Reptile Fight Club - Reptile Fight Club Travels the World and Fights About Male Size

Episode Date: December 8, 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 using small male pythons for breeding. 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 reptile fight club we are back All right. Welcome to Reptile Fight Club. We are back. I am back in the country and we are back together to record Reptile Fight Club. What is going on? Not much. I'm just sitting in the back of the fight bus. Sitting in the back of the fight bus. That's right. We're back. Okay. Yeah. yep um life going well yeah not bad man just uh you know living living with teenagers good times holy shit

oh my god oh yeah that's uh that is uh very good times yeah yeah i hear you i'm i'm there with you and i know you i know you've been there in there for a while this is not new news to you you're Very good times, yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I'm there with you. I know you've been there. Been there for a while. This is not new news to you. You're like, yeah, talking old hat to Chuck. It doesn't make it easier, though. I can't say that. Like, each kid is different, so, yeah.

Yep. And it's like, that's exactly right. Like, you couldn't have hit it on the head any better than that but then they get through it and then it's fun again alright well I guess today I thought we'd just kind of catch up a bit

talk about the trips I've been on lately and then we maybe fight a little bit at the end I figured we'd be letting you do most of the talking today since you obviously have been out doing fun, adventurous things. And I have not.

So yeah. All right. Well, I apologize. I hope this, no, you're good. I wasn't going to lead very hard with anything I was doing because I

know you got stuff to say. Well, I mean, no, there's always time for you to talk about your stuff as well, but there's not, no, I mean, no, there's always time for you to talk about your stuff as well. But I guess the first trip was the Tinley trip. Got to get back to Tinley. We did the Gecko Symposium.

Russ Gurley and Nick Esposito put that on and did a fantastic job. Got some really good speakers. Aside from me, of course. But yeah, it was it was really good to hear hear all the stuff that was going on there. Probably one of the highlights was the announcement of a new species of New Caledonian gecko that was partially aquatic. Kind of a cool thing. He talked about how they found it, how they went out and, you know, searched for this species or type of gecko that somebody had found and described to them. And they said, that doesn't sound like anything we know about. And so they went to where the guy was and found one or two. On one occasion, they found one and it was it dove into the water and like swam away.

And it has like partially webbed feet and stuff. So that was pretty cool. And of course, you know, my brain is slow. It's kind of early morning here, but, I'm trying to think of the name, but, um, cash. Uh, John DeBoer, uh, from Pangea reptiles is, is who presented on that. He was a really cool guy. It was, it was neat to meet him. And, uh, he's, I think one of the head guys there at Pangea and runs, runs that place. So, um, but he's also doing a phd and and researching geckos at the same time so kind of a good uh mix there but there's some other uh great the one was on nutrition and i one of the

big takeaways i had so he compared a bunch of wild this was mark finke or fink um however he pronounced his last name but he talked about like the, um, vitamin contents of various wild caught insects versus commercially bred. Now, I think I take it a little bit with a grain of salt because he had a product that he was comparing, you know, things with to show that his gut loaded bugs were, were good and you know, that kind of thing. So I guess he, you know, anytime somebody's trying to sell something then yeah yeah but but it was really interesting i mean you know he he just looked at the nutrient content of wild insects and that's kind of what stood out to me but

one thing was that uh he took some wild grasshoppers and showed their vitamin d levels were through the roof like they had huge D, which makes sense because they basically just sit out in the sun. Yeah. Compared to like a cricket or commercially bred grasshopper, they had like zero vitamin D. So I thought that was really interesting, you know, and, uh, you know, reason we supplement or maybe stick your bugs outside for in the sun for a half hour or something.

But that was pretty cool. Um, Siri Ducker talked about, um, outside for in the sun for a half hour or something but that was pretty cool um siri ducker talked about um tokay gecko behavior and showed some really cool videos of her tokays like like when they're angry and no not so much that's easy to see right this is like i feel like that's like yeah she was setting up videos in their hides and showing like um like when the babies would hatch out they'd kind of go by the adults and it was kind of like familial gotcha relationships and toucays it was pretty cool but the little babies would like wave their tails around you know it's kind of i don't know like to say it's it's me i'm over here don't meet me yeah and uh yeah a lot of a lot of great stuff i i really like frank colachico

he gives some really exciting motivating talks he talked about herping the um eastern arabia and and the stuff he found out there so kind of fun but a lot of good a lot of good stuff um yeah some a lot of scientists there were probably three four, five of us that were PhDs or will be PhDs soon. So kind of cool. A lot of science he talked to. Tony Gamble talked about some genetic stuff. So that was pretty neat. He's doing research on gecko genetics because geckos are such a diverse basal group of reptiles.

So it's kind of cool lots of good talks i don't know if you uh got to see um dr booth warren booth was there so i got to meet him in person and um zach loafman dr zach got to meet him zach Zach, as Lucas calls him. Maybe not to his face. No, not. I don't know. That was a funny slip up. But anyway, yeah, it was good to good to meet them in person. Got Zach's book and got him to sign it. So that was cool. Really great guys. It's kind of funny when you meet somebody in person for the first time you know for for warren i was i don't know why but i expected him to be a little taller and so i was kind of looking up here and then i you know he comes up we're kind of face to face and he's like oh you and i'm like oh you

you know oh just yeah how dare you look down on warren booth justin i'm a little taller than sorry that was a short joke warren we love you so but you know it's uh it was great to dustin gron was there oh yeah brandon um so we got to hang out with those guys again we just herped with them you know a couple weeks earlier so good to always good to hang out with those guys and they had a fun crew that they were rolling with so we had like dinner with them a few nights and yeah dustin's the man it's that's uh so um lots of cool reptiles at the show they had i i ended up uh doing something um doing a thing you did i did a thing you always do a thing i know you're a thing doer sir

i got me a pair of asper that's a cool thing yeah it's a cool cool gecko for sure so um this was uh secret laboratory geckos he had some really cool stuff he had some chameleon geckos for sale i was really tempted on these two they're neat looking so i've seen these in queensland but i have not seen asper in the wild so but uh yeah what do you do okay how do i okay there we go we're back figuring out the controls here so yeah man you're doing good you're doing good but yeah really fun show i i had to leave on, I think, I don't know, one of the coolest things was hanging out with Russ Gurley. He is just the man. I don't know.

That guy has so much knowledge. He's been around and doing this for forever. So he knows so many players in the hobby. But he's really just a humble, nice guy. You can't find a better guy. I mean, I don't know Russ that well. I met him that one time when we were at Super Show. Or was it Super?

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah, just totally. I agree. Just exactly what you said. Yeah. He's probably forgotten more than I know.

And we got to hang out with him all weekend, you know, got a few dinners with him and stuff. So it was really cool hanging out with him. So now I really want to get one of his skulls, but Heidi's not really a fan. She's not a fan, huh? Not hanging in the house, huh? No, no, not next to the bedroom. I might get away with it in the den. So you don't want something with large, large tusks hanging out of the nose, staring at you in the middle of the night across the bedroom. Yeah.

If you haven't seen his, I think it's forgotten tribal skulls or forgotten skulls, forgotten culture, something like something forgotten. But look up RescEarly. You can find it. It's really cool. stuff amazing stuff yeah um always good to catch up with uh phil tramper he's got some really good reptiles so it was fun to uh chat with him and you know share some stories but he had some really nice uh um alpine blue tongues um that, that he was selling at, um, his booth. So, uh, here's a shot of one of those, but he had two, he had, uh, Alpine as well as lowland locality.

So, um, pretty cool to, to, uh, you know, see his, he's just got a really good wealth of stuff. Oh, there's a sack loafman. Yeah, that was, that was cool to meet him in person. So, um, but yeah, I, I, uh, enjoyed chatting with Phil and told, you know, I guess that leads to the next part is, uh, Australia. So I was going to be in the range of the blue tongues, the Alpine blue tongues. So that was kind of one of the goals was to find that was one of the targets yeah a little teaser for later i suppose but so i i had to leave tinley on saturday so i didn't stay for sunday and all the craziness with the auction and that kind of stuff i guess uh adeline got married on yeah was that this oh that was like uh at the show yeah yeah she got married at the at the show. Yeah. Yeah. She got married at the, at the, the, the auction, you know,

the big auction that they do. So I don't know that I've ever gone to that, but yeah. I remember, I just remember the auction from Anaheim, uh, NARBC. Yeah.

Where it was just drunk and loud and crazy. Hey, great, great setting for a wedding, right? Yeah, man. I was, well, I mean, where it was just drunk and loud and crazy. Hey, great, great setting for a wedding, right? Yeah, man. I was, well, I mean, somebody is going to get drunk and give a speech. So, you know, I think that's keeping in with the tradition of, of, of the, the auction. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure like people toned it down. got, you know, they're kind of legends there at Tinley. So that's a good way to die is screw up a wedding.

You know, some, uh, uh, somebody's wedding. Yeah. Right. Especially,

especially the bride's wedding. That's a good way to die. Yeah. So you don't want to be acting up at the auction. If there's a, there's a wedding going on, you don't want to be that guy. That's for sure.

But yeah, so I, I missed out on that. But I met so many cool people there. It was good to see some old faces as well. You see very many West Coast faces other than the ones you mentioned? Like Todd or Carrie? No, I didn't see Todd or Carrie. Yeah, I don't know how active they are anymore in general. I don't know.

Saw some faces from Carpet Fest, met some kind of pioneer guys, met some really cool people. So that was a lot of fun. Were they like the original pilgrims or you said they were pioneers? I just was wondering, like, how early of a settler were they? Yeah, some were pretty early pioneers. Yeah. I'm trying to. Puritans like Don Meeker.

Don Meeker. He goes way back. So it was really cool to meet him and his son. Justin was there as well. So I got to meet those two and Don is just a wealth of information, keeps a lot of cool stuff. But so that was really neat to, to meet him, um, chat with him. Um, Johnny racks, he's, he's that, uh, John, he's kind of a newer guy coming up, but he's got like a great collection of shingleback skinks and really cool guy. Nice guy. I kept bringing people up to meet him.

I'd meet somebody that kept blue tongue or shinglebacks and I'd be like, hey, you got to meet this guy. So he's like, why do you keep bringing me all these people? Brought Don Meeker over to him as well. Um, but yeah, it was, it was cool to, to meet him in person. Cause after I saw his video on Gary's, uh, uh, YouTube, I called him, you know, I'm like, cause he keeps Western blue tongues and a bunch of shinglebacks just like right up my alley. So I'm like, I gotta, gotta chat with this guy and meet him. But yeah, it was, it was cool. Um, and then, um, cow, my, my brain does not function with names for some reason, but, um, just, just a lot of good people. I'm probably forgetting, forgetting some key names here, but I guarantee it. Uh,

yeah. Yeah. You'd take that bet for sure. I would. Okay. If I was a gambling man. I know I've got a problem, but then it was, uh, then, I mean, seriously, like two, two or three days back home after Tinley and then it was off to Australia. So the flight, uh, was delayed quite a bit. So we sat on the plane for a few hours before we actually

took off um although so i i flew into la but it was a separate so it wasn't attached onto my trip you know so basically i had to get my bags and check them out that kind of stuff again but it's all right you foot the bill travel well no they they actually uh the hawksbury herb society flew me out so call well but for the long leg of the flight no no both of them both of them yeah he reimbursed me for the flight to la but it's able saved overall like several hundred dollars to do it that way so but yeah i sat in the plane for a while but there was i mean i got there plenty of time and then the flight was delayed so it wasn't like you know I was just kind of hanging around LAX for several hours and then sitting on the plane for a few hours and then flying for very many, many hours. I don't know.

I guess going over there, you're always so excited to get there. You don't really care, you know. And when I got there, you know, Colin had been waiting a while to to pick me up so um you know it's kind of another one of those things where you've talked with somebody on on the phone or or you know through chat and then you meet you go out and you're kind of looking now do i know what he looks like you know kind of vaguely from pictures or something and oh there you know that must be him sitting there is that you is that you kind of thing, you know? So then we took off and went right, um, uh, out to, to Herp and to go or meet some people. So, um, man, I should have prepared

for this better, but yeah, the, uh, the names kind of thing, but you know, you'd think I'd, I'd remember a little better, but, um, we went and met uh renowned turtle researcher he's written written the book on uh john can uh he wrote the book on australian turtles so got to go sit in his uh dining room and chat with him and his wife and i mean he's like um 85 know, and just wealth of knowledge, like really a bright guy. And it was it was really cool to meet him and chat with him. And he even had some copies of my book that he had me sign. It was kind of like, wait a second, this is kind of backwards. You know, I should be having you sign a book for me.

But and then we went over and did some some snake catching with uh andrew melrose he's a licensed snake catcher out in in that area in sydney area and so and while we were hanging out with him we went inside his collection and he hadn't uh uh really want you know a noteworthy snake that i was really excited to see. So let me bring up a picture of that thing. Um, it was quite a thrill to finally have one in hand. Can you guess? I'm sure you probably can. Um, where is the picture though? There we go. I apologize. You have to see my ugly mug, but I need to get smoother at this. I don't know how Eric does it so quickly. I'm like fumbling around here, but got to hold, you know, a Peli Python. yeah a little happy i i look like a douche with my hat backwards but that was uh because it was shadowing my face and they're like turn your hat around so we can see your happy face but yeah it was pretty big thrill to to be able to see an owen pelly and uh hold an owen pelly

and i guess uh andrew's the only one in new south w Wales that has them privately so that was pretty cool there's Andrew's back there this is Andrew he's got yeah well I can't remember I mean is that how they do the does he have a permit for it or a license for it

yeah do they permit per animal or per how i don't remember i'm not sure yeah i i thought he had a pair but i could be wrong maybe i mean i know i know the permit is different from area to area i think we kind of established that but yeah okay yeah from state to state and this is colin uh south so he's the one that brought me over and and all that good stuff so So he put me up in the, the, uh, local rugby clubs, uh, hotel. So that was, uh, pretty cool. The sex Panthers, the Penrith Panthers. Yeah. Something like that. You look hilarious in that picture.

You look like an American. I, I feel like if, if that backpack strap was suspenders, yeah, it would have been perfect. Oh, wow. Okay. You didn't really think this picture through, man. Oh, wow. There it went. Oh, I got a couple of things to say. All of a sudden, the picture disappeared.

I'm not a 15-year-old girl. I don't know how to take selfies that well, right? Oh, I don't know. It looked good to me. Wow. I think you should post that for everyone. Well, so there was it was cool to. So while we were hanging out with Andrew, his place, he got some calls. And so he's like, you want to go out and, you know, release some or catch some snakes and release some snakes and things.

And I'm like, heck, yeah. So went out and went to a call, but we couldn't find the snake. You know, they have this really well-planted yard. It was really beautiful yard and, and just so many places for a snake to hide. They'd seen a red belly black, uh, just cruising around the yard. So we're looking for it and didn't, didn't find it. So then we went and released some stuff. He had a diamond Python that we released and, and, uh, that was probably a highlight of the releases there, but also a red belly black. So we released this big red belly released and, and, uh, that was probably a highlight of the releases there, but also a red belly black. So we released this big red belly black and, um, we, we let it, I, he, he had me release it or whatever. So I, you know, it was going up into the bag. So I tailed it and kind

of pulled it out of the bag and let it slide down this little Creek bed. And then it stopped and just sat and drank water for a while. So that was really cool to see. Um, I think I, if I haven't posted a video of that on my YouTube page, I'll do that soon. But, um, I've been releasing videos on my YouTube, uh, JGJ lander. Um, so yeah, just one, one a week on Friday or whatever I call it, herping shorts. So check it out if you haven't seen it a little shameless plug there. But so I've been putting up, uh, the Australia videos, put out a bearded dragon one, uh, on Friday, this last Friday. So, um, so we, we released those, released a couple tree snakes, um, and a yellow faced whip snake. so i got to you know i'd seen all all of those in the wild before but you know always good to put a diamond back in the in the wild and it was one that he'd taken out of somebody's yard or something and we released them you know in the

same area that they came from but down in some you, protected bushland that was pretty extensive. And he actually grew up, uh, up the Hill from there. So it was kind of cool to, you know, see his old stomping grounds. He knew all the little, uh, areas of this, uh, place that, you know, behind where he grew up. So it was kind of cool. He's like releasing, he's like releasing back into his old stomping grounds. So he can just like those areas and find all the cool shit that he let go there exactly yeah if i ever went back to that area that's where i'd be herping because that's where all the releases go so it's kind of exactly yeah um then i yeah i really should

have taken notes that would have made this go so much smoother preparation right but i'm i'm an idiot so yeah that almost sounds like a job yeah right yeah this is not a not a job that's right it's not a job and we went out to the nuraginji reserve the ginge um wayne keys uh he was kind of one of those wild men you know like he had the the aussie hat and all that kind of stuff. I, I guess we did, I did a little herping the night before or actually it was birding mixed with birding. Birding was kind of the primary goal there. We I, I went out with Matt Vela to go see a,

a wedge tailed eagle nest. So, yeah, it was quite the hike. You know, we got up on this bluff overlooking the nest. It was in this huge tree kind of standing alone, and there was a chick in the nest, a wedge-tailed eagle chick. So that was pretty cool to see. Okay, so we got to see the wedge-tailed eagle nest and a few, uh, different skinks, water skinks and, um, whites skinks. And let's see, there were a couple others. I think we saw one of the, uh, um, megernia there, but man, I, again, should have made some notes, right. But, um, but it was cool,

really cool place, um, out, out in the mountains, the blue mountains. And so really neat to get back into the, into the wild and see some cool stuff. We saw some neat birds out there as well, which I'm sure everybody's excited to hear about. Um, but, uh, yeah, really cool place. Um, Oh, we saw Cunninghams just one, got a brief glimpse of one. Um, and, uh, copper-tailed skinks were out there as well. We chased one around quite a bit and we're unable to, uh, secure that one. Actually, we didn't catch any of these. We just kind of took pictures from afar. I think this goes back to the hands-on versus hands-off herping. And I'm just kind of more of a hands-off herper. We're just throwing that out there.

There we go. I just, yeah. It also matches up well with the legalities in Australia, right? Not supposed to handle stuff. Throwing that out there, too. Yeah. And then that night we went and saw a bower bird nest. I don't know if you've seen those,

but they make kind of a little tunnel of sticks and then they have like, they decorate it with different colored pieces of plastic or whatever. Are they big birds or little birds? They're kind of medium size. Yeah. And they're kind of cool looking too,

but the males will make these little you know stick nest tunnels and then put the the plastic well i guess i can just show a picture of it what am i what am i describing for but um i like the description you could just you could tell me about it if you want there you go yeah yeah okay but yeah it, it was, it was, uh, it was kind of a neat, neat thing. And, you know, we didn't see the Bowerbird itself. So here's, here's where we saw the, um, the eagle nest up on top of this hill here. Uh, and we, you know, had to cross a river to, to get over there, but, um, really a beautiful, beautiful scenery there. There was a big lake, and this was part of the river, kind of a little lake that had formed there on one of the bends in the river.

Really pretty, some neat birds around there. This is a nice little flat rock spider. They're kind of creepy little things, but yeah. I guess I could probably turn off the volume there, but, um, they call child molesters rock spiders or something in Australia. Yeah. That's the nickname because they're kind of slinky and move over to the side like that, but this is it's eggs, egg sac. So that's kind of crazy. Um,

but weird little spiders. So here's the, here's the bowerbird nest you can see you know that stick and then all the pieces of plastic did i describe it enough you know no not at all that was a shitty description honestly i that was left field from what i was thinking this is completely different yeah this is like a vertical nest almost versus like a like like the whole rather than rather the whole being uh you know orientated horizontally it's orientated vertically i mean you can check the tape i did say like a ton no no no i yeah but what was kind of we have the transcripts there were a couple uh used condoms that were kind of yellow colored so he had well at least he had a few safe sex there you go yeah and uh but mostly blue stuff but a few little yellow disgusting things so

yeah interesting but more uh pictures of the owen pelly of course um but yeah so then um on to the the nuraginji um place and this was kind of one of the highlights even though the animals had dispersed but this is a termite laced monitor nest yeah so the uh he's got some video is that a tree uh it is a termite mound yeah okay it is a termite yeah this is the termite mound next to a tree here okay i see the tree in the background i wasn't sure if like the when it looked like it might have been like part of the i don't know i was yeah so this is where the uh where the lace monitors hatched out but he has footage of like five of them in the mouth of the sticking out all there that's cool

just kind of hanging out and he's um posted videos on on youtube of of that of the and they live in there they they were you know they occupy that currently or is that like well no i think they've dispersed but they stay in the nest for a few days after they hatch and kind of they were really wary you know just kind of looking out was that was that something that's like um um, I was hoping you'll, you'll see them there every year or. I don't know. I think the female, so he said this, this hole wasn't there. So she's thinking that he's thinking that she's digging another nest.

He's actually holding a handful of hatched eggs. So kind of cool. Um, but, uh, that, that we're just around the nest site. So yeah, just kind of here on the ground, you can see the little eggshells or whatever. So I don't know if she's digging another nest. And I mean, you know, that she might be laying another nest or another female is laying there or something. But yeah, kind of cool to see an active lace monitor nest site. Kind of an interesting thing. But yeah, there's some flowers yeah flowers this was kind of a nasty little like thorn thing is all yeah you know pokey and stuff but kind of cool looking um is that is that a like a flower off of a tree yeah yeah that thorn yeah

some really amazing gum trees and things yeah um the next day colin took me to this spot overlooking the river kind of in the penrith area we were looking for more uh cunningham skinks but there were there was like a religious group filming like a video with like some you know analogy of of the path and the you know the climb and stuff so they. So I don't know if they disturbed all the lizards and stuff there. But it was a really nice spot other than not seeing any. Not any. But kind of a cool place. There's the typical American hanging out.

What a wanker. All right. Then I hiked a little further and went down this gully and, uh, nice. That looks like a fun little, it was really cool. Like really beautiful scenery there.

So nice. How stable are those rocks? I mean, it depends on which one you're standing on, but for the most part, yeah, it's pretty sure. I mean,

I can see one's pretty safe, but like, man, I can see you totally stepping on one of those and it just fucking crumbling out from under you. Yeah. I didn't have that happen. Thank goodness. But yeah, it was, you know, sandstone cliffs.

This is kind of like a typical diamond python habitat. Oh, meat pies, mate. Got to tell you. Got to eat a meat pie while you're up there. This is a good one, too. Yeah. Oh, don't't What the hell Eric can you please delete that

I forgot that was in there I had to take a picture of the credit card for Heidi And then this is Kind of an overlook from the mountains And we went up to This Up in the blue mountains up kind of the higher elevation street did you go down yeah we went all over but i do remember at one point we went over duck malloy because i thought that was pretty funny and uh our old uh buddy uh nick might buddy, Nick, my buddy, coming from Mutton Falls. Get the freaking heck out of here.

Yeah, we did not go to Mutton Falls, but yeah. So this, we were up in the highlands, we went looking for Australian copperheads, and this is Rob Ambrose. So,

gosh, Andrew Melrose and Rob Ambrose were both there with us. And they call those guys, the Rose brothers or the Rose boys or something. Melrose and Ambrose. But, um, so this is Rob Ambrose catching a copperhead. So to, to show us, and you got it by the tail, but he also ended up in the creek. So he had a wet foot the rest of the day but he was pretty intense herper man this guy was gonna say it sounds like it sounds like he's

the type of man who doesn't mind getting his feet wet yeah and that beard that beard reeks of of uh of a professional herper right there oh yeah yeah he had quite the beard it was uh yeah he was he was very entertaining but just like laser focused herping you know not thinking about anything else you know and then there were just these uh um wombat burrows everywhere like just giant wombat burrows you could crawl into that pretty easily you know that's a pretty good sized but they just yeah dig these giant tunnels everywhere and it was pretty crazy um and then here's rob with a brown snake or no sorry a tiger snake so he caught a tiger unfortunately was in shed but uh it was uh by the tail yeah he caught the tiger by the tail. Yeah, he caught the tiger by the tail. So that was a nice day of herping. How are those to handle?

Are the tigers pretty feisty? Can they? They can be, I think. This one was in shed. He let it go, and it just kind of crawled around us. It could have easily have taken a detour and bit somebody, but it just crawled around, went right for its hole, you know, went down its burrow. So it was not, you know, not like a brown snake that'll stand there.

Yeah. I mean, stand its ground or even a brown snake. They'll run. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They're not. Yeah, it was a really pretty area. And then we, we stopped and took some pictures of the, the copperhead and stuff like that. So how does the Australian copperhead and the American copperhead? I was kind of hoping I'd get to see a picture of it, but yeah, there you go.

Thank you. Well, dang, I guess I just need to ask. Yeah. I shall receive. This is the Australian copperhead. Thank you. Well, dang, I guess I just need to ask. I shall receive. This is the Australian copperhead. Interesting. I took quite a few pictures, but really pretty snakes. I mean, they don't really resemble the American copperheads at all. Not at all.

You've got this kind of really, I don't know, it was almost like a, that red color just kind of shown through that copper color. And I think that's where they get the name, you know, from that copper color, I think. Um, but that would, it was kind of like iridescence, right. It would kind of shine through. And then they had a yellow belly and then kind of the stripes along the neck and they, they'd flare out their neck like a Cobra, you know, that kind of thing. So is there, so there, there are lapids then? They are lapids. Yeah. But I love that face pattern. That's a cool snake. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of has like the, kind of has like a striking face, like,

like a white phase or a black phase white lip does, you know, kind of juxtapose scaling that's like really cool looking yeah yeah and i like that side that that like double side racing stripe that kind of has like the tan and then the kind of the yeah that's pretty cool yeah they were neat snakes they also call them superb snakes that's another what do they call them herb superb superb the superb snake so huh interesting okay yeah it was it was a cool cool experience to see this and um that kind of yeah to interesting add a new you know a new species uh that i haven't seen before to the list kind of yeah get a lifer there and in that habitat but here's another neat

neat shot of it let's see um gosh dang there we go oh that is a good shot i like that yeah so i was pretty geeked out. Did you take that? Yeah. Yeah. This is just a good one too, man. Just on my iPhone, you know. You're kidding me. That looks fantastic.

Yeah. It's pretty sweet. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Neat, neat snake. That was probably the highlight of the day was seeing the superb snake. Superb snake.

Yeah. And then, you know, we walked around quite a bit and those were, it was a little cooler. So the whole trip was kind of plagued by colder weather. Yeah. Yeah. And it was on the, definitely on the cool side there.

And so we, we only saw the two snakes, but Hey, we got both of the targets that we were looking for. So that was cool. We did see a few water skinks and another kind of little, uh, skinks around, but pretty much those were the only, um, snakes that we saw. There's another, but yeah, they're just, uh, just, uh,

you know, really fun to herp with those guys and to see some of this stuff and, and get out, you know, and see the, get to add a couple new species to the list. So tiger and superb snake or Australian copperhead. Yeah. Cool stuff. Nice. Um, we, we then went to this, uh, tin spot, but it was like in this, uh, field with a fence. And so you weren't, I think you weren't technically supposed to be on the land you know it's a little bit of trespassing but we jumped the fence and and flipped the tin it was just a bunch of tin everywhere and uh found some cool stuff uh rob found flipped a a baby uh copperhead so we saw

a little cool little tiny copperhead and um got got to check that out so they're they're you know a little bit different looking when they're babies but not not quite so black and they're a little lighter colored and had a little more copper color in them so kind of a cool thing but and jordan was with you right not at this point this was all in new south wales so yeah okay so he hadn't met up with you, right? Not at this point. This was all in New South Wales. Oh, okay. So he hadn't met up with you guys yet? Okay. You can see there's his fingers compared to this tiny little snake.

Yeah, this little. I don't know how you tail such a. That's scary, huh? But he's still got that, you know, the face, the face striping and stuff. I don't know how well you can see that, but, you know, just kind of the face striping and stuff. Really cool. But, you know, cool little snakes. face striping and stuff. Really cool. But, you know, cool little snakes. That's better.

I see it. Yeah. That is cool. Kind of check that out. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, Flipmore 10 got a few, you know, smaller skinks. And this one was kind of neat, though, is one of those.

I guess there's so many skinks in Australia. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, it's just like they're everywhere. But I really thought this one was just that belly was really pretty. That bright yellow belly. And then this is the top of it, just kind of a brown stripey, gray stripey skink. And, yeah, I forgot which one that was. Then we got a more well stripey skink. And yeah, I forgot which one that was. Then we got a more well-known skink, an eastern blue tongue.

So that was neat. We ended up seeing a few of these both in New South Wales and in South Australia. So they have a pretty good range. But yeah, this one was pretty neat. It was under some tin. And Rob like, I one was pretty neat. It was under some tin. Um, and Rob, like, Hey, I got a, got a skink and, and I'm like, Oh, cool. You know, I saw it. So I started walking over and he puts it back under the tin. I'm like, I want to see it. I want to get some pictures of this thing, but this was kind of the habitat kind of up in the highlands

of the blue mountains. Um, you know, so, um, really, uh, fun fun to fun to see a blue tongue in the wild for sure always always neat to see that and this was a pretty good size one really a nice looking one as well there's this there's this blue tongue yeah so that was cool um they they saw a bearded dragon a coastal bearded dragon but uh we didn't didn't find it they just kind of radioed said we just passed the bearded dragon we looked all you know kind of along the road but couldn't see it so yeah but uh nice nice day of herping uh out in the highlands there and then we headed back and um went out herping with matt again the one that showed me the wedge-tailed eagle nest. And we were road cruising this time and found, it was again a very cold and slow night,

so we didn't see much, but this was another lifer for me, and I was really excited to find a cow king out in Australia. Now this is the bandy bandy another elapid most most snakes in australia seem to be yeah yeah and uh but just that bright you know black and white uh cow king looking yeah it is a very cow king looking snake right i was like it is a cow king. It's not a cow king. Yeah. Let's see. They're specialist feeders on blind snakes. So they pretty much only eat blind snakes, which is kind of crazy.

So everyone in Australia keeps one? No. They're very difficult to keep because you're being facetious. I am, doctor. I am. But they have kind of more of a stubby face compared to the cow king or whatever. But yeah, very, very similar in patterning. It's kind of interesting to see those evolutionary whatever similarities and patterns and things like that.

Another snake eater right oh my god interesting homologous traits is that there you go there you go so and and they have kind of an interesting uh defense display so we kind of uh poke this one a bit to get it to to to do its defense display um let me get a good shot of that, but they, they just, let me see if my description will fit what you're going to see here, but they raise up there a couple of coils off the ground and kind of raise them up to the sky. So they almost look like the golden arches there on there. I'm not sure what is scared off by that or like how that, uh, how that really, um, deters a predator or something. But, uh, cause I'm like, yeah, I don't,

I don't see that really scaring off an owl. It summons Ronald McDonald. There you go. Ronald McDonald fucks everything up. He stomps on his big clown shoes. Yep. But so this one was, yeah, this is like a full display mode.

That's pretty cool. I was really hoping that it would do this and I could get a shot of it displaying, so kind of funny. But really a neat snake, you know. It was good to see anything just because it was such a slow night.

Yeah, yeah. It was fun to herp with Matt because it was such a slow night yeah yeah yeah but it was it was fun to herp with matt he's he was uh really a knowledgeable guy he's not really necessarily a straight herper but he has a lot of experience with a lot of different uh reptiles um we went back the next day up into the highlands with colin and matt and went uh, looking for Alpine blue tongues. So it was, it was kind of a cool thing. We were up in the, like, almost like cow fields or, or here's some, um, some of the habitat, you know, just, just like grasslands. And, um um so really kind of like where i grew up i guess you know just kind of fields and grassland and trees so this is this is that area there um we actually jumped another

fence um to go look and there was this uh old broken down shed and there was tin laying all over so we jumped the fence and went and we're down shed and there was tin laying all over. So we jumped the fence and went and we're flipping tin and there were a bunch of cows and they kind of like, we're getting scared off. And then they'd come back to check us out. And then we heard all these dogs barking up the Hill and we're like, Oh, what's, you know, what's going on there. And, and, uh, and all of a sudden we heard a gunshot and we're like, it's time to go. Let's get out of here. So we took off, but then, um, we were able to find, uh, kind of the target, um, which was the Alpine blue tongue. So we were driving by and I looked out on the shoulder of the road and I'm

like, there's one right there. Like stop, you know? So I jumped out of the car and as i'm jumping out of the car i knock my big camera uh onto the ground and it like kind of i'm like oh no did i just break my camera but i guess uh it's worth it to see a blue tongue you know another lifer and did you break your camera it didn't end up breaking so that was good i guess they're pretty tough. So I was very happy. It wasn't broken. So we were running back to, to see this thing. And, and, uh, and, um, the air Matt, I'm like, it's right there, you know, cause I was trying to grab my camera. I'm like, it's right there. And Matt ran right past it. So that was kind of funny, but, uh, missed, missed the whole thing. Um, here's probably one of my favorite pictures of, of we,

we actually ended up finding three of them on the day. So that was pretty cool. But this one had some nice orange on its face and yeah, that turned out to be a nice picture. I feel like I could see that hanging in, uh, hanging in the, uh, hanging in the museum or something, you know, in Arizona. There you go. You know?

It's a perfect, like, print picture. Right. Yeah, it's a nice shot for sure. But, yeah, it was fun to see those and to kind of see their habitat in the wild. And that was, that was quite a thrill. Glad we could find a few of those. So, and then we did, you know, a little bit more herping around some rocks. We found, we saw some Cunningham skinks that were very shy and very hard to approach.

That's where the long lens comes in handy, you know, to zoom in. And then, uh, so after we, you know, herped that area and found the Alpine blue tongues, we headed back, uh, quickly because I found out my flight was leaving two hours before I thought it was. So I had the wrong time in my head. It was like, uh, it said 18, 18 o'clock. And I was thinking that was eight o'clock instead of six o'clock. And so just not, you know, using my brain again. And, uh, so we're rushing to the airport and then I get a text saying your plane has been delayed. And so I'm like, okay, well not quite the rush. And we get there and, and, uh, in plenty of time. And then of course my plane's delayed a couple hours. So just waiting there.

And so but we so I flew to South South Australia and I'd rented a car. So I just picked up the car and drove to Steve Crawford's house and got to check out his collection there in Adelaide. He had quite quite an amazing collection. He has all the Australian pythons. Um, so he's got, got, um, every stinking one of them. So it was kind of cool to see all the Australian pythons in one, one collection, but, and, uh, I felt a little bad cause you know, I'd already seen the, uh, seen the, um, gosh, I need to figure out how to get the locality out of the, the pictures there. But anyway, yeah. So got to hold another own Pelly Python there at his house and, and see that.

So that was pretty cool. Um, but awesome stuff. Yeah. Let me see if I can find another way to do this. But so, uh, we stayed the night and this is where Jordan, we, you know, Jordan was. So, uh, got met up with him. Yep. And, and he had been there, uh, for a few hours more than i had so he got there earlier or in the afternoon he had some crazy flight stories as well they held one of the flights in new zealand for him so he could run and make it just in time you know as they were closing the

doors and so kind of a crazy travel experience for both of us there, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was pretty, pretty crazy. Um, yeah, but it was, uh, good to, good to be back in and, or good to kind of explore a new area. So I had never been to, uh, to South Australia before. And I guess the target of the trip was the, um, carpet pythons in the Gammon ranges. And so we were really hoping to see, um, see a carpet and gave it our best shot and spent most of our time where, where we might find them. So that was kind of crazy, but, and so the first, first couple of days we spent with, uh, um, Steve and his friend, Sean, that, uh, was a gecko or a lizard researcher in, in South Australia. He was looking at like fiery colonization and stuff like that, how, how fires affect, uh, different lizard populations. So he was very knowledgeable on all

the species that we saw there. We had a quick stop at one of his tin sites. And so, um, first, first tin I flipped was this gorgeous, uh, shingleback skink that was like golden colored and just really beautiful. Um, let's see, I'll get a picture of that up, but I was, I was pretty excited because this was kind of the, the goal or the, the type of shingle back I wanted to see, um, was this golden, you know, yellowy thing. Yeah. And it was like the first one that we, that we found. So, um, we ended up seeing about 40 shingle backs on this trip and we never, never stopped stopping for them. Like that was always an automatic stop, but really this this ground cover was neat this was just wild natural ground

cover there and so to see this skink in that you know habitat was a really cool thing um but yeah the the we there were two two different shingle backs at this site. Yeah, I took a ton of pictures of them. But, yeah, really cool-looking skinks for sure. But just, I don't know, it's hard to not be excited about a shingleback skink. They're so cool. And, yeah, we never got sick of seeing them. If we were driving along and one was crossing the road, we always stopped for it. This was another interesting lizard, another small skink.

And again, Sean, I'm sorry that I've forgotten the name of it off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure it's a Larista. But it only has these back legs. It doesn't have front legs. So it's kind of a weird, weird little deal, but neat, neat looking animal for sure. Um, so we, we headed North, went to, you know, another big tin spot where flipped a bunch of stuff, a few geckos, a bunch of shinglebacks again, a couple of pairs of shinglebacks, got a little bearded dragon. Um, so found a baby shingleback that was about as cute as you can get and pretty, uh, fun. So a lot of binos, geckos,

and Gehira. I can't remember which species of Gehira. There were three different Gehira species that we found on the trip. So, but they're neat looking geckos as well. So really a cool spot. We were hoping to see maybe a King Brown or a Molga snake as they're called. And we didn't end up seeing any snakes at this spot. It was actually very slow trip for snakes. So aside from the New South Wales, the tiger and the Australian copperhead, we only saw two snakes in South Australia, so kind of crazy. Yeah, I think it was just the weather. It was very cold at night. It would drop down into the 40s and close to freezing some nights. It was really low, so that kind of put a damper on a lot of the things.

But the gorges were incredible. Just, I mean, it kind of reminded me a lot of southern utah like it's really uh uh cool to to be out there in the striking yeah just that kind of sandstone and the rocks and stuff but so this was the habitat we were looking in and this is where you know carpet pythons have been found so we were looking in and this is where, you know, carpet pythons have been found. So we were just kind of making our way through the different, uh, sites where, with their, where they've been recorded and reported. So, yep. But yeah, unfortunately, spoiler alert, we didn't find any carpet pythons, um, but we gave it our best effort. That, that gorge I was showing you there, there was like a shingle back that was kind of trapped in this pool.

And the slick rock on the way out was too slippery, so it couldn't crawl out. And actually when I went to pull it out of there, it like displayed and slid down into the water. So it was kind of, kind of comical, but, um, we, uh, got that thing out of the, the, uh, water. You can actually see, um, the, the water stains or whatever. I don't know how long it was in there, but it, it had kind of that look or the water stain on its back. You know, you can see it was about halfway underwater. And so the back half was all dark and this was right after i pulled it out of the water but yeah you could see it was kind of uh its pattern was obscured by sitting in the water for too long so he displayed for us nicely but i i hope he was happy to be out of his little predicament there i don't know how he

would have gotten out otherwise so probably would have come back a few weeks later and found a shingleback skeleton or something. Yeah. I think our count of DOR shinglebacks was actually less than our live count. So that was good. Hey, that's, that's a nice, right. Yeah. So, you know, hit a, hit another gorge the next day, um, alligator gorge, which was, or that night, actually, we went to alligator gorge. Um, and then it was, it was a really cool spot. Um, here's the, the group, um, that we were with, with, uh, Sean and, and, um, Steve and Jordan. Gosh, I'm slow with this. So here's us in Alligator Gorge, the crew. So it was fun herping with these guys.

They were really good to herp with. And then the gorges just were gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Um, so, you know, we, we had a lot of, a lot of different, uh, time in the gorges and lots of, I'll be posting photos and stuff. Um, saw some, another lifer that was cool for me, um, because I keep these in my herb room. Uh uh so we got a tree skink eugernius drylata out on the rocks so kind of cool to i mean he wasn't living in a tree so he's kind of not really embracing his his name but it's cool to see a bunch of tree skinks in on the trip this was definitely a skink trip. There were so many different skink species and things like that. So, um, so as we came up out of alligator gorge, uh, the guys were like, cause we, uh, they,

they split off. They went out up earlier, um, to the, uh, car or the, the parking lot. And Jordan and I went down another section of the, it's called the narrows or something. So we went through a narrow gorge and then we hiked up a different route back out. And so when we got up to the top, they're like, where have you guys been? There's a, there's a big lace monitor over here and just hanging out. And so we got to chase this lace monitor around and take some pictures and stuff like that. so nice to see a big monitor get i think this was jordan's first live lace monitor i believe or his first live monitor in australia so that was kind of cool but we had some extra like meat or something from the night before and so the guys

threw him a couple pieces of meat so we got to watch him you know chuck back some meat that was pretty cool always neat to see a monitor in the wild right especially when he's chucking meat chucking meat we went uh next spot was will peanut pound and that was a really cool area i think i could take uh heidi and the kids back to that spot but um again no carpets but we did spot um some cool lizards this was a um uh what species of dragon some dragon species i'm so well prepared for this it's all right yeah um but really a pretty cool pretty lizard yeah yellow stripes on the face kind of a blue body. Um, really, uh, a neat thing. Um, I think we, anyway, I'm, I'm embarrassed how underprepared I am for this, but lots of, uh, cool, um, dragons

that are endemic to South Australia. So we got to see quite a few different things. We saw some earless dragons, which were neat. neat um a lot of bearded dragons uh out there i feel really bad because we were um we saw one in the road and so we stop you know we're running back to get it out of the road and hear these cars coming and we're like oh crap you know like and then the cars see us on the side of the road and kind of swerve out. And the first car just totally tags that bearded dragon, just runs it over. I'm like, gosh, dang it. If we wouldn't have got out of the car, would they have hit it?

It's kind of one of those things where we almost caused them to swerve into the other lane around us and then hit the dragon. So it was kind of a bummer to see that. But here's a very live dragon up hit the dragon. So it was kind of a bummer to see that, but here's a very live dragon up in the tree. Um, we, there was no shortage of bearded dragons out there. I probably took 15 off the road. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but we took, you know, got quite a few off the road. Um, and some that wanted to climb up in the wheel. Well, like he, I, we stopped for one that was in the road and I went over to get it and it ran under the car. And so I'm looking under the car and I can't see it.

And we're like, where did it, I hope it didn't crawl into the engine or something. And, and we're looking under and Jordan noticed the, the belly pattern through like the, the wheel, you know, the, the little holes in the wheel. And so I reached around and grabbed it and pulled it out of there. And then I took it up on the bank of the road and was taking more pictures and it ran right back and under the car into the wheel so it's like determined to hang out in our wheel well but yeah there were quite a few different uh or we saw quite a few bearded dragons it was interesting too because you'd see them on the road and there'd be bright yellow or you know orangey colored and then you'd stop and run back and disturb them and then they'd turn that brown black color so it was kind of crazy um we got over into the gammon ranges

um did you know saw a beast of a shingleback like on the drive in it was really a like kind of an old male just trucking along in the middle of the you know heat of the day um and it was it was fairly warm that day so yeah but he was pretty cool just this big old beast and just right in the middle of the road so we got him off the road and continued on but um into the gammon ranges and uh lots of cool birds you know more skiing so we i got another lifer there which was really cool um jordan spotted this guy out herping and this was kind of on on uh brand for the trip we were looking for knobtail geckos and this was about as close as we came got a an underwoodosaurus a thick-tailed gecko so that was pretty cool nice milli and it was really a pretty pretty gecko so took a few pictures of that but um good to see something

moving because it was pretty slow we did get a forina, a moon snake, just before this. And we saw a banded sand swimmer but didn't get any pictures of it. But it was good to see something moving. And then, yeah, herping the gorges, seeing yellow-footed rock wallabies. That was pretty cool. Tons of binos, geckos, and ge, Gehira, um, bunch of goat skulls as well. And then, um, we were walking through this gorge and I was, I, I was, uh, I heard this big noise and I'm like, that's, that's gotta be a carpet python like you know that's about the biggest thing out here that we're going to find and i'm thinking okay just around here somewhere there's going to be a carpet python but um um i don't know unfortunately but it was it was not a carpet but it was a pair of uh these little spiky creatures echidnas so jordan was pretty psyched because he really wanted to see an echidna on the trip. So we did get to see two of these that night.

And I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a carpet, but that was a cool consolation prize, I suppose. All right. You know, just a lot of hiking. I think we did about 90 miles over the two weeks. We went up, we spent about five hours driving and got to the spot where several womas had been found. And we pulled over on the side of the road because it's just like rabbit burrows everywhere. And we saw this giant, you know, um, pattern in the sand of a snake that had crawled through there. And so we're like, oh, this is going to be good. And

then we road cruised after, you know, we were there just before dusk and, and road cruised for a couple hours after dark and saw a couple of geckos. One was a, another lifer for me. So that was nice to, to get another species of gecko. Um, it was a Diplodactylus, um, pretty cool little thing, but oops, that was not right. Anyway, got to see, you know, another new gecko species and then um pretty much admitted defeat didn't see a woma and drove back to the airbnb um we stayed at in the gammon ranges on the way out of the gammons the next day we got a pretty cool um monitor lizard a gould is, um, it was an impressive one too. It was probably as big as you can get as far as the Gouldii go really pretty. Um, it went down into this culvert, so I had to crawl on my belly into the culvert and

tried to chase it out the other side. So we could get some better pictures of it, but that was pretty fun to, to see a big, another big monitor lizard. Um, and yeah, just, uh, more shingle backs. There was a pair of shingle backs in the road and I, uh, somehow got the tire right between them. So I didn't hit either one of them, but it was a really close call and it was probably the, the nicest, uh, shingle back we saw. Well, the reddest, I guess you could say, shingleback we saw on the trip. And of course, the pictures don't do it justice, but it was quite a nice looking animal, just really red and yellow. So that was pretty sweet to, to see that. And so the next two targets were both

nob-tailed geckos. We wanted to see, um, the, uh, Neferis delini, which is the Pernati Lagoon nob-tail. And we spent several hours in the area where, where, you know, you, Sean was saying he's found a bunch of them there. And we walked around in the dunes. We drove the road and saw nothing, but the temperatures were down like 15 degrees Celsius. So 14 degrees Celsius, I think it got down to 12 and we're just like, yeah, we're not seeing anything. So we saw pretty much nothing that night. Um, the, the next day was, uh, we were in Wyala area and went and, um, were able to see, um, we were scanning rocks. It was again, a cold morning, cloudy overcast. And then the sun kind of peeked through and started heating things up and Jordan spotted,

uh, Gidgee skink on the rock. And so we got to actually see, so, so I was trying to get up closer after we'd taken a few distance shots. I was trying to get up closer to see him. And there was actually another one just right around the corner from this one. So we got to see two of those, which was nice because that was another lifer and a big target for that area so it was cool but this is the best shot i got with my iphone just in the crack as he was hanging out there actually looks like there might be another one behind him you see that scales there maybe i got two for one there and or three for one because the other one was around the corner so that was kind of cool um and i didn't notice that before. So anyway,

we went out and looked, uh, we were headed to the Stilatus area and cruise that road. And we, um, probably found one of the big highlights of the trip. Uh, it's one that I'd seen before, but, uh, but, um, new for Jordan, but I hadn't seen one for 10 years. So, and regardless, it's always good to see these guys, but we got a Moloch, a thorny devil. So such cool lizards. Yep. No comments about how cool that is. Come on, Chuck. You fall asleep. It's cool. No, I'm here. I'm muted.

I'm letting you narrate the trip, man. Okay. Well, it's much better with your commentary. I don't know that that's true. I don't know that anybody feels that way. Nobody just wants to hear me drone on. No, that's not true. What?

So we got another few shinglebacks on the road, a couple more goulds monitors, and then finally another snake, which was pretty cool. This was only snake number two and the last snake we would see on the trip. But it was a good one. It was a big mulga, King Brown. So that was cool to see. And he flared up his hood, all that kind of stuff um so it was pretty cool that was kind of the the view we had of him as we got out of the car and ran over there

but an impressive it was a pretty good size too and uh he was crawling by me and i couldn't resist i had to try out my australing technique. So, but yeah, he got up in this, in his logs and was displaying and stuff. It was pretty cool. So, but that, uh, pretty much ended the, the trip. We headed back towards, um, uh, Steve's house and, and found a few more, you know, shinglebacks and geckos and things on the way. And that was basically the trip. So pretty, uh, pretty good trip. I definitely want to make it back to that area. It was, uh, really nice. And I want to give it another go for the target species. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe you got to plan the, I mean, I guess, you know, you, you, for a trip over like that, you don't necessarily get to pick the timing because of the, the, you know, the talk and the talk and all that. But, you know, I mean, still like you saw a lot of cool stuff for, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I can't complain at all. Yeah. And several new species that I hadn't seen before and all that kind of stuff. So it was, yeah, it was a lot of fun and herping with Jordan and Steve and Sean.

I mean, Jordan is like, we are kin spirit, kindred spirits. We're only like 12 days apart from, you know, like we were born the same month, same year, you know, just like we were born the same month same year you know just like we have a very similar herping style and and so it worked out really nice and he's very knowledgeable so i just i mean i seriously just could sit back and listen to his stories and you know things he's found and the way he's found them and the knowledge he's gained through that. I mean, you know, you, you've worked with him. Yeah. He's, he's a really just a cool guy. Solid as hell. Yeah. Easygoing, like doesn't, doesn't ever get mad or upset or, you know, fussy about anything. He's just even keeled. Just, yeah. So that was a, that was probably one of the best parts. I was so glad he, he decided to come on the trip with me. So that was really fun. Legit. And just made it great.

Stat sig. Yep, stat sig. There we go. Well, that was the recap of all the travels. Nice. Hopefully it wasn't too disjointed and boring. No, that was. Good times.

But, yeah, next time you'll have to get over there with us. 2025. I know. I need to go for your birthday i i don't know that i'm i'm gonna do south australia for my birthday i think we're gonna do uh like western australia or somewhere where okay the herping might be a little little easier a little more uh reliable i guess or yeah bountiful whatever you want to say there but yeah i think i think i'm thinking western australia you're going warmer climate warmer yeah warmer time of year i think needs of the target yeah and i know that uh you know march is not a bad time to herp in western australia you can find a lot of good stuff yeah so. So yeah, it should be, that would be an Epic. That would be an Epic trip. Yep. Yeah. I'll try to, I'm trying to figure out how to do the logistics and, you know,

assuming anybody comes, I might be out there by myself, you know, hopefully we'll have a few people join. I feel like, I feel like, I feel like if you, if you can manufacture the, the reason you will get people to go. I hope so. What? Fucking Australia with Justin for his birthday? Yeah, I'm there. You know what I mean?

All day long. You just need an excuse, right? Yeah. You need an excuse. Any one of our friends would be like, yeah, say no more. Yeah. So, yeah, it should be fun. And I guess, you know, with a big group, you know, it might be difficult.

We'll just kind of, here's the plan. but you know, you're welcome to branch out and go see different areas or go out. Like, so it's like, nobody can say there hasn't been advanced notice. Like if you don't go cool, man, don't go. But like, you can't be like, oh, it was too short notice for me. You know, I need to plan these things. I need to plan this four years in advance three years yeah so i will see but i don't know i i do need to make it back to south australia

give it another go when it's a little warmer a little better for conditions for the stuff i'm i'm looking for but yeah yeah happy with the stuff we saw yeah all right well i don't know we i feel like we need to fight about something but um sure we might save this for for another time but we could probably just talk about it shortly and introduce it um but i the guys were talking on carpets and coffee about small versus large males and yeah no and i was thinking ah there's some things that, you know, maybe they're not hitting on. I definitely have some, I definitely have some, you know, feelings on small males. Okay. Well, let's flip the coin and get fighting.

So pros versus cons of a small male. That's a heads. It is. It's a heads. You got it. All right. What do you like? So I'm going to con small males. Okay. So you're going for large males are good. Okay. Yeah. Um, I guess, you know, they kind of put up a lot of the arguments of why small males are better. You know, do you want to just run through them a little bit? Just cause I didn't, I haven't, I, I,

this is news, uh, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know, kind of the, the, the, uh, things that everybody says, like a smaller male is going to be more active in breeding and going to be more reliable for breeding. And they're going to not be like a couch potato or they're just so fat and they can't get up and do anything. Um, and I did hear something interesting about, uh, the, uh, it was, it was actually in regards to shingle backs, but, um, somebody had their shingle back so fat that the male's tail, he couldn't get his hemipenes to the female because his tail was in the way. Cause it was so thick. So, you know, I guess if you're, you have an obese snake, then yeah. The analogous to you're too fat to see your own pee-pee.

Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, I think that definitely can happen in snakes. But, you know, smaller males are not going to have that issue. And, you know, I think in our minds we think, oh, I've got X species that gets to 10 feet. And that's like maximum size and not all individuals get to that size. And so average size is probably six feet. So, you know, we've got this goal. Oh, I've got to get it to 10 feet.

That's going to be the best time, you know, but no, really, you know, most things are about six feet. Yeah. In regards to like carpet pythons. So I can definitely see, you know, obesity and, you know, they're not going to be moving around as much, but I don't know. I find that my males don't really eat that much, especially during the breeding season when they're looking for females or can tell that females are in the area. So I'm trying to feed them up and they just don't want to eat, you know, they're just wanting to breed. So, um, I can see, you know, where that benefit of kind of a smaller, skinnier male is going to help out in that regard.

But so that's kind of the ideas that they were floating, you know, the they're they're more apt to breed there. And then they take up less space, you know, because you don't have some 10 foot male. You know, you have a four foot or a five foot male or something so now i know nick kind of goes to the extreme the other end where he's got very tiny males you know talking about his 300 gram green tree python male that's a proven breeder and bred several seasons or whatever so you know there you can go go to the extreme as well and have very, very small males that are still potent and doing their job. Ball python breeders probably try to get the smallest males as soon as they can, you know, because, because that more, if you got a hit on that moneymaker before it gets, gets old and the price goes down. So, you know, that I think there's a lot of people that want to push their males too far to the small side,

but it can be done and you can breed small males and young males. And I guess that's one of the best things about the males is they don't need to be very large because they're not producing eggs or sitting on eggs or anything like that. Yeah. All right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

No, good, good, good points. I mean, and, and, and, you know, I think, I think you, you kind of summed up the the, the pros of a small male pretty well. I just think that it's, it's, you know, you, obviously if you have a large have a larger male, a male that's older of size, isn't obese, isn't – that they breed, right? And we see from what we would say archetypally is a correct size or what we equate to a correct size for the age of the animal versus, you know, like Nick's, you know, tiny males that are still totally potent. So, so we see, you know, reproductive potency across size, no matter whether we're, you know, retarding the size of that snake by, by restricting its caloric intake or whether we're not restricting. And, and so this is really about, uh, to me is, is really about a health and, and, um, and metabolic thing of how you're spooling

the animal up, how you're spooling the animal down and how you're feeding it. And I know you had said, you know, that, that we look to the, the 10 foot or what the max size is. Um, and I think, you know, obviously that's a mistake. Like we can't, you know, we can't do that. Or that's not a healthy way to think of those animals because that 10 foot snake is 25, 30 years old, most likely in the wild. Right. Or it's, it's, it's, you know, readily to a prey source that allows it to get that big and it suffers kind of the high meat diet of an American and dies early, right? You know what I mean? Like there's that tradeoff there. There was a report along those same lines.

I just want to bring this up. But it was in – we put that in the first edition of the carpet book and probably in the second as well. But there was a Darwin carpets where the brush-tailed possums were becoming invasive in the area and they were eating more brush-tailed possums. So they were getting larger. So you had these huge Darwin carpet males that, you know, you hadn't seen before and, and could take down a brush-tailed possum, which is a pretty good-sized meal. So they were getting larger because of a new food item that was available to them. And I think in nature, that size of a male matters, right? In reproductive competition, that size matters. So generally speaking, the larger males of any species tend to be the ones who pass their genetics on.

So, you know, to ourselves and keeping the animal in the best conditions possible for the way we're keeping it. Right. And I just don't think that that's maybe, you know, necessarily the best way to think about it. If you want to kind of keep in, in, in kind of a more holistic way right you you don't want to restrict those those calories and you want that that kind of as close to natural type of you know food cycling and things like that um for me anyway um just because i think think it sets up rhythms that I think help cue the animal one, keep the animal healthy, and can set up a pattern for what that animal will look like in its adult size, right? Sure. Yeah, I'm glad you hit on that because I think that's one of the best arguments for your side is the competitive the competitive, you know, where, where you have combat and, you know, the bigger male wins and he gets rights to

go breed the female and things. That's not to say that smaller males don't slip in and get to the female while the big males are duking it out. You know, that's, that's documented as well. And so, um, both strategies probably work, but if you're a big male and you're defending a female from multiple males and, and you get the rights to, to breed that female, I mean, and so it depends on the species or the, uh, you know, we, we know with certain things like, uh, Imbricata, um, Southwest carpet pythons, where they, they have small males, you know, the males are dwarfed by the females. And that's a little bit for, to, to have them not compete with each other for prey sources. And, um, as well as they don't fight, the males don't fight. They just kind of hang out together and,

and take their turns with the females. And so, um, that's, that's, I guess that depends on your reproductive strategy. So if you're if you're one of those non-competitive males, I don't know that you need to be big in it. And so it's definitely species specific. Definitely. Yeah. You can't say all males need to be big or all males need to be small. got a darwin or a coastal or jungle or something where they do you know battle it out for the females you're probably going to want to have a good sized male in relation to your female so he feels confident like i can beat other males and i will now of course we're in an artificial

you know captive setting and so that might not apply much, but sometimes if you've got a dud male, it might be cause he's too small and he's intimidated or, you know, he, or, or he needs that, that, um, um, stimulation from like a shed skin from another male to get him, get him, you know, pumped up to, to battle and to go after the female and stuff. So I think those things, uh, are important to keep in mind, uh keep in mind in a captive setting. You need to know their natural history. You need to know their reproductive strategy to do it, you know, the best. Yeah. And I kind of wonder like what, you know, I mean, obviously we talk a lot about like male on male combat and what, you know, the winner of, of a, of a male reproductive,

you know, battle goes on to, but like, does the, do females make choice? Like, you know, you see some animals that just don't seem like, like they put them together and lock up instantly or something. You never see them or, you know, is, is, is the female have some preference? And so like, you know, if you're sticking small males in there and that's the only male they ever see like okay so yeah i i'm gonna i'm gonna take the opportunity to breed but maybe that's not my ideal mate so you know maybe um you know and and and and again like in captivity and and you know breeding uh stocks like that doesn't matter to us. Like we don't uh, you know,

clutches of smaller animals tend to lead to, you know, smaller adults down the road, just because, uh, you're like, you're trending towards that, like Island stuff, right? Yeah. That's definitely a possibility where, you know, your, your actions and the, the animals that you're breeding could have an effect on future generations. Yeah, that's an interesting thought. I mean, I think Shine did some work on that. He called it the silver spoon theory. And he tracked animals that were born in a hard year, lean year versus animals that were born during copious amounts of food, good water year, you know, that kind of thing. And he found that there was definite differences and that the animals that were larger had more feed, you know,

that kind of thing. And you wonder like, as a, as a male, as a, as a male who's well fed and, and has the energy stores, you know, am I, you know, as, as a, as a, as a dynamic biological machine, am I better when I'm well-nutriated, well-fed, and able to carry out all of my metabolic functions because I'm intaking mode where because what I am as an animal is extremely metabolically efficient, I have the capacity to shut down and kind of play the long game. But is that – does that make sense? Like it makes sense for us and we think of it in terms of because this is a human-centric thing that we do. Does it make sense for us and we think of it in terms of you know because this is a human centric thing that we do does it make sense for them i don't necessarily think it does yeah yeah and i think when we anthropomorphize you know in some ways like i don't know i hear a lot of things about like oh exercise or or movement you know but this is an ambush predator that's very highly efficient, meant to sit around in one spot for a long time. Do you really need to worry about that very much?

And again, this is probably species specific. You know, there's some animals that are just designed to be a slug and to be fat and sit on the ground and not move and just catch prey as it comes by, you know? Yeah. And guaranteed they don't just just i mean they they move enough to prevent muscle atrophy and like i mean you're you're talking about like you know i'm sure they have developed that ability to do that so oh yeah and sometimes they move great distances you know sometimes they're moving a long ways and so so, you know, there is that mix, but evolutionary design in context, in context, what we were talking about was the silver spoon and, you know, faring better when they were large. Right. So, so that was really my only point. I, I agree with you. Um, but, but I do think, you know, um, as shine so eloquently demonstrated,

um, you know, there's something there to that. Yeah. Now I, I want to bring up something. So for smaller males, like Rob Stone taught me something about he, you know, it's in his, uh, some of, some of the bowies he keeps and forgive me, Rob, for not remembering which species, but he he'll have Jamaican bows. I can't remember which one it was, but he he'll have, he, you know, he't remember which one it was but he he'll have he you know he used to try to put a male in with the female and he just realized the male was about doing himself in like just worn out and forgive me if i'm getting this wrong i'm sure rob will be screaming at the you fucked it up yeah no i don't see him doing that but it was like the males would get completely exhausted

and so he started using multiple males and they basically kind of worked together to to breed the female and to kind of because she was much larger and much more energetic and things like that so they had a hard time keeping up with her and so they about breed themselves into exhaustion or um so um you know multiple in, in that type of breeding strategy. So if you do have, you know, small males of a certain species, you might want to consider having more than, than one male and, and, you know, letting them kind of have that more naturalistic mode of, of breeding, I guess, diamond pythons would fall into that too, where multiple males will court a female

and they'll just kind of wait their turn and and you know they don't combat and they don't fight with other males at least the majority of the time it's not saying that it couldn't happen you know you might get a male that has a an idea to to start fighting but for the most part that's their breeding strategy right to have small they don't need to be huge they they don't need to fight each other they just kind of that peaceful mode and that tends to go with the the more southern ranging at least in the southern hemisphere you know the colder weather species will often have non-competitive breeding strategies with smaller males so like diamond pythons yep diamond pythons southwestern carpets yeah those they combat don't like diamond pythons. Yep. Diamond pythons, Southwestern carpets. Yeah.

Those they combat, don't they? Diamond pythons. I don't believe so. Not, not commonly. I mean, they,

multiple males will hang around a female and they don't fight each other. So, yeah, but not to say it doesn't happen. Yeah. It's possible, but I'm sure if there was a male who felt, yeah,

felt like, you know, yeah, really want to, yeah, yeah. Got really want to. Yeah. Yeah. Got a little too much coastal blood in there. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting, too, that, you know, you have that overlap of the southern coastals that combat and, you know, you'll hear them falling off of roofs and, you know. Are you saying that the coastals like to fight? Coastal males like to fight? Yeah, they do. And I'm saying that diamonds don't, but they come from such close areas. Are we sure they're the same species?

Anyway. What? Well, depends on who you ask. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Their genetics are pretty divergent there between those Brisbane coastals and the diamonds. But at least from the one study that's- Might have to bring it back up with Scott again.

Yeah. There you go. He was having none of it. Yeah. And I'm curious to see what that group that had fun with the Antaresia is going to do. Is that C. evaglia that did that? No, C. evaglia did the genetic work. The genetic work.

Okay. They did that. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. Esquire. Esquire or Esquire, whatever. work the genetic work okay they did yeah oh yeah okay that's right that's right yeah yeah we'll see squary a square esquire or esquire whatever that's esquire yeah that's the group that did the

antiresia they're working on the carpets now i've heard so yeah oh well any other points you want to bring up uh we're going on, what is it? Yeah, we're getting close to it. An hour and 30 minutes. Yeah. Not our longest, but. That's true. But close to it.

Long-winded. Nah, man, I think I hit everything. I know I'm going to be like, nope, I got nothing. And then when we get off, I'm like, oh, God damn it. Yeah. nope i got nothing and then when we get off i'm like oh god damn it so uh yeah but yeah there's definitely definitely advantages on both sides especially taking into account their natural history and yeah another plug to to know about the animals that you keep and what they do in the wild and you know if it's known and if it's not maybe that's where we can make a contribution any

observations or things like that and maybe that's where we can make a contribution, any observations or things like that. And maybe that's what we're missing with certain species like Papua and pythons, where the females are notorious for eating the males. Maybe the male is too small or maybe you only have one male. You need multiple males to kind of overwhelm her. I don't know. those things where male size might be important for figuring out species like bonds or, and you know, multiple males in Bowen seems to be recommended as well. So it's hard to, hard to say,

and it's a little hard to do when you've got a $10,000 snake, I'll just get an extra male, you know, throw in the mix and, or yeah, but something to, to think about something to consider. I don't know. I, I just got excited after I heard them talking about that. I'm like, wait, what about this? I want to, I want to fight those guys, but I was, I was listening to it after they'd recorded, not live. So I couldn't chime in with my smart Alec with your snappy retorts. There you go. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for listening. I apologize for the clunky nature of my, uh, report on my trip. I should have been better prepared, but hopefully

it was fun to listen to, or good to see the pictures of the stuff we found. And it was, it was definitely fun to be back in Australia. So happy to, happy to have the opportunity to get back there. And thanks again to the Hawkesbury Herp Society, Colin South for bringing me over and, and for, uh, you know, Steve for putting this up and, and, uh, you know, herping with us for a couple of days. That was a lot of fun to meet him. Man, that guy is a lover of Fraggle Rock. It's bizarre. Wow. I didn't see that statement coming. You just kept singing that song and it gets stuck in your head.

I'm like, where did this come from? You just love Fraggle Rock, don't you? Yeah. Tell me you didn't watch Fraggle Rock as a kid. We didn't have cable, so I didn't have access to it. You're a doozer. I know. I know.

Blame my parents. You're a doozer. I know. I know. Blame my parents. Yeah. But I do know the show. Like, I think I've seen it. I saw it when I was older, probably. The all-knowing trash heap? Are you fucking kidding me? That's fucking hilarious.

So, yeah. Fraggle Rock. Steve Crawford there. Yeah. But it was a good time. Good trip. So, and I was,

of course, uh, thanks to Eric and Owen and the rest of the NPR crew for all they do and for letting us, uh, record on under their umbrella and, uh, for their friendship as well.

They're good people. So I think that's it. Anything else? Got nothing. Hopefully we'll see you soon for another episode of Reptile Fight Club. Party hardy, all you big males out there. so Thank you. you