ever been with human viruses and with the pandemic and stuff.

So not a lot of time for veterinary viruses unfortunately but i'm glad that we could finally get some publishable results for for the virus for the serpentoviruses well uh where can people find you eric uh occasionally i'll put stuff on instagram um you know at sorologic uh on instagram so i try to post fun fun lizard videos yeah and some other things that i yeah it's then some things that i you know see in the field because i spend a lot of time in the field you know for my work uh so it's fun spot. Yeah, the desert tortoise

pictures and videos you've got on there, just those little baby desert tortoises. There's nothing cuter than a baby desert tortoise. I'm sorry. They're really cool animals. That's one of my favorite things to find. I found

a hatchling burrow. There were three hatchlings in it and I had to keep checking, checking on it. And it was the funniest thing. I've got some video somewhere. We're like right out of the egg. Those guys are like head bobbing each other. And like,

one of them's like being the bull. That's awesome. You know, machismo, you know, that little, that would be freaking cool. Yeah. That would be freaking cool. Yeah, that would be

exciting for sure. Alright, well, again, we appreciate you coming on and having this fun discussion with us. Yeah, look forward to seeing more from you. Right on. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It was fun. I love the show. I like the concept, too.

Yeah, yeah. We appreciate you bringing the idea and coming on to debate it. So we'll have to have you back. Right on. All right. Well, thanks to NPR for hosting the show and for Eric and all the work he does to get these podcasts out. So thanks again, guys. And we'll catch you next week for another episode of Reptile Fight Club. It may not be as important as the hemipene, but join us for the next. Thank you. Outro Music