Reptile Fight Club - RFC Clip Show #10

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob have Clip show #10Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIG https://www.instagram.com/jgjulander/Follow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQWebsite: https://mprnetwork.transistor.fm/

Welcome to Reptile Fight Club, the Clip Show edition. Clip show number 10, can you believe it? Cover the last 10 of the 100, the first 100, I suppose, and introduce a new character during that time. So I'm sure you're all wondering who that might be. Big change up in the lineup. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, but first, we will get a quick report from Rob about a trip he just took.

He went out and found another form of rattlesnake. Yeah, absolutely. So this was the Red Carolina, or the Carolina Pigney. Trying to do right by the form decided to go to, I think it's Pamlico, Beaufort and Hyde counties in North Carolina, famed for their orange to red. Carolina pygmy rattlesnakes, Sisturus, Miliaris, Miliaris,

and why not start there, right, if we're taking forms? So, yeah, I decided in late spring, early summer, that I wanted to try and mix that in for this year, and it picked dates based on flights that made sense with work and all those things. And my wife and I went out, and unfortunately, the weather was not cooperative

based on the dates that I had picked three and a half months in advance. Dang. That's how it goes sometimes, right? Sometimes that's how it goes, right? And that is the downside when you're going a big distance or you're not sort of being flexible to the weather. I know we've talked about that quite a bit, both on and offline. But, yeah, so it was, well, we're going to deal with the hand that we've been dealt.

Weather was better on the front end and on the back, or I should say, before we went and after we left. But nevertheless, there's nothing to, you know, no way. way you're going to find them without looking. So that's the mission. You're there. You might as well look for them. Exactly right. So, you know, to be honest, I had sort of written it off and thought that it was about scouting it out and trying to figure it out. And presumably, I don't think anyone in the group has seen them otherwise. So it was, hey, at least I'll know. And maybe they'll be group interest and going even if it's just another quick trip or whatever. So yeah, my wife and I went out. And the first day, it was in the low 60s and torrential rain.

And then the next day it was in the mid to upper 60s and cloudy with intermittent rain. And the next day it was 70 and 100% clouds. But there was a good seemingly 10 to 15 minutes and we turned up two of them. My wife found the first one and I found the second. Oh, cool. So yeah, you know, within the joy of the pursuit, right? We had talked about, I know Nipper, Phil and I. And then I think in the broader group, we talked about that a lot,

went around the Colencio strip a couple weeks ago. The, you know, how do you count your list and what counts and what doesn't and all those things? I, you know, I was happy for that. I was happy for her to find that first one. And then I was also happy that I also then 10 minutes later found another one. So both those things were really great. So, yeah, I was happy with it. I think in better conditions, we could have turned up a couple more, a friend of mine,

wound up looking in the same place the next day, totally. unexpectedly, didn't know it. We were headed to the airport rather than go out and battle the mosquitoes again. But, yeah, when I had texted him later in the evening, he said, wait, what do you mean? You just got back. And he had been out there that very morning. And if we'd gone, we would have absolutely directly run into him. So that's crazy.

That's funny. Yeah. And now that's the stomping grounds of our flipping tin friends and old Schmiddy, right? Okay. And this is, so Hyde County, which is sort of the. quintessential county for that red orange form is pretty close to virginia it'd be close to you know it's probably closer to dennis macnamara or ben moral yeah yeah he's in southern virginia i believe yeah yeah that's not a far trip for those guys i would think actually but you were with your wife so

yeah exactly you were seeking other company i was not you guys had not been invited so in i guess it came off as a secret trip it was not intended to i think i did tell phil and nipper but I just car conversation in the concierge. Right. Well, that was my trip to Florida was kind of a just me and Heidi out there searching. How does Tiffany feel about, you know, the herping aspect or, I mean, is she enjoy a rob trip? Or is she like, come on, enough of this. I want to go, I want to go sit down at a restaurant or something.

What is her attitude, I guess? Yeah, totally game for the hiking component. Yeah. So that was good. That's cool. Definitely there's more food and leisure time. involved than in one of our standard outings, I'd say. More than none, you mean?

More than none. Certainly there's a substantial amount more than none. You're not eating gas stations and? We did eat. So they have Wawan sheets down there. And we did eat sheets once on the way back. So or as we were headed to the airport. So for the most part now.

Yeah. Right. Well, I was excited to eat seafood just being out on the coast that way. So, yeah, that was cool. The, I would say, lessons from the trip. Well, it was great. So we hiked those two up, which was great. I think there's basically one or two, a very small number of spots, especially in Hyde County.

There's another in Beefurt where you can hike them up, which is good. So, sure, is relatively rare to hike up in my experience. I think my understanding is in the Everglades. You can do it pretty regularly. Aspen hiked one up when we were up in North Florida. I've heard they're pretty common in certain areas where, yeah, you're like going to be hard pressed not to see one on the right conditions. But I haven't yet. Are they?

Yeah. It's usually that means cruising and usually cruising dirt. There wasn't a ton of that. I guess talking to Rob Christian who had gone last year or the year before with Gary Williamson, who used to go with Bob Zappaloady. Carl Caulfeld and that crew down that way. He was saying that the old, the old famous cruising road form is overgrown and doesn't really work the same way that it used to, I guess.

Interesting. And certainly ran into the downside of Google Maps and Apple maps or whatever it is. That, man, there's more traffic on those roads to nowhere than you would ever imagine. Right. It's so weird. Like I just see that. A lot of places, as I go, I see these roads that look just like they'll be prime out in the middle of nowhere. Shouldn't be anybody on them. And then you get there and it's like a major thoroughfare. And you're like, what is going on?

Where is it? Where is this a shortcut to, you know? It's crazy. I do think, and I know I've said it before, so it's probably tired at this point. But I think it has to reflect that back in the days of paper maps or, you know, or even less, right? If you just have the visitor or the Atlas or whatever that you would not trust that road. to get you where you're trying to go in a way that's true. People do now with the computer.

So, yeah, so it did see a large dead on the road corn snake, which continues the trend of having seen kind of the specialty, specialty items without having seen, you know, a corn snake or a yellow rat, live corn snake or a yellow rat snake. Yeah. So, yeah, the only two live snakes I saw on the trip were those to Carolina Pignis. Wow. Which again, a little bit unusual. That's crazy. Well, that's good, though. That's what you're looking for.

So you might as well find your target. Yeah, it reminds you I was herping with Jeff Lamb on his study site. And we found coastal patch nose, which is, you know, the least frequently found thing. And he's like, well, if you're going to find one snake, it might as well be that one. You know, that's a rarity. So, yeah, I guess I felt good about that. But I was like, I would have liked to have seen a rosy boa. It's crazy that I still haven't seen a rosy boa.

you know yeah yeah and i haven't either so we'll have to do that together we'll have to get it figured out i know either today or more likely in future shows maybe it'll be the end of the year celebration we'll talk about what we're thinking about for next year what i'm excited what we want to do and all those things so sounds good um yeah absolutely so no great trip happy to turn out two of those did see a couple turtles which are cool that's cool new species or have you seen them before i think so i think one was a striped mud turtle a little little hatchling, a fresh hatchet. It was very cool. And then the other one was a slider type. I'll have to look at the photo, try and keep, you know, I'm not big on the Polonians. They're cool.

I like them, but I don't have a ton of, I don't have nearly the same level of experience and sort of automatic insight as with snakes. But up to 30 or 33 U.S. Rattlesnake forms. Wow. After our Palencia's trip, and I think we talked about this before, I started learning. I started lumping the Colorado Massasagas into Edwards Eye, right? They have been long presented as potentially an integrated population, but the Arizona animal, which should be as extreme as Edwards Eye get, to me, was akin to the Colorado stuff, so I'm going to put that permanently into that group.

So, yeah, Western Massachusettsas, Western Pygans and the Palincio's sank are the last three. And then we'll see about Wallapai. things like that, but that's off-season thoughts and considerations and all of the ground. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that leads to, after talking with Gordon Shuit and finding out that there are no Hopi, true Hopi in Utah, do you need to go back and find a Hopi? Is that?

Yeah. So my thought on that is I'm classing that right now in the Need a New Photo. So I have, I previously had Concolor in that. based on certainly the first animal that we had seen on the Utah trip. I had, to me, that's a con-color. I feel that even now haven't seen a dozen or so more. So that's sort of where I count it to me as having seen it because it's a diminutive form in the Four Corners area

that clearly is a prairie rattlesnake, but also clearly not between those two that we saw. So I'm counting that is I would want a new photo of one that'll come from the painted desert area. Fortunately, I have reason to be in that area quite a bit over the next four of five years. So I certainly, maybe in the conjunction of those two things, we'll put in some concerted effort to try and turn one up down there. And it'll be, okay, here's one that I would count, meaning that first one. Certainly is how all can't.

First two, frankly, if you're on the road, Jehovah Weep, that's, I hope you rattles that. But, you know, whatever. I understand the point. And really, I think it comes down to as much as anything. I come to wonder whether there's actually validity to that form at all. Right. It kind of, if he takes, take Gordon's perspective, then to me it almost means that they don't exist. So, yeah, that's where I'll count it.

I counted as having seen it based on those two animals. Right. But I will want a new photo before I, well, before we sort of publish anything associated with the various. pursuit and all of that. For sure. And I mean, that's, they look, I mean, the phenotype is there. Clearly the phenotype type. And if it's, the phenotype is driven by those conditions.

Right. It's a function of, I do think that southern corridor is more narrow. And it's quite possible that there's been less sort of integration of the eastern genes into that population. And I get that. And that's sort of the distinction that's being drawn. I don't know how compelling. I find the whole.

I think to me I'm comfortable having it as checked, but wanting a new photo. Yeah. It's a tricky, uh, tricky consideration, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. Might just me be trying to get one up on you there or having one that you don't have, but that's, uh, yeah. Yeah. No, I certainly, I won't consider the list complete without seeing a painted desert one,

because that is sort of the, um, stricto senseo. sort of interpretation of it. But yeah, I think those animals, that same phenotype, we certainly saw those, certainly saw those in ancestral Pueblo and range. So to me, that is what that means. There's just maybe slightly less intergression from the eastern stuff in the Pender Desert. And I think, too, I mean, if we're counting cane break, that's a phenotype, you know, for all intents and purposes as far as whatever current tax.

Exonomy, how it stands, you know. So if that's going to be one, then if it matches the phenotype, then it's as good as it can be. Right. Yeah. I guess I should have picked his brain a little further on, you know, what he considers it. You know, if it's an actual subspecies, if Nantius is valid, or if it's a full species or a form or a full species. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's certainly interesting, right? And even, yeah, you bring up the cane break situation. That first one. that Brandon and Owen had seen. Certainly it looked like a, it looked pretty timbery. Right. Based on the video that they shot. So that I actually wound up saying, well, I'm just as content to not have that be my life-a-quote cane break,

despite being in, you know, just into Mississippi or whatever. Because it was inland, it had that sort of timber fiend inside that didn't look all that. Again, based on the video, I didn't see it in person, but didn't look all that different from the ones we saw in Jersey. Well, and I found out with my wife's, speaking of game breaks, with my wife's new job, she's going to have a conference down in New Orleans. And so I may accompany her and go have fun during the day while she's at meetings. But it's in February.

So I know that they've been found early, you know, early in the year, but they're probably close to Den site. Who knows if, you know, if that's a doable thing. I need to talk to who's the. how we have. Zachary Gray. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

you can ask him. See, certainly. See if it's worth it. Yeah, I don't think they congregate. I think it's more like the Jersey thing. And in fact,

I would say that when, so a little more color for the Carolina pygmy situation, that habitat really reminded me. It's slightly different sort of water purpose and utilization and type and whatever, but it really reminded me of what we're looking, those. the on-water timbers in New Jersey. That sort of feeling as we were going through it,

that it was very similar to that. So the second one had dropped off functionally into water. And I took the route of saying, okay, rather than pursuing, I'm going to see if I back off and it comes back out. But yeah, very much that same feeling. Okay. Cool.

that's interesting. Yeah. Didn't realize they were little swamp snakes like that, you know. Yeah. Well, and remind, you know, the eastern, right? How wet that habitat was. Yeah. Yeah.

The eastern Osaga, you know, yeah. A lot of commonality to that, although the habitat, as I say, was more reminiscent of the Jersey timber situation. Okay. Cool. And actually thinking about it, it's not February. It's more April. So, because it was right around the time that my.

trip up to Canada was. So we were trying to debate whether, you know, I do her trip or she does or we do both trips or how it's going to work. So I don't know. Okay. Yeah. So. Well, I'm very partial in New Orleans. So, right. Certainly. And I would love to, yeah, see that area. But Banff, Banff would be cool too. And that would be more just kind of hikes and not, not herping, but maybe a little bit, but yeah. Probably not in April. Not in April. Not in April. shirt. Yeah. Yeah. June July, maybe. Yeah. Right. So either way, I think I'll probably try to tag along with her there. That'll be fun. You might as well. Yeah. I've never been to Louisiana as far as I can remember. So similar habitats sound like Georgia and things I think have been down there, but

close. Yeah, it depends on the area. Like when you're talking about on water and stuff. Yeah. Right. Cool. Well, glad you add another type or species or subspecies to your list. That's very cool. And quite beautiful snakes. I mean, yeah. Absolutely.

Very nice. And they, it is interesting, right? So some of those Hyde County animals, at least the pictures we see, they're fire engine red throughout the body. Right. You know, these were not that. They were more the purple orange. But then on the face. the face in particular seems to really aggregate those carotenoids or whatever it is that causes that look.

And yeah, so they were, they were beautiful. Happy with them. They were not the most extreme, but they were probably pretty representative for that Hyde County alone. Right. Yeah. Yeah, they're not all of them are going to be like that. But yeah, it's nice to have some that are fairly nice to look at at least. Yeah.

Absolutely. And to hike them up. You know, as we both, you know, no and agree. that's always a little bit more fun, especially when the only snakes you're seeing on the road are dead. So certainly that would have, you know, the tiering of experience, hiking up a live one,

couldn't get better than that, let alone. Sure. Yeah. All right. Well, are we ready for the clip show? I think so.

Okay. Anything else you wanted to add there? No, all good. Excited to do the three that, Chuckles had remaining and then get into my appearance. All right. Yeah.

So first off is the ethics of field collecting. I'm still like, I don't know, there's been some tempting ones recently, you know, that I would have liked to have brought home. But I just resist. You know, it's so great just seeing him in the wild, letting him crawl away under a rock. And really, I think I'm just still, I'm moving more towards just want to see stuff in the wild rather than keep stuff in a cage. So, you know, but I don't know that my opinions have changed much. How about you?

Yeah, I don't know that might have changed much either. So I wasn't on that episode, but the fourth one that we're going to talk about is sort of in the same vein. had Dustin gone on on the first episode that I joined. Kind of the same conversation and maybe my views have crystallized a little bit to say that I think when we see something in the wild, if we do collect it and bring it home, at some point we run the risk that it's going to become a burden, right? Or we perceive it to be a burden. Right. And I just feel like that has the power to ruin or to diminish, if not ruin, sort of that initial wild experience. experience we had with that animal, right? When it becomes just another chore in your list of chores,

obviously it could bring great joy, right? If you have, you don't want to produce awesome animals from those and people are excited and you can kind of share the passion with those animals, then absolutely, heck, we encouraged it in, in Dustin out of our trip. There was, you know, a pair that seemed too perfect that's completely legal and all that. And we said, we almost compelled them to take them, right? I said you should take these. It makes too much sense. Take them as sort of an embodiment of all of our joy in it from this experience, right? And work with them. And if in three or four or five years you produce offspring from those, then all of us will have had a small hand in that. Right, right. So I totally understand that. And heck, you know, Carl Koffeld's books,

Snakes and Snake Hunting and Keeper in the Cap, you know, those latter two, hugely influential, to me, that being said, and I think it was an entirely different universe, right, in terms of there was not the captive reading to support zoo, you know, populations and things. But the one thing that sits a little bit off is just sort of the consistent collection of animals that talked about there. And you see even in the 12-year gap between 57 and 69 when those two books had come out, but by the second book, he was collecting less and certainly encouraging people, readers, to not collect beyond what they, quote, needed, right? Don't collect an excess of your need. And he recognizes in the second book that some of the locations that he mentioned in the first book

did seem to suffer an impact associated with that. And we see that playing out. 60 years later, and we talked about it with Bob Zapp, Lordy, and he sort of agrees that, yeah, some of those areas that are famous from particularly the first book, yeah, it seemed to him who had been experiencing it concurrently and then sort of the last 60 years, he did think there had been an impact associated with that in those specific places.

Right. And I, you know, I think on the other side of that, like, you know, hearing about the all the gray bands that have been collected. Like you don't find a gray band and not collected, it seems, to some extent, in the gray band culture, whatever you want to call it. So,

you know, they're mostly collected, but they still find them. And I think the same bears true for like the Utah Mountain Kings. Like there's been an uptick in collection with the legalization of, and you know, with the permit system

for collecting. And, and, you know, hearing from some of the folks that find a lot of them, they're not really seeing a dent in the population, if you will. So kind of, you know, an encouraging take, not to say that, you know, go crazy and just collect everything. But and I would, I would also add the caveat, like, if there's a captive bred offspring available, that's going to be the best bet, you know, as long as you trust the person who produced it, that, It's what they say it is, you know. And I can see, like, if you want a certain locality for its look or for whatever reason, you know, and that was kind of a discussion we had with some of the animals that we found, like, yeah, it would be cool to have this animal, but there is somebody working with this locality that we can buy captive bread offspring down the road.

And that's probably a better scenario in the long run. You know, you're not taking that animal out of an already, you know, struggling population. in that area. So, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I think your book points are a droid that the resilience of these things in terms on a population level, I think is more than maybe we imagine. Also, right, it's going to be a reflection of the reproductive strategy of the animals

that are involved, right? So that if we're talking about small clobbered snakes that have lots of eggs because the mortality is really high and you're talking about collection. Newborns to yearlings, that probably is having minimal to no effect on the population because those are animals that are functionally meat on the landscape for all their predators and things anyway. So if anything, it's going to be the knock-on effect on the things that would consume that rather than having it go home with you or whatever more so than reflect the population. If you're talking about something that Carusha that had, you know, the monkey tail skinks that have a single back that has a single offspring, a year, year, you know, or a pair, you know, twin offspring a year or something like that. Obviously, and you're collecting adult animals or even those sort of singular babies that there's

so much more investment in, that makes a difference for sure as well. Right. Which is, which is strange because, you know, when we're in South Australia, that was the most commonly seen her. Was a shingle back. They were everywhere. You saw 40 of them. You know, that's the kind of, I mean, they must not have a lot of predators other than cars,

you know, and you see a lot of DOR. shinglebacks. They're not the brightest when it comes to getting out of the way of cars. But I think the locals are probably not that interested in running over a shingleback skink versus probably a snake where more people would be apt to swerve or something. Yeah. And they're probably pretty tough too. I don't know like they're they're a tough, tough lizard for sure. But yeah, that stretch that I mentioned on the podcast before where I saw counted 20 to 30. you know, carcasses of shinglebacks in a mile long stretch was insane to me, you know, just kind of like, what is happening?

These things are pretty abundant locally, you know, at least in certain areas at certain times of year, you can see quite a few. So, you know, not to say that, yeah, that we can go crazy and go wild with collection because I'm sure that would impact them much quicker, you know, than other things. but there's also so much, you know, area out there where they're pretty thick, and it would be hard to over-collect them other than locally. You know, if you picked an area where their roads are, you could probably collect some, but you might start impacting the population if that went too far.

But other things like, you know, green tree pythons, I think Daniel Natush has shown that the collection rate, whatever it is at in Indonesia doesn't really impact. And I think Rick Schein showed the same thing with reticulated pythons with the skin trade, where they were mostly collecting, you know, younger animals that weren't, you know, the monster 20, 30 feet ones. Those hung out more in the forest, whereas the other ones would come into town, get collected, you know, kind of lazily, you know, in the cities rather than going out and looking for them in the wild, you know, in the pristine habitat. And so it didn't really impact the core population, just the wandering idiots that came into town.

The periphery. Whatever you want to call them. Right. And you might even see, right, that those population dynamics have changed over time associated with urbanization. So the bullet python thing, right, where the oil palm plantations and things are actually boosting sort of their densities. so that that actually sort of works hand in hand just support additional cultivation or use. Yeah. Harvest.

Yeah, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, interesting to think about it. And I mean, nobody really wants to see, even the skin traders don't want to see their livelihood go away because they overcollected. And I think that was kind of the, you know, Rick's assessment of that, Dr. Schein's assessment of that was like, like, okay, you know, yeah, it's not great that they're collecting for the skin trade, but at the same time, it doesn't seem to be impacting.

Like, they find as many every year as they did the previous year. So for the most part, it didn't have much of many. Obviously, those have such massive clutch sizes, or at least can, right? Particularly in those, obviously not talking about, you know, collecting super dwarf re-ticks that have a handful of eggs, you know, we're talking about. And on an island or a limited range. Right. Yeah.

So absolutely. Yeah. I mean, a caveat to the green tree python discussion would be the, you know, the kofiao animals that were overcollected and did suffer. So, yeah,

certain island populations are more at risk than. Or those where collection requires sort of habitat destruction, right, whether we're talking about antiregia or if we're talking about, like a dactylos species where they're cutting down the plant habitat to collect them and then that's de-forcing the bark or yeah taking away a resource that's not renewable like bark you know you go into some central australian localities and all the barks been stripped looking for gill i or or you know in western australia maybe depressa or something like that or codiliniatus or

whatever yeah and the habitat's just messed up because unscrupulous herpers are looking for an easy collection rather than caring about what they're collecting. That's the frustrating thing I think is like, who are these people, you know, that don't care? Yeah, that's the frustrating thing. Yeah. And seeing all the scars on the landscape of the flipped rocks. So if you're going to collect, do it, do it ethically, do it with the law, you know, where the law, you know, where that's applicable.

And probably young animals that are probably going to do the best. you know, in captivity. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's move on to DIY, to DIY or not with Ron St. Pierre. He is a wealth of knowledge. Always great to have Ron on.

Yeah, I was glad that he came on kind of one of Chuck's last show. So that was fun to have him on again. And he's kind of the king of DIY. He's always coming up with interesting solutions to probably. problems. And so it was perfect to get his insight on the DIY type keeping aspect. And I really appreciate, I like DIY and I was always a firm DIYer. But, you know, as it got more difficult to do some of those things, you know, it's, it's time consuming to DIY. And so if you have a full-time job and a family and trips and all this kind of stuff, it really becomes difficult.

to do it all that way yourself. So I do appreciate the fact that there are cage manufacturers and certain cages that you can purchase and that work really well. So I'm kind of in both camps now. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I absolutely respect it. I don't have the technical skills, capacity, time,

all those things to take advantage of it in the way that he does. Yeah, as you say, he's an ex- example, exemplary demonstration of doing that, right? And it's so much observation and then having that reflect in his husbandry. So, yeah. And no laziness either. Like he'll take it down and do it over if he did it, you know, if he finds a flaw in his design. So that's what, you know, adds extra cost and effort.

And, you know, but, you know, he wants to do it right. So that's a, that's a good, good example. of how to be, if you're going to be a DIYer, you just got to buckle down. Ever iterated. Yep. Yeah, for sure. It's cool. It's fun, fun to talk about that stuff. And here is stories about the pros and cons of DIY for sure. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, we'll move on to Chuck's last show, mail size. And incidentally, Chuck hit me up a few weeks ago and had an idea for, to come on to fight club. So we need to get him on here.

So that'd be a lot of fun to have him back. And had an idea for a fight topic and everything. So we'll have to make that happen. I tried to call him a couple weeks ago, but wasn't able to get a hold of him. So hopefully we can connect here in the near future. But so mail size, I guess that's, you know, do you pump up a mail?

Do you leave them small? I think there could be some component of their natural history. For example, a Darwin carpet python, the males combat, so they grow large, as large as they can get. And whereas like a southwestern carpet in Bracotta, the males will stay small so as not to compete for limited resources on islands with females out in, you know, some of the garden island and some of those populations. have some pretty extreme sexual dimorphism. Yeah. So that's kind of an interesting thing. So I guess know your species.

And I imagine, you know, it may, and sometimes, you know, having another male present for the ones that do combat could, you know, peak their interest in mating and maybe not having that. Or having a small male may make them like, I don't want to get into the fray. They're genetically wired to be worried about a bigger, badder male around the corner. So if they don't have the size, maybe they're going to be less great at breeding. So it's hard to say.

But, you know, some of the thoughts I have on male size. I don't know if I covered those. I didn't go back and listen like a good podcast host would. Yeah, I think that was fundamentally sort of the discourse that happened with them. So, yeah, I think you've covered it well and I'm pretty much aligned. I think, yeah, if it's relevant to the form and the other part of it, right, is we're not trying to, you know, goldfish retick centennial and tank site. Right. So being just an ethical keeper generally in terms of making sure you're seeing reasonable growth and not talking about, you know, snakes that don't, that are not representative of their species in any way, right?

Right. because they're way too small. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I think that, you know, getting a male too big could have consequences as well. You know, you could have an overweight male that doesn't perform as a breeder because he's too big. So there's other factors that can go into that as well.

Right. We see it all the time in bananas, right? The sneaker mail concept coming, you know, borrowed from fish where you actually have males that look like feet. females to avoid being picked on, right? You know, to avoid being a subservient male, they appear to be female, but then, you know, they're not the object of concern for the dominant male in the area, and they actually want a passing on their genes and things.

So, yeah, super interesting. Right. Isn't there an aspect with garter snakes where they'll mimic female scent or something, and then all the males will crowd around them and warm them up, and so then they have a better chance that getting breeding with a female, because they're, warmed up and ready to go. So it's kind of some interesting biology at play for sure. It's pretty cool.

And then the California is it leopard lizards, something that the population where there's sort of groups of males, whether they invest resources in demonstrating to other males to show their prowess or not, and that there's, the population is continually sort of moving, but amongst retaining those three options, but moving depending on. you know, upon the year of which are the most successful amongst these different approaches to it. So kind of the same, same thing expressed differently, more coloration rather than size. Oh, yeah, and the side blotch lizards with their red. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, the red, yellow, and blue. Yeah. Like that where they have almost like a rock paper scissors. And the red guys are the big tough guys and they have to eat more food and spend more energy protecting all their harems. And the blue guys just kind of sneak in there and something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty cool. Yeah. Lots of interesting biology associated with reptiles. All right. And then, yeah, we get to your first episode, which was with Dustin Gron, very fitting. Dustin's a good friend of ours and friend of the pod. So always good to have him on. And he was on a couple weeks ago or last week, last time we recorded.

it, I guess. So good to chat with him, as always. And I think that one was fresh on the mind just coming out of that encountering, you know, a pair of Utah Mountain Pyros. Right. Actively breeding on the trail. Talk about a locality match pair. Right.

And so that that was that year's trip. So it was fresh on our minds. And I think that's what it brought the topic up, despite the fact that you guys had chatted with you about it just a handful episodes before. Yeah, and if I would have been there, that would have been a hard thing to resist. Like, oh, man, they're perfect. But I guess we'll let them do their thing in the wild and hopefully populate that area. Because I would like to go find them because I was not there while you found them.

As everybody well knows, I'm sure they hear me whining about it enough. Well, and I do think it kind of raises it, you know, maybe we've already talked about this enough. but it raises the question of, okay, so if we had collected those and you'd come down the next day and you'd seen them in the bag, how would that have changed your experience if at all? Right. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like, yeah. Yeah, it wouldn't count.

Yeah. Yeah. And it wouldn't be as exciting either. Yeah. So that's, yeah, I do like seeing them crawl away into that, yeah, or just watch them do what they're doing and move on their way naturally. That's always fun too. More so less than a group setting. I mean, obviously you want everybody to see them when they're in the habitat and when you find them.

But again, kind of the same concept, I guess, is it as exciting if you're not coming on them mating in the trail or I'm sure it is. But maybe a little less so than actually witnessing natural behavior. And so, yeah, it's very cool either way. But yeah, less so in a bag. or a box or whatever. Yeah. So in a bag or a box, you know, six hours away or whatever. Right.

And I guess maybe to add to that topic, maybe this is a future fight topic, but collecting for taking photos the next day, you know, is that a good thing or a bad thing or how does that impact, you know, here? Right. Yeah. And maybe, again, you can either give us a short version. certainly issues that there are some groups where that's just their monosop around that, right? That's their operating.

They go into separate areas. Regardless, whatever. I don't think that that's sort of my preferred methodology. You know, if there are specific animals and it's sort of in the moment and it makes sense, absolutely. I would say in general, it's certainly not my preference, even though the photos can look beautiful, right? Sure. And that was part when, you know, turned up those Carolina pygmies just last week, that, those cloudy skies in the middle of the day, man, it was beautiful and was super helpful for photographing, right? Yeah, great lighting.

You're not fighting the sun. Right. That was very helpful. And so I understand it from that perspective. And you can get, man, anytime I see photos from you or from Jordan, you know, those things, Aspen, those are amazing. and you know sometimes that if that's that much more facilitated by taking it in the morning under perfect conditions you know those are works of art so that's beautiful simultaneously just in my experience of it i don't don't love it i don't yeah i don't know that i've really done that not that i can think of like me

personally picking something up putting in a box i i usually don't have snake bags or yeah i don't think about that stuff. So I don't really have the opportunity to do that, you know, other than, so I just like to take them where found, you know, in the conditions that we have. Yeah. I mean, that was the thing with the bretles. And that's kind of what got me interested in getting a real camera because I looked at my cell phone shots and then I looked at Jordan's, you know, real camera shots. And I'm like, oh, man. Yeah. Okay. And fortunately, my nice brother let me borrow his nice camera so I can start taking those shots. I got to play a wedding photographer this, well, engagement photo photographer for my son and

his fiancee. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty fun. I don't know. Hopefully, I think a few turned out okay, so we'll see. But, you know, I think they'll be happy with them. You know, I'm no real photographer. So I just pretend here and there. And the camera does a lot of the heavy lifting.

So, yeah, I just try to frame it okay. But, yeah, it's... Did you insist that they stand by the light bar and you're shining them with the headlamp just to make sure it's focusing? Right. Well, and that was part of it. It's like, I don't know how to use the camera properly. Like, you know, there was pumpkins, like these carved, you know,

styrofoam pumpkins or whatever. And they were lining a tunnel. And I thought, you know, looked really cool. And I wanted a shot of them with the pumpkins. going in the back and I couldn't get the real camera to do that, you know. I had to had to take it with cell phone because cell phone knows what it, you know, what it's looking at or does the thinking for you in some ways. But I think I'd turn the settings on the real camera and I think I might have got them,

but I need to look at them. They're probably all blurry and garbage, you know, so I don't know. We'll see, see how it worked. I need to need to learn better. And that was kind of part of the fun with getting that camera from my brother. others I went on that we went on that trip with Jordan and he showed me how to how to use it you know how to use a cannon and all the settings and how to set it for manual shots and things so that was kind of cool I'm more of like set it on auto and let the camera do what it does not think about it but yeah so

I'm kind of lazy in that way or it just doesn't stick in my brain the same way as other things do so yeah but I do enjoy photography so it's kind of of a, yeah, pros and cons for sure. Done exceptionally well, the results are exceptional. I think if you're not meeting that standard, then it's probably not that different auto versus, you sort of misapplication of trying to do those things, right? Trying to do the manual settings.

Well, and the new features on the cameras, too, like the eye tracking, I mean, it will track the eye of an animal and focus on the eye. So, you know, at least that's going to be in focus. So that's kind of always been the struggle, you know, as what I have to focus on, you know. Now I can tap the screen and it will focus in the place that I tap and take a picture. You know, it's pretty nice that way.

So I don't know. All right. Well, Long versus Focus trips. Justin versus Robb trip. Yeah, exactly. And, you. You know, I have, I guess maybe it's herping with Jordan, you know, looking for the good conditions and, you know, maybe doing, and that can be either, you know, that can turn into a long trip. If you were like, oh, man, you know, I went to South Carolina or North Carolina and or Virginia and I'm, you know, the conditions aren't great, but they're great over here.

So maybe I'll drive five hours and go try my luck in a, you know, place where it's a little sunnier or a little warmer. You know, that's that's kind of a tricky thing. You have to have to have to have a really good sense of what's going to be productive or what's going to be useful. And, you know, for for us that are trying to find some of these things for the first time, you know, you're like, well, is this going to be better? Am I wasting 10 hours driving there and back, you know? And then it gets really complicated with, you know, stays. You know, sometimes you can do that, but you're relying on, oh, if they have a room available. where you end up or you can have to drive another couple hours to the place where there's a hotel.

You know, stay. You know, you're kind of, you'd already pre-committed to something and then you're doing an extra. Right. So it can be costs associated with it. Yeah. Yeah. The part of it, right? Is, are you, is it just about seeing something or is it about giving a shot of a particular thing?

Right. I mean, right. You're not going to see Red Pygmy somewhere else. Right. You better be looking at High County. You know, that's, regardless of the condition. So yeah, I know in this context, it was, you know, obviously just being a family fun thing as well. It was easy enough to say, okay, well, this has become scouting.

We'll see if, you know, we'll try and turn them out and see if we can and whatever. But unfortunately, it came up. It, you know, was the same thing when Aspen and I found the southern hog nose, the sinus, where certainly KJ and, you know, our local buddies were not optimistic about our chances. a turn I went up, but it was, well, and conditions look more favorable elsewhere, but my goal is, I want to see a southern Agnos, and this is where it makes sense to go to try and do that. And even though the conditions didn't look great, you know, that's what we did. And sure enough, enough time and effort that I'd actually come to write it off and said,

okay, I guess I'm coming back, you know, at some point. And just then, you know, on the way back to the car, you know, with great speed and focus, there was one. So, yeah, exactly right. You know, sure, there were, there are times where if it's just about seeing something, and, you know, I haven't been to North Carolina before, there are plenty of new things, even if they're the same species. All that sandhills stuff is cool.

The southern hog nose, pine sanks, all of that. Mool kings, not necessarily sand hills, but plenty of cool things that, yeah, maybe the conditions were better, but the point was trying to find a red pigman. Right, right. And also like when you're shooting for, yeah, particular area. And maybe you don't necessarily have a target, but you're like, I want to go hike in Zion National Park or Capitol Reef or something like that where, you know, if I see something cool, that's great. But I want to see this habitat or I want to try for that specific animal where it is the nicest form or my favorite form or whatever you want to say. I think that's worthwhile too.

And, you know, I think camping out or, you know, being more not relying on hotels or Airbnb's is somewhat helpful that way too. Yeah, because then you can go, well, let's go over here because it's raining here. Let's go where it's not raining. And that makes it better to sleep anyway. But so, you know, there's other caveats to that and you can make different calls. I talking to Dustin and some of the other folks down there, I said, hey, if you see a saddled leaf-nose snake, let me know. And then I'll just head down that weekend or something.

You know, like when they're moving, I want to come down and try my luck to find one. You know, just it's not that, not that far. I could drive in a day, you know, and make it down there and be there to her. herpet the night. So it's a doable thing. So I think, I think, you know, some things I might try that way to, you know, when they're, when they're moving, when they're thick on the road. That's the time just to strike when the iron's hot. And, you know, I was hoping to do that with those darn hook-nosed snakes. And, uh, but, uh, did just didn't get lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I put in many hours that kind of ate up my drive home and, and was a little sketchy and driving tired,

you know, as far as I could before I had to just pull off the road and sleep in the car. So not the best situation that way, but it was worth a try. I just sad that I struck out. Also sad that was so busy down there, you know, it's kind of crazy how many cars were there. But I guess we were all somewhat common venture. So. Right. Well, yeah.

I think the other, man, Arizona is so cool just because there are so many different, habitat type. Really, when you're in a place that has a diversity of habitats, then you're probably going to see differences in the weather between the elevation, low desert, high desert, you know, if you get into sky islands, those sorts of things. So especially the Chiracowas, as you obviously makes a ton of difference. Those 3,000 vertical feet makes a lot of difference about what the weather looks like. Yeah. And that was kind of the consideration on this last trip, you know, heading back towards Phoenix, I was going to try to go down, you know, towards the border, but it was just rainy and cold and wet.

And so I'm like, you know, it's not going to be as productive as if I go up further north. And sure enough, I saw lots of cool stuff. Toad Road was fantastic, you know. So, yeah, lots of considerations there. Right, where we intend to go on the last day pivot. Yeah. You know, the conditions indicated that we couldn't go where we were planning to go. So we went from there four hours each way different, you know, and had it and just said,

okay, let's do it. And got, but it made sense just on that timing, turned one out. Came back, made for very late, unplanned very late night. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. And I do like a good road trip. I love seeing a lot of the countryside, you know, after leaving you guys in Darwin, I took off and

went over to Western. That was a fantastic trip. I love just seeing the boab trees and, you know, all sorts of cool wildlife and new habitats. It was, it was amazing. And so, you know, I think that's kind of in my blood, those long, long range trips and seeing, you know, driving a lot, but also seeing a lot of different areas at the same time is kind of a fun thing. I don't know. I like it. As long as you're not getting crushed by traffic, you know, it's right. Right, right. Two hours, you know, yeah, two hours in Western NT is entirely different than, you know, even the Phoenix to Tucson where you're kind of struggling, struggle busing through. Right.

Yeah. I mean, you can go certain ways where it's a little maybe less traffic. But you takes a lot longer to get there. You can go through some different habitats that way too. So, yeah, it's, I guess, fun. A lot of ways to have fun out there in the, in the wild. But it's also taxing. I mean, coming back from Western Australia was, I was struggling, you know, and, like, not really,

having, you know, having a great time sleeping when it's, you know, 95 degrees. And I'm just exhausted, but I need to sleep, but it's too hot to sleep, you know. And then just kind of giving up and going to a hotel and sleeping for six to eight hours in the day. while it rained it was probably good timing that way and then having energy that later that night to go out herping and find a few olive pythons and some black-headed pythons things like that was cool so it worked out but you know i kind of felt like i gave up too easy in the spot that i was in but it it was okay and i guess we'll we'll be back that way sometime in the future so that was quite a debt the uh salt in the wound on that one. Yeah. Just a couple of all the pythons. Don't worry about it.

Yeah. Well, I'm sure that'll happen for you soon, soon enough. All right, guided trips versus, you know, going by yourself. But we had Zach Beaz on. He's fun to talk to. He's got some good insights. And it seems like he's done quite a few of those guided trips and has a group that he likes to, or some guides that he likes to go with.

And I think that's kind of a nice thing sometimes if you, I mean, I guess it's kind of like our group, you know, you're our guide and do all this research and planning and things like that. And we just kind of get to enjoy the ride type of thing. And, you know, I've planned a few trips that way as well. And it's nice when they work out, you know, it does feel like there's a little bit of pressure. You know, I feel the pressure anyway when I plan a trip to be like, oh, crap, you know, the weather's not right. did everybody's going to be mad at me for bringing them over here right this time and you know not finding what we're looking for but you know i i think people understand that you know we're just doing our best and and we i think we we're pretty good about giving people the opportunity to chime

in and say what they want to do which is probably less less of a factor with a guided trip they'll take you where they're going whether you know it's and and i don't know maybe they make last minute adjustments but it seems like if you're taking your group somewhere, you have to have a pretty firm plan. I would think so. There has to be less flexibility, you know, in terms of the accommodation and those sorts of things.

Maybe there's ability to pivot within sort of the structure that exists. But yeah, it has to be less than, you know, if it's, okay, we're going to spend these three nights out of this accommodation. That's much more rigid.

I think, so we had a great discussion with Matt Cage. You had missed the first. first part, but he came and invigorated the conversation and gave lots of good questions and things relatively recently. And I've talked to Mike Pingueton before who's involved with those same trips. And I do, I do think there's utility, especially in places where otherwise you just don't have access to the habitat, right? Sure. You've talked about it before in terms of Costa Rica, where you can't access the habitat without a native guide. Right. Those sorts of things.

the trips that Zach was taking in East Africa, things like that. I think for the most part, where we're herping, it's very easy to feel comfortable because it's not that different than our sort of social norms and things that we're used to. We can sort of translate our experience and intuition to Australia and any place in the U.S. without too much of an issue. I don't think we need to be paying someone to facilitate those things. I do think that's the other part of it, right? is as a bunch of you're talking about the pressure,

I have to imagine that the pressure is wholly different when there is sort of a commercial aspect to it. It's one thing when it's like, you know, on our trips, there's no one's getting any extra. If anything, you know, it's just, if anything, I'll round it down and just be like, hey, you know, that's 20 bucks or 40 bucks or whatever. You know, it was higher than that.

Not, you know, certainly you guys are not paying for me to be there. Right, right, exactly. And I do think that changes the price. I hear you. and appreciate your point, right? And especially in terms of when you went to the antique, the last year's trip and all of saying, man, the weather doesn't look ideal.

Did I miss, sort of misimagined this whole thing, did I mispredicted? But I just think the commercial or not aspect of it changes it quite a bit. I have yet to do that, yet to be in a circumstance where that made sense. At the same time, heck, we've added people to the group based on them being sort of the local experts, right?

Justin, Brandon, you know, KJ, you know, down in Florida, you know, have, heck, Aspen and Chris in southwest Utah, right? It become sort of, that was my first exposure with Aspen. And then, you know, he and I went to Florida together. Right. He was going to come out to Louisiana, Mississippi. So it's, that actually has been really cool as well of saying, like, to the extent, you know, there's not a commercial aspect to it, but of saying. It's the herper bros.

Yeah. are if we have herper friends that are down there often there's kind of in the same way of the the joy of the find and finding a lifer for someone to the extent they'll count it sort of the same thing you know i'm sure chris and aspen were excited to take us out to their favorite spots to go try and find helas and calcains and all those things right right right yeah for sure and uh i i i think i don't know if we talked about this on this one or if we'd heard about cori martin's experience with her tour where they were in Australia and somebody alleged that they were collecting. And so wildlife officials confiscated cameras and memory cards, some of which they haven't gotten back yet. So and phones, like they took their phones. I didn't think that would be legal for Fish and Wildlife just to take your phone or your memory card. Particularly in a day and age where you need your phone to be able to get on your flight. And where and where they don't have any evidence of wrongdoing.

You know, it just seemed ridiculous. That kind of made me mad. But it also is probably a warning for anybody who's taking it to or make sure your guides are licensed or they have, you know, some sort of protections or they know the law or they have connections with fish and wildlife where they can say, hey, we're not doing anything. And they're trusted, you know, they. Absolutely. Because that could be a bad situation, especially if you're in a, you know, a sketchy place. you know, where, you don't want your guides. Well, and we heard that story about folks in the N.T.

and Darwin area where they were leading tours and they were taking people out and having them swim in billabongs where they're saltwater. And somebody got taken by a saltwater crocodile. And they were trusting their guides. Like, oh, you know, you're safe. It wasn't a herping tour. Right. Right. So, you know, that kind of thing.

You've got to be careful. who you trust, you know, and who you are. So I would do a little background research and make sure that, you know, they have the proper licenses, the proper insurance, those kind of things because anybody can do a fly-by-night tour. But, you know, when things go wrong, you can be in serious trouble and serious risk, you know, to your life. Yeah, absolutely. I would take it seriously that way. And probably that is a function of Zach, utilizing.

the same people over and over, right? Having positive experiences, then getting trusted people who are then working with people that they trust, kind of creating that network of trust as opposed to just, hey, someone created an Instagram account that says that they lead herb tours in Uganda or whatever. Right. Yeah. Like, I would, yeah, to your point, you're taking, at a minimum, you're taking a risk if you're not getting sort of a personal recommendation for that person, you know, vouch for that person from someone that you know, real life, that's a risk. Yep. And you want somebody who's also benefiting the local communities that's not just taking advantage and going and, you know, busting into their backyard kind of thing.

You know, you want somebody that's working with the locals to either benefit them, you know, which in turn benefits you because they're vested in helping you find stuff and things like that. And that's not only ethical. That probably has a, you know, pragmatic benefit as well, that you're probably less likely to run into issues. Right. If that's the case. Yeah. And some places, I mean, like we heard with Nick and Ryan's trip to New Guinea, you know, with Chris, they relied heavily on the locals.

And, I mean, I would assume most of the things that they found were because the locals had those eyes and ears and, you know, can climb trees. Search damage. Yeah. Exactly. They know what they're doing. And so if you went to the same area by yourself, you'd probably see nothing. you know, in the words of Nick Munton. You probably would be there in the first place.

Right. If you were, though, you probably wouldn't see anything. Right. And there's no road. So it's like you have to hire somebody to drive you around in a boat or lead you on a trek through the forest. You know, who knows the trails and knows the area? Because that's very difficult to plan for in a place like that. So, yeah, there's some places where you just.

Yeah. Or the U.S. We're pretty confident in the maps and the infrastructure and those things. If there's a language barrier and cultural barriers, that's all the more important. Right, right. And, you know, there's also, you know, going on your own can be a little sketchy too. I've had a couple close calls with my wife where we were out in the middle of nowhere, cruising on a mining road where nobody was going to be driving until the morning, you know.

And I left the lights on the headlights and went, was photographing. a gecko went back to get in the car and the car didn't start like oh crap i didn't think about that you know so um yeah you can get yourself into situations where you can have some well and also when we went into those canyons with steve and the rope broke and steve fell got hurt and you know it was a little tense getting him out of the canyon and finding the car again and things like that so yeah i maybe the maybe the lesson is don't go on a trip that I plan, I don't know. Or if you do have a bad feeling about it, listen to the bad feeling and don't follow me down the crazy route. And then what was the other one?

We, oh, we were driving and passing a road train, and all of a sudden there's a road train that's a little close. You know, I had to pull off off the shoulder of the road to avoid getting hit by a road train, you know. So if you don't realize that the road trains have three, you know, trailers behind them instead of the normal one that you might see in the U.S. It takes much longer. Yeah. It's something you have to get used to. Wait for a big straightaway to do that. So a lot of things that you could learn the hard way.

Yeah. Flat tires, you know, or, you know, and you're in an area where, you know, there's nobody to help you or can be sketchy. Yeah, I think as much as anything, right, it's bearing that in mind. Bering, okay, what does worst case scenario here look like and am I capable of responding to that? Can I meet that moment? And sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it's now. Even on this North Carolina trip, there's a, I'd gotten the vagus suggestion of, oh, you can go here and there's a lot of black bears that are out, you know, on Golden Hour and stuff like that. We spent a long time sort of navigating in that general area, and then I came to the conclusion that the juice is not worth to squeeze on this.

I'm not that invested in this result, and the potential negative outcomes associated with exactly as you say, having car trouble or, you know, it's one thing to pop one tire, pop two. Well, based on where you are, now you are stuck, you know, that sort of thing. And so, yeah, just there are times where it's, this is already a success. I had reached a point in the trip where I said, my expectation is zero. My expectations that have been completely fulfilled, is it prudent to me to be out here doing this, you know, questionable, you know, thing that could go sideways very easily? If the answer to that is a very solid firm no, then there are times where you just turn around the car and say, like, yeah, that's fine. right yeah yeah i'm i'm the only one out here and i'm you know 50 miles from anybody you know is this worth the the risk i haven't seen anyone in 45 minutes there is no one out here yeah is this a is this

prudent if the answer is no and you're sitting there going yeah my my mission is already accomplished then what are you doing right yeah yeah i went to go down a sketchy dirt road on my own and i was like this is probably not a smart thing to do on my own if i had three or four other guys with me, then yeah, maybe it's worth trying out, you know, to get to this cool area. But by myself, you know, yeah, that's probably not smart to do. And coming in on dark or something, you know, it's even worse of an idea. So, you know, and I mean, you're never going to have no risk, you know, there's always going to be some risk, but, you know, try to play it smart, especially if you're on your own or, you know,

let people know where you're going to be. So if you don't show up to the next spot or check in, then they know, okay, something's wrong. He didn't check in. Yeah. But, I mean, that's hard for my wife to know where I am and what does she do, you know? Right. You can't just call in a helicopter to go search an area for your missing husband. So, yeah.

And if you do, it's probably going to be very expensive. Right. That's for sure. I do like some of the new technology that's out there, you know, traveling with Jordan and his Starlink is fantastic. You always have an option to connect with the outside world. And that gives a lot of peace of mind, you know. So, yeah, those kind of things are probably in my future, you know, I'll start traveling with the Starlink or especially if you're alone, you know, having that option. Right.

It's a good thing. All right. Well, I think we talk that one pretty well. Any other insights under that one? No, all good. I think there is a ton there, right? But not for today. Right, right.

We can revisit that topic down the road, especially if a listener has another aspect of that topic that you'd like to discuss. Yeah, or taking trips that they've really enjoyed or anything like that. Right. Yeah, for sure. Should some species, not? be imported slash bot. I think the answer is yes. Obviously, legality is a big thing, considering their natural history, what they eat, you know, if you can't readily provide that, then, you know,

I always had these visions of, like, establishing an ant colony that the thorny devil feeds on, you know, and having, like, that established for five or ten years, you know, having several ant colonies. And then trying to talk the Australian government into sending me a couple for display in America because they have their food source, you know, something like that. But kind of a pipe dream, but, you know, things like that. There's there's reason why certain things aren't kept outside of their natural range. And even places like the Alice Springs Reptile Park have, you know, they lure the ants into the enclosure. so the thorny devils can eat the, or the, yeah, different places like that. They'll bring in the native ants so the thorny devils can feed on them.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, right? We've talked about it before where it's easy for us to fall into the trap of generalizing things. All verandids are the same. They just have slightly different niches. Well, that doesn't really reflect that their actual speciation and all. the different forms that exist, right? That we probably wouldn't see that degree of variety if they were all amenable to the same exact conditions. So to the extent we don't see some or we see them disproportionately, sometimes that reflects sort of commercial interest. Other times,

it's not solely a function of, oh, no one ever found those interesting. There's also oftentimes sort of a survivorship bias in captivity associated with those that are amenable to being kept In fact it. Right. Or us figuring out. I mean, even like ball pythons were considered a difficult. Yeah. And now they're very commonly kept in bred.

You know, it's the most commonly kept species you could argue. So it's a least the python. But it changed. Fundamentally changed the whole peripultural infrastructure to drive to satisfy that need. Right. That's really what changed. It wasn't so much good.

Yeah, this snakes have changed somewhat, right? They weren't in the wild. they're not breeding it a couple hundred grand. The males aren't breeding a couple hundred grams or whatever. But really, the herpetultural infrastructure is the thing that changed to make them that much more adaptable to the way people, you know,

could successfully keep them and maximize their production. For sure. With the associated benefits and detriments, right? Right. Yeah, there's always pros and cons to those changes and the different species that are kept. And, you know, and we run into monoculture these days where you go to a show

and you just see, you know, rows and rows of the same thing. And it's like, okay, you know. That seems to be fading just with the sort of the financial realities that, you know, associated with that, right? It is mostly when I see that, not that I go to shows very often, but to the extent that you see rows and rows of all pythons at this point, it's no, they're not even buying them from each other. Right. Right. You know, with that most, it's, it really is sad that that generally looks like someone with a bunch of ball pythons in the,

the sort of nice displays, sort of, they've been sold a vision, and they're not selling them or talking to anyone. Even the people there who have ball python in the same sort of displays are having that same experience, and they're more likely to be talking to, you know, pitch you office keepers. Right. Something like that. Okay. branching out.

Yeah. Yeah, and I've always been a believer in that aspect of, you know, having a diverse collection versus a monoculture. But, you know, I think people are learning that's probably a good idea these days. But, you know, people still make it work with, you know, a relatively small number of species. Yeah. Well, when someone can make, there was the German keeper who was on the, or Dutch on a podcast that I think it was the animals at home. It's several years ago now.

but was talking about keeping phryanosoma and had this very elaborate methodology for producing infrastructure of ants and their caging and all this stuff small number is not you know not a commercial scale to do it or whatever but it was very impressive so when people are able to work with things that are sort of outside the mainstream and have success it's super impressive i don't know that it makes commercial sense but it's very impressive yeah i that uh recent post host of somebody who produced some sun gazers, you know, and they showed the, the enclosures and the setup they had. It was pretty impressive. I was excited by that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that's the trick is if you have that passion. Then, you know, with some of those species, though, you're limited

to, and you probably shouldn't just sell to any random person. You know, somebody needs to have the, the, I guess that was kind of the thought when we were talking to Ron St. Pierre when he had that way of, you know, his ideas around Emerald Tree Boas and, you know, raining on them and things like that. And you're like, well, that's, that's easy to do in Florida. But, you know, I can't really do that in Utah very easily. And even then it wound up, there were hidden subtleties to that that then caused the whole thing not to work. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So lots of, yeah, lots of caveats and lots of hurdles with some of these species that makes it very difficult. And, you know, the disease factor adds a layer that's very difficult to overcome, especially since there's virtually, you know, very little research being done and no real treatments or ways to fight it. You know, there's been some ideas and some talk about it, but I haven't seen anything come out, you know, definitively saying, this is the way to treat or cure your snake of, you know, some of these serpentoviruses or things like that. So, and that can really, you know, when when the importers have those diseases circulating around their collection, you know, when they're brought in, it's really hard to avoid that or to get clean stock, you know, if you're talking. And a lot of breeders probably have those things floating around in their collections as well. So I guess some of the like serpental viruses don't pass through the eggs.

So that's a nice thing where you can get babies that are clean, even if your adults may may have a virus or something. Yeah. But then a virally infected animal is not going to be a great breeder either. So. Right. Yeah. And I have seen collections go out of existence because of some of these outbreaks.

So yeah, it can be a tricky thing. Yeah, and even collected animals, right, meaning animals you would collect yourself. Sometimes you might run into those issues, you know, that I mentioned again. Caulfeld and Keeper in the Cap. So the second of those two books talked about how at Staten Island Zoo they had completed the set. So they were displaying all the forms as he had them at that point, not splitting out the West Texas, the Ornadas from the Black Tales. But had them all on display and it wound up being shortly. because then they had a virus that came through and killed off, you know, a variety of different things specific to their rattlesnake collection,

so their non-rattlesnakes weren't impacted, but they wound up losing three or four of the representatives they had for those forms. And they came back to, they completed again a handful of years later, you know, bounced back from that and then maintain the full set for three or more years at the time of publication. But, yeah, I mean, it's not a new problem. So much of this stuff, right? we tend to think of serpentovirus even, right, the longstanding debate about the novelty or not, right? How old actually is that? What does that look like? And is it a function of novelty within a species or form or locale or things like that that are causing differential impact, presentation, right?

Mm-hmm. All those things. So a ton there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of things to consider when you're bringing in difficult species. There might be a good reason they're difficult to and the other people have failed.

I think a lot of times we get this attitude like, well, they didn't figure out, but they're not as smart as me. And it takes a long time to realize I'm not as smart as I thought I was either. Or they're just, yeah, there's just not the infrastructure to support it or something. All right. Well, the next one was with Dave Levinson and William Philippaq. and we talked about the is the reptile trade a or d or um so and you know i'm sure we mostly talked to william dave yeah dave has connection problems out where he lives usually in the walmart parking lot or whatever which is funny because he hosts a podcast now

i know i think he has to drive yeah yeah but yeah William was great and Dave was to the extent of you join. But yeah, always great to talk to William in particular. Yeah. And I mean, I think things have changed since, you know, February a year and a half ago or two. Two and a half years ago. Yeah, February 2024. So, yeah, I mean, even less ball pythons available today than we're back then.

But still a good sector of the industry. I think the Clubrids and Clubroid Radio do a good job of kind of covering, you know, what's going on, at least with Cloubrids and, you know, some of the other sectors of the reptile hobby and the business side. And Eric Lohen and Lucas were just and Nick were just chatting about these issues in the carpet community, which was fun and interesting to listen to. I don't regularly check that Morf Market. So I confess, I did have to go on to Morph Market. I had a suspicion who they were talking about, but I had to go. check and just validate that and say, oh, okay, interesting. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely an interesting thing.

And, you know, it's hard to say, like, what's going to happen. And, you know, obviously Nick has to protect his financial aspect. I mean, that's his livelihood. And so obviously he's going to be a little more sensitive to those kind of things than somebody like me that's just doing it, you know, as a hobby or for fun. So, you know, I can definitely understand that. I've met Philip. He's a really nice guy and had some good conversations with him over in Australia. He was on a tour with Brian Barcheck back in the, what was that, early 2010s.

So, yeah, I, you know, I think it, and a lot of people over here do that too. you know, we'll like gecko breeders, a lot of the Australian geckos that were produced in the U.S. were exported to Asia or, you know, other countries. And then when those exports were stopped, that became a decrease in substantial or whatever. Yeah. So they clamp down on some of the Australian species and then all or put them, you know, change their CITES status. And then all of a sudden you can't export them to other countries. and now you're stuck with trying to sell everything in country

and where you have a little bit of an artificially inflated market because you were able to sell them overseas to people who weren't necessarily breeding them and competing with you, now you've got to sell them closer to home and have those people now be your competition. It becomes a little bit of a different market. And you've got to adjust and, you know, and some breeders, as we saw,

I didn't adjust quick enough and had some complications because of that and, you know, some things that they did wrong and admitted to such. And you really have to have your finger on the pulse if you're producing numbers of animals. You know, you have to know what to expect and know your market because if it goes away, you're, you've got to have that alternative, you know, plan B or plan C or D or whatever. That can be tricky. Some of those are ugly. Yeah. Yeah. Some of those realities are ugly.

Yep. And again, if you're dependent on that for your livelihood, that can be a huge thing. You know, you can, you've got to prepare for those things. And that's tricky in a live animal market like this. So that's the whole reason I decided not to go into this full time and to keep it as a hobby that I can enjoy regardless of whether sales were up or down. It doesn't matter to me. You know, I'm okay either way. Yeah, the only thing that I hate is when my rodents shut down because of the heat or things like that. That's big pain. The heat or the cold or, yeah. Yep. It's always. Are you away at the operative moment or whatever. Right.

Yep. It's always when there's, when I need them the most, you know, when the babies are hatching and I need to feed babies. I'll suddenly the production stops because of the heat or something. So you think I'd be prepared for. for this better. But I'm just a dumb hobbyist. All right. What's her?

Did we cover that? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. With Stephen Fallick. Oh, yeah. I think that was the first time we had Stephen on. And he's a good good guy to have on.

I really like his insights into herping for sure. And also birding. I know you're not as jazzed on that, but it's fun to hear about some of the birds he's finding as well. But yeah, I think we kind of touched on this a little bit with the guided tours and, you know, and safety and all those kind of things. So it can be very rewarding to be out there on your own as long as you make, you know, let people know where you're at and make some arrangements. So you don't wind in, wind up being stuck somewhere or, you know, being in trouble that way. And nobody knows where you are.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as espoused during that conversation, my preference is kind of the group. I think the group dynamic is always fun, additive. That reflects being in a group that you're happy to be in. Great. But, yeah. Yeah. Assuming kind of with that one basic assumption, then to me, it's always more fun being out there with someone else who really enjoys it. You know, it's – or even, you know, in this context.

My wife's joking that, you know, I gave her the high five right after she got their life of Carolina pigman. It's like, oh, this is what, you know, it's akin to that experience or whatever. Yeah, it is. You know, there's a lot to be said for that in a way that, you know, heck, even when I share the pictures with the group, right, that's not the same experience that you would have had if you were there with me, you know, or whatever, right? It's not the same.

Right, right. Or when, you know, any of us, right, even on the last day when you were driving back, the towed road, right? Yeah. showing me. It's like, oh, that's awesome. But it's not the same as if I'm there. Right. Yeah. Well, and I think I didn't appreciate it as much as I

probably should have. I think I realized a little later like, wait, these are all Sonoran Desert. Like crazy, you know, not all, but there were a couple others in there, but like the majority were the Sonoran Desert toads and they were tiny. Like they were just, you know, an inch long.

And I hadn't experienced that before. So that was kind of, I should have. I did take a lot of pictures of them. So, you know, my, my INAT count for snore and desert toads increased exponentially that night. But it was pretty cool to see all those and experience that. But yeah, like you said, it's a lot funer when you have somebody to share the excitement with or make that discovery with. And, you know, hopefully.

The outside is when they're not spotting things or you see something on the road and they miss it. And there can be friction, right? or even just that you've a week out and you guys are everyone's war out and if you're not having a success you want to be having, right, then that can be deleterious to the experience as well. So I understand that, but I would say that certainly that's few and far between. That's very rare. And usually when you're in those moments, that's generally, if not always says more about you in your own mental state than it does that person or what they're doing. or anything like that. It's like, no, this is a function of my own sort of negativity

within this space. It might be earned, but it's, yeah, it is a reflection of yourself. Well, and I, I do think you kind of learn who you hurt well with and, you know, and you keep going on trips with those people. And I see that like they're, admittedly, there's a couple groups that I wish I could be invited on some of their trips. You know, it looks like they're having a really good time finding a lot of cool stuff. But then at the same time, like, you know, if they have a flow and they have a good group,

the kind of core group that they work well with, then, you know, more power to them. And I'll enjoy their videos or something. You know, that's maybe find other opportunities to hurt with them or something. And there may be aspects of those experiences that you find, not to say that they would be determinative, right, in terms of saying, oh, I won't go on those trips because of X, Y, or Z. But there are probably aspects that look different. And it's like those may or may not be a good thing, right? Or fit with what you want to do.

So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. There's a lot of dynamics, but I think I would say I do enjoy herping with a group a little better. It's a little lonelier, a little, you know, less exciting, I guess. I mean, I still geek out if I find something cool, you know. But, yeah, it's not. It's a little funner to have somebody. either to high five or, you know, be excited with.

So especially if they're just as excited as you are or more so. I mean, being with Brandon when he found that, you know, the rock rattlesnake was fantastic. And watching him just be so excited to see that and was, was made me appreciated a little more, I think, you know. And especially considering it was a little, you know, somewhat rarefying. So that was cool. Yeah, absolutely. And I think as much that was so satisfying relative to all of the... He was so excited for that because of the effort and time and physicality and all those things.

You know, like, obviously he's seen a collaborative before, not in that range, but, you know, seeing it there in that range as close to, you know, not the payoff, but close to the payoff, that was what that joy was about. Oh, yeah. He was ready to just head back to the car. You know, we did it. Yeah. I'm content with sort of the best thing that was sort of seemed doable, maybe.

Right, right. Yeah. So, yeah, best find of the day for sure. Yeah, absolutely. That was very fantastic. And then, you know, one of the top for the trip, no matter how to count it. Right. Yeah.

So good stuff all around. I, you know, I think I, I mean, I will get out. on my own here and there and you know even like on on top of group trips you know just oh i got to drive back and so i'm going to stop on the way and see this or that or the other but yeah like you said it is funer when you have somebody to celebrate with all right last one being a poser with mat teaching matt's such a great guy he's he's definitely not a poser but uh he might pose a reptile here in there. That guy, man, he he didn't have to pose the, the Glebo Palma. It just sat and stared at his camera. I mean, yeah, I wish I would have had that luck in that spot.

But, yeah, Matt's a cool guy. He does a lot of good stuff and just very, uh, adept herper and really great to have him. We need to bring him back on at some point and get, get some more insights from him. That was fun to chat with him. He's been doing some good stuff too with some interesting species in captivity as well with his bloody goanna's business. Check him out on Instagram. But yeah, posing reptiles, I think, I mean, there's very few people that don't do it, you know, that have that. And, you know, I guess it depends on the species. That's a certain way.

Right, right. And it depends on the legality of interacting, you know, some, I mean, it's probably technically illegal to take pictures of some reptiles, which is absolutely absurd, you know, and I don't know why that's a thing, you know, but it's just, I guess, interpretation of the law. Yeah. Right. And, you know, unfortunate or problematic interpretations of ambiguous laws and or just saying there are laws that there are some laws that are bad laws. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think it does hamper things a little bit when you're, especially when you're excited to find a cool species and you have in the back of your mind, I can't interact with this thing. You know, what do you do? It's, it really kind of takes away

the fun a little bit. But I guess, you know, we obviously, we try to stick as close to the stringent with the laws as we, as we're able to, you know, and I'm not going to let an animal get run over by a car if it's illegal or not. I'm going to move it off the road. And if I get a fine for that, then that's, you know, that's, it is what it is. But I'm not going to sit and watch a snake get smushed because there's a law that says I can't touch it or whatever. I'm going to get it off the road. And then, yeah, if they want to make a case to give me a ticket for doing something like that, then they can live with that on their conscience, which they probably do. I mean, they set stuff out.

Sometimes they'll release things onto the road just so you will stop and get out and touch it or move it or something, which is, you would think that would be entrapment, but what do you do? So I guess now they're pulling across crocheted animals across the road, which is just a strange thing, you know, I don't know. Yeah. But, yeah, I guess. Be obedient to the laws.

And, you know, I guess if you're out in the middle of nowhere and nobody's around, then, you know, what's it getting hurt? But just make sure nobody's watching you, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And I think so. But don't break the law. A couple of other things that vary into it, right, is the context in which you find it.

If you're flipping it in the local garbage dump, then it's just not the, same photo, right? That is its context, but that doesn't mean it's a beautiful context for sharing it. And sometimes I think, especially to the broader audience, they won't appreciate the animal if you don't put in a little effort to sort of give it the more natural context. Right, right. The photo won't get the same appreciation. The flip clip, while the Harper Bros. Love a flip clip. The general audience probably is not nearly as moved by that, right? For sort of, okay, seeing it within its normative habitat context if that's available. The far end of those can be interesting.

There's somebody, and it's just slipped to my mind, and I don't have it pulled up at the moment. I actually have reached out to him, see if he wants to come on the show. There's someone who has shifted their photography over time to taking essentially the same field guide-style photo of every animal that he encounters. So they actually went from just sort of taking a diverse array

and diverse approaches. photo that I'm trying to make, you know, compelling based on the context or the particular subtleties or nature of the animal to taking the same photo of each typically snakes, you know, posed facing the same direction. They look very similar. And actually, you know, that's the stated goal is to have them be sort of consistent photos. It's not on a white background like the field guide. But it is sort of creating this sort of commonality.

through line in the style of the photos and that's just not my taste i understand and appreciate the effort right probably is even more work than just trying to create an embrace photo you know having right facing the same direction with the same curvature and all these things that must be represent a tremendous amount of effort so it's not a function of that it's not i'm not saying it's easier it's just not my taste right and i mean i i i i mean i I appreciate it. I look at maybe like Rye Jones, his reptiles of Utah website. Fantastic photography. He's got so many great examples and he has a pretty consistent feel to all his photos. Mine are a little bit like random, you know, just based on where I was, what time of day it was.

But his seem very cohesive. Like he's got a theme, you know, all the photos kind of match. and fit well together, which he probably should have done the field guide. He would have done a better job at it, you know, just with that consistency. And we were, we benefited because he provided a lot of photos for the field guide. And so, you know, we need to have him and maybe pat with him on the, on the podcast sometime to chat with them and get their input on, you know, photography or, because they take some really nice photos. But, yeah.

So, I mean, there's, there's definitely some benefits that way where you have kind of that cohesive feel. And, you know, like Bob Hanson, he's, he's not just taking people's photos. He, he is going to photograph every animal, you know, and lots of different representatives. And so I'm very excited for his field guide to the reptiles. Amphibians, the Western Eunice. So that'll be very cool to see and see the variety. and kind of that consistency on the same background, same conditions, you know. So there's definitely a time and place for that.

And field guide is an obvious one. But if it's just for you and your enjoyment, I mean, I think most of my photos, they may not be great, but for me, I enjoy them because they help me relive the moment. So whether they're posed or in situ, I definitely prefer an in situ photo where you can get it, whether doing something cool or some natural behavior or getting them from a distance. I loved having my dad's, you know, 600 millimeter lens out in Western Australia, taking pictures of Pilbara rock monitors. That was fantastic.

Or Pilbara, sorry, Australians. But taking those photos that, you know, this area, my wife and I went to, we saw three or four of them in the morning. and a Tristus monitor and got some decent photos, you know, from a distance and just watched them do their thing. It was fantastic. One of my favorite hurt moments, you know, in memory. And same with the Hammersliensis, you know, just following it around or the Kimberly Rock monitor, although I didn't have a good camera for that one. But, yeah.

But at least the joy, the experience of a book. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly. And I mean, I followed one of those Pilbara rock monitors for, you know, followed up the hillside probably half a mile, you know, just following and behind it and, you know, videoing it from a distance and watching it do its thing and seeing them do that little tail wiggle they do when they stop. It just, it was, it was fantastic.

I mean, one of my favorite hurt memories. So I think photography can definitely serve to bring back those memories in vivid detail. So, yep, absolutely. Good stuff. All right, well, that's 10. That is done. That is another clip show completed. Hopefully you guys are enjoying the clip shows.

It is fun to revisit these topics and kind of remember some of the things we talked about and maybe have some new ideas around those subjects. And again, if you have any ideas or have any fights, we haven't had many fights lately. So if you have a fight topic, chime in and let us know what you want to do. If you want us to fight it or if you want to come on and fight about it. So I think we have a few that are in the queue. Yeah, we need to schedule or have been scheduled. Okay.

Cool. And again, Chuck, if you're listening, reach back out and let's chat about it. Let's get you on here. That'd be a lot of fun, especially considering we just left your era in the clip shows and entered the Rob Stone era. So it would be fun to have you back on the podcast for sure. All right. Well, if you want to see our adventures in the palencio's or on Toad Road, you can check out my Instagram at J.G. Juelander. That's my Instagram handle. And Rob's yours is high planes. That's correct. I haven't posted anything and probably won't until we're permanently out of the season. Not necessarily as a reflection of the seasonality thing that we've talked about. But just for the time and all that, it's something fun to do in the winter.

You know, when days are short and we're not out looking for as many reptiles and all that. And you can conjure up those memories, vivid memories, you know, using your photographs. Yeah, conjuring up those memories, you know, since I'm not busy looking for birds, that's how it's been my short days. Yeah. I've seen a few photos from Nipper, and I saw that Brandon posted that clob, and, yeah, Dustin's posted a few good things as well. So, yeah, I've been kind of putting one out here and there. But it is kind of nice to do it as a trickle rather than a fire hose. Yeah, and I think other, I don't know, just applying my own bias, when someone does it as a trickle, it's easier to keep track.

of and kind of appreciate fully all those things when it's the 15 photo dump. You know, some of them I may not even scroll to or I might not appreciate really the effort and what that took and what that looks like because it's part of that series as opposed to the singular post. Exactly. I do like kind of the end of the year ones where they find, you know, have their greatest hits or something like that. Yeah, that's fun.

Or just scrolling through 15, 24. photos. But yeah. All right, my friend, thanks again for the recording. This has been fun, and the clip shows are, I enjoy them. I enjoy revisiting these topics. Anything cool that you've experienced in horticulture or anything neat you've seen lately. I'm trying to think. I can't think of anything on my hand other than seeing some neat stuff. I think there was a, speaking of the horn lizards and their care, and I think there was an article on that that I have yet to find. It might be a special issue of the responsible herpeticulture,

but I wonder if it's in a forthcoming issue of that. So I need to check that out. But yeah. Yeah, on that topic, Ryan Martinez, I did that he had an Instagram post from down at the zoo where they'd hatched out Texas horn lizards and he's got it sitting on his finger, just a tiny baby talking about, that's a release project in terms of areas that they've been extirpated where they're trying to restore habitat and re-release those and all that. So, yeah, that's probably the thing that jumps to mind most. Okay. I did see another post.

I think it was Dusty Rhodes posted and it was SpaceX was putting in a launch pad in Texas and it was going to destroy a bunch of, you know, horn lizard habitat, which. was kind of sad to see. I don't know that they care much about that when there's progress to be made and launch them into space or whatever. But, yeah, it's unfortunate. I don't know. Well, hopefully we'll have places to go hurt with all this progress that's being made. Indeed.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. And thanks everybody for listening. And we'll catch you next time. Oh, thanks to Eric and, of course. Check out their stuff. It looks like they had a good time at Carpet or at Caluberd Fest.

That seems really weird to have those guys skip out on a herb trip to go to Calubrid Fest. I mean, it looks like a really nice setup, though. They had a good time. So looking forward to hearing their recap of that event on NPR. So check out Morelia Python Radio. And we'll thank them for hosting our podcast. and we'll catch you next time for Ripped Off Fight Club.