Reptile Fight Club - RFC Siete - Clips Show #7

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

RFC Siete - Clips Show #7Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIGFollow 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/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to Reptile Fight Club. I'm Justin Joolander with me, Rob Stone. Oh, hoi, hi. Here for another week. We haven't done a clip show in quite a while. More than a year. Yeah, that's crazy. I was looking back and thought, man, that's a long time ago.

I think the last one was at the end of June in 2024. So I guess we've had plenty to talk about, plenty of people, good guests to have on. But yeah, we're going to go through the next 10, I guess, from where we left off last year. So if you've been eagerly on the edge of your seats, I apologize for that. but um so yeah well what's what's going on in your world these days rob oh you know lots and little nothing hugely home to or hugely notable to write home about but uh excited for this i think it's a cool idea especially in the context of right it's not just playing clips from the show

in the right clip show context yeah it's uh it's talking through these things that in this case i mean really we're basically three years out from that first episode in the set that we're talking about. So I think that's really cool to try and bring some fresh perspective and even, you know, tried to listen to as much as I could this week. And so there's little tidbits and things that are pretty fun. Kind of the time capsule piece is always always good too. I appreciate that.

Yeah. So I think it's a cool idea. And, you know, again, plenty of content. But I do think this is a cool idea. And we've maybe got to at least get to the Ocho. So. Right. Yeah.

Well, and these are all kind of the, the Chuck era shows, too, back from 2022. So, yeah, I think, trying to see the, the, we're, I think around August of 2022 with, with these shows. So guess if you're following along at home and you can, I admittedly, I didn't go back and listen to all of them. I was trying to, I listened to parts of them. to kind of refresh my memory what the topic was and what we were talking about and who was on and those kind of things. But I'll be definitely interested in hearing your take and some of the thoughts you had on these episodes as well. So yeah. One of those things where, you know, if you're listening at home, sometimes you might be yelling at your phone or whatever you're

listening on, talk about this or bring this topic of, you know. So we'll give at least Rob the opportunity to do that and I'll probably have some new thoughts as well based on who knows maybe I'll go back to the good old thoughts that I had back then but hopefully I've changed a little bit in the last three years become more wise more uh yeah probably not but we'll pretend yeah it's sort of a theme to them too in a way at least so when we get to it um just sort of a an anecdote in the way that we all have interaction with an acquaintance of mine, you know, that fits sort of the theme of three of these, three to four of these 10 episodes, which is, I just found intrad.

I'm going, oh, okay. So maybe you were in a certain headspace, you know, kind of coming up with topics and things. Right. Or there was a lot in the news or whatever it was, but it's sort of, yeah. There's suggestions. Yeah, maybe people listening were like, hey, maybe, you know, let's talk about this aspect. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, I kind of noticed the same thing. So, yeah, that's common threads, I guess, permeate through a lot of different areas of herpet culture. And I think, well, it is sometimes a little tricky to come up with new topics, although there's, you know, endless things that we can chat about. And so, and back, you know, it was, I guess, challenging some ways. weeks to come up with a new topic or this or that. So yeah, it's a interesting doing a podcast for sure. And I mean, I can see why a lot of them kind of go by the wayside rather quickly. It's kind of tricky to keep it, keep it going, keep it fresh, keep something coming out, you know. I just hats off to Eric and Olin for keeping it alive for so many years, you know. And right. And even,

you know, having the foresight maybe to, I know this was, you know, You know, he and I were just texting about this, that, you know, kind of the foresight to say, okay, if at some point it starts to fall off, which it does, even with professional podcasters, right, after 15, 16 years, that, you know, like he's did well to create the network and kind of, okay, so there's been a lot of Calubri, Calubrii, there's been our show, hopefully, you know, Bose, Bose, Bose in the mix and things, or at least in the work. So I think that was another really prescient moment on his part of saying, okay, maybe he's getting super busy and stuff. Yeah. That an outlet to continue to give, put out good content that, you know, we all feel good about saying, hey, someone else pick up the torch. I'm getting, my arm's getting a little tired. Right. Seriously.

And I mean, Eric's work schedule is insane. I don't know how he does anything aside from just working, you know, that's got to be a hectic thing. for him so yeah um again just hats off to eric and the effort he goes to um owen would admit eric does the lion share i think so we're not going to give uh owen too many pats on the bag but he deserves a few as well yeah good job owing good job so yeah my kudos i want my kudos um yeah things are uh good over here just feeding trials with antiregia and, you know, it can be a challenge sometimes, but they're doing okay and the carpets, pretty much all the jungles have fed on their own, and most of them have

taken rats, so that's exciting, and the inlands are starting to take food, and so, yeah, good things happening, and hopefully the antiregia will decide to follow suit, as well as the lone black-headed python. They can be very frustrating at times, but, But what do you do? Oh, and I got an egg from Neferus Asper, the prickly knobtail gecko. So that's my first. I did get a clutch last month that I missed. And so they were all sunken in.

So I felt really bad about that. But caught it this time. And one egg was good. The other was a little dented. And I don't think it's going to make it. So we'll hope the one egg hatches. But it's kind of exciting to potentially have a new species. hatch out this year so that'll be fun such big eggs too for such a i mean they're decent

sized lizards but the eggs seem disproportionately large it's kind of crazy so yeah and uh i don't know what else uh i'm going on to uh chris applin's podcast tomorrow the his monitor podcast that's on the the different network maybe we won't know on the trap talk network so um that'll be fun to talk monitors, you know? I think it's kind of tricky sometimes, but I don't know, I have lots of different interests. You get kind of pigeonholed sometimes. I always talk about Rico Walder and everybody thought of him kind of towards the end as the green tree python guy, but he was like turtle guy and lots of different guys, you know, his zoo career. But yeah, I found out he just had a huge wealth of knowledge about turtles and was very fascinated and interested in turtles.

Yeah, so I don't know. Don't tase me, bro. Don't pigeonhole me, bro. I think we all kind of have secret closet interests, or at least we should have, you know. I won't even get into birds, but talking with Steve Sharp, he's getting into cactus pretty heavy and like started talking about all the cats. And he's like, did you know Alan Rapashi was like one of the biggest, like, succulent. people names in the world like he found some way to clone succulence and had this business and it's like man that guy is incredible some of the stuff he's done so kind of cool he was he had some rare specimens that nobody was able to clone and he got him to to clone out and was selling him for big bucks and stuff so helen's a hells an entrepreneur that's for sure and a very smart guy yeah he gets gets things going so he Yeah, but yeah, hopefully we'll have some snakes to sell here soon, and I think the jungles would be ready to go. So if anybody's looking for a nice-looking jungle with a really cool head pattern, they've got some nice head stamps on them.

So, yeah, hit me up. Let's see. Is your availability going to be posted on your website? No, probably not. Yeah, I doubt it. Shoot me a text, and I'll send you pictures. It's kind of how I've started these days. I don't know. Yeah, the website thing is, I just need to figure out how to make AI do everything for me or something. There's probably a way. I'm too old for this. Yeah, but. Just too much going, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like one more thing to have to do and have to pose all the snakes and all that kind of stuff. But I guess I'll have to do it eventually. It's just taking the time then to put it on the website is just that extra step. And it's not very,

I've made it not very user-friendly, so I don't know. But, yeah, I need to get some up, get the website updated. That'd be a good thing to do. Yeah. Excited to go herping here soon. And, yeah, got some funding proposal for funding. So, yeah, or request for a proposal for funding. So hopefully that means more funding is on the way.

And I won't have to start bringing. rodents or something like that. Figure out some other day job that would not be enjoyable. So. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's about it. That's going on with me. Okay.

Should we dive in? Yeah. Let's get going on this. All right. The first topic that we're covering is the show with Miles Pickett. The topic was reptile. shows, are they still important or still viable? And it seems like there's no shortage of reptile shows.

There's like a ton of different reptile shows. And I think, you know, if you're local, I mean, you know, Owen does a lot of local PA shows. I try to hit the Utah shows when I'm in town or when I, you know, have animals to sell or whatever and have a friend that I can vend with that kind of makes it easy that way. but, you know, I, I, I've traveled to a few kind of distant shows. Right now, what, Daytona's going on right now? Yeah, right now. It looks pretty cool. Like, some of the, I just saw Ron St. Pierre posted a picture of like a booth full of albino blue tongues that he just posted.

I'm like, that'd be pretty cool to see, you know. They're knocking it out of the park, so it'd be fun to see all his stuff. but um and i and i do enjoy going to those shows i think the last time i went to like a big show like tinley uh was what a couple years ago uh to do a gecko symposium talk and really uh it's it's it's a great show i mean i really enjoy the show um but you know i think in in some ways we've we've kind of succumb to the monoculture and it's like crested gecko crest of gecko Crested Gecko, ball python, ball, you know, it's just kind of more of the same type stuff. And just, I don't know, I guess that was probably my thoughts back then, too.

I'm kind of the old man get off my lawn there, but all these damn ball pythons everywhere. Yeah, but I don't know, it kind of ebbs and flows. And I think people get into different projects. And there's still breeders that do more niche stuff, which is kind of what I like. And so you're usually going to see something new and cool. at the shows um there were some cool gecko species at the last 10ly and that i went to anyway yeah so and i'm sure there were some at the last timley that was held but there's always going to be cool stuff even if it's majority kind of the same uh you know ball pythons and crested geckos but

no no what are your thoughts on that yeah kind of in a similar spot i haven't i think save one local show that I went to meet Tom at for a handful of minutes or something on. I don't think I'd been to a reptile show at all since we stopped going to Tinley as sort of the NPR crew which really came about associated

with figuring out that that overlapped in time with a good time to go to Australia. Right. Yeah. That's the hard thing. It's been a while. And it's I think the other part of it that I have to admit is just sort of

my own bias or perspective or where I'm at in terms of saying I'd rather, especially in sort of that apples to apples comparison of going to look at animals in cups versus potentially going to see animals in the wild. There wasn't a comparison

between those two things. And I think even where I'm at now I can certainly gain appreciate a cool looking whatever it is or a new novel, whatever it is. But And I really appreciate sort of the context to get into see people that otherwise I don't get the chance to see. That's really good.

We talked about this relatively recently with Matt Wayne when he was on the show. And we were talking about in the context of like the utility of shows and symposia and things, you know, in the age of podcasts, that sort of stuff. So I think there's probably utility to them that I feel less now based on where I'm at. Certainly, I mean, if I went back 15 to 20 years, nothing better than going to a reptile show, even 10 years ago, you know? Right. So I think that that appeal is there. It's probably where we're coming from in our own perspective of how we feel about not only, you know, animals and cups or whatever, but also our desire for those things, right? Part of it has been the desire to go find animals and not keep them in a box so that seeing a bunch of animals in boxes, even if it's sort of as it doesn't hold the same draw that it once did, 25 years ago, I've seen like, oh, that's the coolest thing ever in the context of wanting it in my house, you know? Right. Right. Like, I'm not looking to add anything. So there's no, it could be anything. And I would be going, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So from that perspective, you might as well see it in the wild versus see it in a deli cup in a, you know, to show. Yeah, it's much, much more fulfilling to see it in the wild for sure. And, you know, there's no chance you're going to see it. There's no guarantee you're going to see it.

reptile show, especially these days where things are kind of getting less and less that way. Unless you go to New Caledonia, you might see some of the same things. Except they'll be tailless crested geckos. You know, they won't have a tail on them. That would still be really cool to see crest of gecko in the wild. Absolutely. I would love that. Yeah. I know there were a couple different podcasts that had folks on talking about sort of that concept of going to go and see them and things. And yeah, it sounded really cool. yeah for sure for sure um beautiful place i mean it looks really fantastic just from a place to visit

you know regardless of you find a gecko or not and then the fact that there are new species being discovered like that uh speaking of the gecko symposium they they had a talk about that new um rackadactylist type you know gecko that that had webbed feet and could swim and stuff yeah and so yeah they gave us a painting of it where did i put it that. I've got to find that. But, you know, we, there's just really cool things to see out there. And I agree with you. I think other than, you know, I think you hit the nail on the head is like, I mostly get excited about reptiles. I was in the context of who I get to see and talk to. And that's really kind of the draw for me these days is, is like, you know. And I guess I did get those Asper at the last Tinley. But we did leave for Australia shortly after that, too, I think. So it was like I had to have him ship them to me, you know, later because I was going to Australia. And it was kind of funny because I was talking.

Oh, man, why did I start the sentence before I thought of the name? But, gosh, I should know this. But anyway, gecko, skink, breeder, breeds a lot of cool geckos. Gosh, dang it. Anyway. It's not Osam Joe Hub

He's He's Midwest guy Anyway It'll come to me Down the road But Trumper

Okay Phil Tremper Phil Trumper Yep And we're talking to him And he had some Captive Bread Blue Tongues

The The The Oh my gosh Alpine blue tongues Yeah And I was, you know, coincidentally going to Australia to hopefully look for those.

And we actually found three of them. So it was, you know, kind of cool. And so I was sending him habitat shots and things like that, you know, showing them like where we found them and stuff. So that was pretty fun to have that kind of tie in, I guess. But yeah, you're right. It was much more rewarding seeing them, you know, in a field in Australia than seeing him in the delicum. Yeah, for sure, for sure. We're seeing them in the cup. We're seeing them in the cup. We're seeing him at Johnny's house and stuff, you know, just really awesome. But seeing him in the wild is just that next level, I guess. And so I guess if you can't afford to go to Australia, yeah, you know, it's amazing to see the animals at all.

But I have found myself like being less excited to see him in captivity, you know, when I get the chance versus seeing him in the wild and, you know, I don't know. It's, I guess we kind of change our attitudes. And, you know, when, when I first started going to reptile shows, I was all in, you know, like it was the best thing of the world. Absolutely. Yeah. So, I don't know. I think there's still, I mean, I guess I look at things like Tinley or Daytona as shows for like true reptile nerds, you know, the people who are looking for different things or looking to connect with friends and not really necessarily going. And, you know, going to sell animals, of course, but, like, there's a draw just to, to see rare stuff or to see hard to find stuff and to see people breeding cool things.

Whereas, like, our local shows may be just, like, maybe for the public and or to educate people or things like that, you know. So there's different shows for different, different folks. Not that the locals don't go to Tinley, but, like, it just seems like, you know, people there kind of focused on getting. really cool things or deals or you know seeing their old friends that kind of thing yeah absolutely i had wound up philid texted me out of the blue on monday night when they were doing their snakes and stogie's pre-day pre-day show oh yeah yeah called me in you know come in from the bullpen to help us out with our reptile show bingo card and they're filling out all these problematic content items or whatever that you know what what do you think what are we missing here

and that sort of stuff so it's worth a listen at least before i come on and uh yeah so folks go check that out and see but yeah it was supposed to be all in good fun you know and just sort of all the silly things that are more like the local show stuff although i think you can still probably fill it out at detona you know right right yeah you'll still be able to make it true but yeah and so i guess to that point you know sometimes the shenanigans or the idiocy that goes on or you know you have half dead animals at tables and stuff that we could do without that I think and the the drama of the you know battling herpeticulturalists or whatever is kind of silly yeah yeah all those and I think it's kind of settled down to some extent but there's still

you would hope a bit of an element of it yeah probably not as uh fist fighty as the the 90s and 2000s but yeah it was a little more funny but I yeah I Yeah, I have some great memories at reptile shows. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I guess I'll take this one as the intro to the story I alluded to previously in terms of local acquaintance, right? It had gone to a local reptile show.

And I heard him make a mention to somebody else. Oh, I'd, you know, gone to this reptile show. I had no idea. It was interesting reptiles and whatever. And I just in hearing the story then, it's like, well, he had gotten a, you know, 12-foot-long retick. You know, just going. And I don't know. he had previous snake experience, whatever, but just sort of as a pet.

An impulse by or something. Impulse by, you know, and just sort of like, man, this thing's so cool. And it, they are. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so then the next day it's, hey, show me a picture, you know, what you got or whatever. So he shows me and it's a golden child, you know, which again speaks to the price difference now from 18 years ago and whatever. But just getting it as pure pet and he's talking about, you know, having it out and it climbs up onto the,

furniture or the lamp or whatever it is and it's just hanging out and because they're cool smart snakes right yeah um and then uh today i said i thought about it last night and because i remember when those were first born out so the the founder animal on those was a female jampaya that had come in it was sort of that same look but it had this really cool sort of um stripe right along the spine patchy stripe right along the spine in addition to just sort of that um um uh, granite type, you know, uh, mono, um, orange monotone color with the flecking and stuff. It also had this wacky yellow stripe going. Um, and now I think Kevin must have gotten that animal in the early 2000, certainly 2002 at the latest. Um, and grew it up. And as I recall, those

babies were born maybe end of 06 into beginning of 07, something like that. And they had show And it was all these different looks, but none of the, I just remember being tremendously disappointed that none of them actually looked like that female that had, because that was what I thought was the coolest bit is this sort of dorsal stripe that it had. But here's the thing that was actually cool, you know, and there's more of topics we'll get into and whatever. But having that experience, knowing that background, and then having the Internet archive at my disposal, today I was able to show them, I don't know what the filial generation is. I don't know the gap. Right. This is like the great-grandmother or the great-great-grandmother of your snake. Yeah.

Right. Absolutely it is, you know, for darn sure. And he thought it was cool as heck and all that. So I thought that was pretty neat, you know. Yeah. And it was only that it was a mutation that I had the sort of awareness of that history, although having seen it, you know, kind of play out as it did to be able to do that. But that's a really cool.

I thought that was really cool, you know, and especially with someone who's just coming at it, you know, from a public perspective, let's say. They just, I think it totally blew his mind that I was like, this is the, either the great-grandmother or the great-great-grandmother of that snake that you're so excited about. Right. Oh, that's cool.

And I, you know, you wish you could kind of bottle that feeling of your first Dredas show or seeing that, that snake, you know, that just captivated you at a show and thinking, I still remember the first time I saw, saw Breddells Python, you know, when they were juveniles, and I was just, like, awestruck, like, holy crap, this is so cool, you know, I think it was at a Vegas reptile show, and we were just passing through, and I'm like, holy crap, there's a big reptile show here, you know, can we go? And my parents took me, and yeah, I got to stare at a Breddles Python, hold it, you know,

that kind of thing, and it was pretty cool. And then... This must have been years later, but Tom and I did a Vegas show once. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I'm trying to think when the, when. Yeah, this would put, you know, certainly this would be post that timeline, but it's probably the same folks are doing the same. You know, I think it was at a, oh, it's the station, you know, palestation or something.

You know, it was off the strip somewhere. I, I'm thinking about it. I had to have been married. Like, I had to have been, you know, or at least close, you know, close that period of late 90s, you know, kind of when they'd first be, kind of available other than at Casey's, yeah, table or whatever. So, but yeah, it wasn't Casey that had them. It was somebody else. But I was just like, wow, that's cool.

And then, you know, this year seeing one in the wild, you know, kind of come full circle. But that same just fascination and awe, you know, or seeing them hatch out at my own house or, you know, those kind of things. It's still very cool. But I think, you know, there's something about that first viewing or first time see something or hear about something and you're just like what is that you know it's really cool feeling fun stuff um and you know there's there's a lot of different species out there you know

absolutely um it's it's a big wide world i don't know why we get stuck on monoculture but anyway yeah good times all right well let's move on um to the next one which was uh with Zach Lofman, speaking of Kluber and Klubroid Radio, and he was talking about scientific strength in the hobby. Do we do things that contribute to science and, you know, what kind of, are we doing things the right way, I guess? And, you know, I think there's definitely either side of the coin on that one, too. You know, there's definitely things that we don't do great or we have. I always like to think about the, what do we call them, this just, we've done it for years because somebody did it back in the late 90s and, you know, it just stuck. And that's what you do. And nobody tests it

or tries anything different or, you know, I guess the chameleon, you know, husbandry paradigm shift that we, that we had with the recent interview on Chameleon Academy podcast with Peter Nackis. um crazy yeah just those kind of things um yeah i mean it it brings a couple prompts to my mind right the first is i've been rereading uh coffield's 1969 the keeper and the kept so um snakes and snake hunting was focused on you know snake hunting stories this one is uh there's some of that um but there's also sort of sort of fundamental components of trying to keep snakes alive although notably right this is a period in time before people were regularly producing snakes in captivity before they were even, you know, kind of, uh, is skeptical of

the idea of being able to successfully brewmate animals by keeping them between the 50s and 60s. But other than that, I would say that on the whole, taken on the hole, reading through the sort of, uh, first, second, third chap, as he's kind of walking through ideas of keeping snakes. And I would say, too, um, you know, some of the feeding ideas and things are, there's definitely been moving on but i looked at and said in general something that again so what that puts us at 50 56 years now you know published 56 years ago fundamentally it's a lot of the same stuff that i believe the technique and stuff that i believe is true today you know i'm i think there's um clearly the we have so many more tools and things that it makes things seem more

possible, right? There's kind of a fear written in the language of saying, okay, it works with boa constrictors, but they, you know, is kind of leery of doing it with X, Y, and Z and those sorts of things. And I'm sure that's working with solely wild caught animals, you know, maybe you collected, maybe someone else collected, right? Maybe they took a month on a train to get to you, whatever it is, right? Yeah. There's a ton of confounding factors. But in general, I read it and say, yeah, I agree. This is how I believe in keeps in sacks. You know, he talks in there. about, you know, the ideal cage size for a five or six foot void is, you know, his mind is three foot by a foot and a half by a foot and a half because, you know, it's just based on

their physiology, how it keeps, they do better with, you know, in that tighter confines and things, and I'm just reading it going, there you go, you know, I totally agree. That's the same cage size that I like for that size snake that you're describing, you know. And obviously there's a bias to recognize. in there and that like I read that book when I was 10 or 11 years old. It was foundational time for me keeping stinks even though it had been out for you know 30 or 40

years or whatever at the time is like maybe that is partially you know I've come to this point based on that is a foundation of yeah or it's just saying you know after all this time yeah just bears true things the same way yeah right

there's truth to it right just super interesting right and that is all born out of the um you know there's a lot of scientific knowledge that both was reflected in and pushed forward by sort of the approaches that are described there you know so i think it's germane that totally off in left field and i mean so much of it both in the book and generally right is um anecdotal evidence we just talked had a conversation with ben where there was so much interesting i thought there was a ton of great stuff you know in that show um folks hopefully we'll have heard it by now it it hasn't gone out yet

when we're having this conversation. But all of that, for the most part, until sort of Ben is looking under the hood, so to speak, is a lot of anecdotal evidence. It's what's our observation based on what we can see, you know? And a lot of that, up until more recently, where just ball pythons and looking under the hood has been more plausible that's facilitated what they're doing, facilitated what Ben is doing, is really looking at things and saying, okay, are things? things simpler, are they more complex, right? All this anecdotal evidence taking us true points in this direction, is that even possible? Do we understand that within these vertebrates? Has this

ever been looked at by a researcher? And, you know, for the most part, the answer to those things is no. So at least that anecdotal evidence can lead to, hey, let's actually validate or refute whatever this anecdote is, right? You know, at some point, someone maybe I'll do that with my rhino temp sexing thing you know and saying wow you know either as i say you know support or refute wow this is something we didn't even realize in a you know was in this lineage of animals yeah um the what you had mentioned you were talking about the asparagus i kind of fit into this same box that i'm curious both your anecdotal experience to this point and you know kind of how it goes i heard made mention that um in general when so neferris

species generally lay two eggs and most of the keepers that I've heard discuss it talk about in general those wind up being a male and a female and I'm curious if you've either seen that heard the same thing it just kind of fit into that same box that may well potentially be and then the question becomes is that a reflection of 50 50 odds probably not if there's probably my inference would be if it if that holds true and there's validity to that across multiple different keepers and species and incubation methods and all these things. Genuinely, you're seeing that sort of division, well, that's actually not what we usually see in terms of 50-50 ratios, right, in terms of how the odds play out.

It would be more likely that you would see a variance that comes to an average, as opposed to saying, yeah, pretty much every clutch. It's a male and a female. Yeah. Yeah, that's hard to say, and I'm not the one to answer that because I haven't been as successful as some on producing neferus. But, you know, yeah, there's, I think those anecdotal observations are what start us down the track or should, you know, I guess, if we have the means and the, the patients. It's just an interesting idea that it's like, okay, taken as true, to me that suggests it's at least intriguing to say, is there something more happening because that's now how we would expect a normal data set to look, to distribute, right? right right um so like and what would that mechanism even be i have no idea you know that that's where that's where we need someone who's an expert in such things to say hopefully it's a prompt

an anecdote could become a prompt to an expert to say well what would that have to look like what could that potentially look like can we explore it and hopefully the answer at some point is there's a nexus of all those things that says yeah let's check it out right right and i think that's kind of what Zach does really well with this zoo you know studies yeah and and he's you know taking those anecdotal observations and making a student project out of it you know for for these students and so yeah incidentally uh Casey Cannon just finished his master there so yeah kind of cool um yet another different project so I'm glad this one worked turned out for him and all right this was what this was crocodilians or something?

Yeah, like garyls or something, like at a zoo or yeah. Very cool. Yeah, neat stuff. So, you know, I think that's, that's, it's easier, I think to just say, oh, that's how we do it and just do it the same way. And yeah, you'll probably have success. But, you know, I think we can improve things or make them better, you know, if you just say, oh, yeah, diamond pythons die when they're five years old. Or you say, wait, what are we doing wrong? How do we keep diamond pythons from dying when they're five years old?

Oh, they're temperate. You know, we've got to keep them cooler than their counterparts in the tropics or even, you know, up a couple of cities north. So, you know, it's asking those questions and trying to, or like Peter Nackas saying, I've never seen a chameleon drink. Why is that? You know, I've seen them do everything else. Maybe they do it a different way and sitting and watching a chameleon overnight, you know? Right, weighing them, you know, actually trying, I mean, in the other part of it, I guess maybe speaking to the utility of potential utility of herpeticulture in terms of making advancements, it's just our time and capacity to watch, provide stimuli to our captives and see how they respond and hopefully take that in. And we can create ideas that, you know, folks who are just observing in the field, there are limited to field observations or view the world solely through that lands.

Right. they never have those experiences to even let alone have the animal to look at and kind of see how it responds to those stimuli and things there are plenty of i mean heck even i think rickshine has made mention of this i know andy holy cross uh may mention of this just in terms of saying like their expertise is not keeping snakes alive in boxes right right and so you know they're that's sort of a a gap in their knowledge they have so much knowledge that i we don't have right right but if there's some um prompts that can come from the observational time and the ability to induce behaviors that you can't induce in the wild. You know, maybe those can be prompts for people, that expertise to come into play and validated or, you know. Right. And I think, too, we might be positioned with all these offspring to have, you know, statistically, you know, have enough statistical power to make a claim from, you know, if we, if we take. 20 snakes and do this with them and 20 snakes and do that with them and see what the outcome is. You know, if you have something measurable, like, okay, I'm going to, I had a study that I wanted or I

started doing, but kind of petered out or fizzled out when I, you know, with my time or something. But I was feeding half the offspring like tails and the other half I was feeding like a mouse drumstick and just, you know, seeing the growth comparisons over time. And I should have kept with it. But I, you know, I, you know, it kind of went the way, but, you know, seeing those kind of things in quantifying them can be very valuable and helpful to others and yourself, you know, and what would be better to try or, you know, there's other commercially available things like the reptileinks or like the predator meal replacement stuff, you know, that kind of thing, you know, you could do a really cool study just getting your offspring to feed, you know, getting them ready to sell. I guess the downside is you'd have to keep them long enough to get your conclusion or get enough data to say something, you know. But, yeah, there's a lot of fun things that could be done.

I was talking to Ben for a while about, you know, selecting mice with better characteristics for producing, you know, snake food, basically. And, you know, some of the things that we could do to try. to improve different aspects of rodent breeding and, you know, bigger, stronger, more robust that need less food,

that kind of stuff or, you know, that aren't going to all die if their water leaks out or something, you know, or ones that can swim if their tub floods. That's a joke. But, you know, things like that, um, improving and tracking that molecularly, you know, or

or having a certain breeding scheme to improve that hybrid vigor, you know, that kind of thing. It's kind of crazy. They've done a study. It's called the Collaborative Cross. It's really an interesting thing. It's mainly for, you know, research models, but they've taken, like, all these different strains of mice and mixed them all together in a reliable manner where they've, you know, known the genetics of the breeding. pair or whatever and and so they can say okay there's this much of the strain in them that kind of thing it's it's really kind of an interesting thing and very complicated and difficult to track but

they've they've found a way to do that it was worth their while to do it yeah yeah exactly and then they'll take them and like um you know say infect them with a different virus and they'll see kind of the outcome and then they'll try to track that back to different traits associated with different mouse strains and really fascinating some of the results they're getting you know completely different um results in different mouse strains so yeah kind of incredible so the idea was to to you know make better models of human disease and and things like that and so yeah kind of an very cool project but you know there's so many things that are unknown and that would you know we could potentially benefit from it just takes somebody you know ingenuative uh to enough to to tackle a project like that

and answer some of these questions yeah cool stuff um all right well we covered that one do we want to move on to the next one yeah the next one we had some very special guess uh the podfather and the mackin wiki eric and owen joined us to talk about um if it's good to get a morph with a rare species that is less commonly bred. You know, you'll see like, uh, what, like an albino white lip or, or, or, you know, Albino-Hara pipe. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was like, well, what happens if you get like a lucistic, uh, bullens python, you know, yeah, is that a, would that make it a good thing or a bad thing? And I guess, um, you know, we, you cannot see the obvious like morphs tend to muddy the waters or whatever.

especially if there's a lot of closely related species or subspecies like reticulated pythons where you get one morph and then all of a sudden every retic is bred to that to produce the morph, you know, the morph becomes the main goal. And so, and you lose the diversity of all the species and subspecies that may not have even been described yet, but now you just have a mix up of all the different things in the goal of making the morph and of course everything is lost right some might have you believe that but and i think we've seen that happen where all of a sudden these pure locality animals pop up because somebody didn't care about that and they just did what they wanted to do and enjoyed

their their giant reticulated pythons from you know some somre or something is that where they come from but one of the places yeah Exactly. Sulu Wazi are the really big ones. That's the ones I was thinking, Sue Lazy, yeah. It was an S-Name. Yeah. But, you know, that...

How many could there be? Right, right. How many islands have reticks on them? I'm sure it can't be that many. Four, five? Oh, goodness. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, there's definitely challenges associated with morphs, especially if it's in a rare species where, you know,

there may not be that many captive bred individuals, but then all of a sudden they're going to all be used just to make some morph. You know, that's kind of the danger, I guess, but morphs also get people into the breeding of those species that might not have otherwise jumped in and maybe they, you know, find a way to breed them better, you know, that kind of thing. So I think there can definitely be some pros to that as well. But I don't know, maybe largely cons in my mind. But what do you think? Any other thoughts on that? No, I'm pretty aligned. I think you hit most of it there kind of from my perspective.

It might cultivate additional interest. And if that leads to success, that's great. It probably also sort of the countervailing factor is it's probably that increased interest might raise the price, which we talked about a lot in a lot of different contexts of saying, I do think a downside with sort of the morphs and even lineage and those sorts of things. I don't know that it reflects sort of the universal experience of snakes in the wild. So that I do think our insistence on being able to tell someone that these are the exact, you know, well, mostly right, the sire is what would be at issue. These are the exact parents of this particular animal.

I do think has led to us having fewer animals about which to say it. right in the sense that i think most we see a lot the kind of females within their environment there are a lot of males generally pursuing them and that you know we've we've certainly seen sort of multiple paternity and things that have only been evidence based on the genetic mutations that make it clear in a way that otherwise wouldn't right um but as you know the solomon island trebo experience of seeing so those are that's a species where the males don't fight one another Instead, I put, I think, four males in with a single female, and a big part of their struggle, I think, so there's a large degree of sexual dimorphism between males and females. The males are really small, and I think they're actually stratified within their environment.

You know, in the, we've talked about this with the, is it Frazier Island or it's a different, okay, carpet, right, where males are eating one thing, you know, kind of juveniles and males throughout their wife. exactly right um and uh so certainly the solomon island tree bows have that and in those species right the males generally don't uh fight one another because they don't they haven't been used to select for the characteristics that would promote you know success there you save their energy to try to tackle that giant female exactly right and so um the experience of what putting in four males not all four tried to breed you know tried to uh stimulate the female at once in fact one started and the other three were just kind of sitting there and then eventually because he he's putting in all this were boas are notorious for this anyway he's putting in

all this work and he sort of is losing his vigor and starts to fall off and then a second one replaces him and starts you know replicating the effort that he was putting in and now he is with the first you know now he's running the first two that we're still just sitting to the side and the whole it just progressed in that in that fashion that it was sort of this sort of communal effort and that there's more of an advantage for that, for that species in that environmental context than there is for a singular male to be the sire of all these offspring. Yeah. And so I just feel like there are times where that's, we see it with garter stanks, right?

Where you have these literal breeding balls and. Oh, man. Those poor females. Exactly right. Yeah. So when in captivity, it's an insistence on saying, no, I need to, Justin will only buy X, Y, and Z for me, if I can show them, you know, the pictures of the parents, you know, definitive pictures of the parents so he can, you know, put that into his own writing campaign

down the road or whatever it is, which, again, I think it's cool, but I do think it means we have less snakes about which to be making lineage charts. Sure, sure. Yeah, that's, I guess the challenge, you know, is, yeah, especially in the context of morphs, you know, if you have one morph, you're going to want to spread that male across as many females as possible, you know, and then you might have lower success rate because, yeah, there was a, there was a lot of chatter on the NPR group about multiple sires and using many males, you know, and things like that. So, and I think it's, it's definitely a strategy employed by a lot of species in the wild, you know, the obvious ones being those giant mating balls of garter snakes and, and, you know, and. Canada or whatever the I was watching that the other day you know the the poor females are trying to climb up the cliff to try to knock off as many males as they can they're just one you know

one focus on them but um I think I would that would be rough being a female guarder snake yeah well and I guess that does kind of go with the the one we'll talk about it in a couple of episodes is the this lineage matter you know we'll touch on that again in a minute it here but um yeah cool stuff um let's see we did the next one live in arizona live on remote yeah yeah it's always fun to have the breaks oh we got to stop and look at this animal on the road or whatever so yeah that was uh there's another toad yeah chuck and i were uh were herping with steve and dustin out in Arizona and uh had had a great trip i mean It was a lot of fun and had some good conversations about conventional herpism, you know, herping on a full moon, don't do it, you know, or that kind of thing.

And I guess my, who was it that was talking about West Texas on NPR and he was, they were hanging out at the Airbnb or whatever and like it was kind of a crappy night, you know, not the weather wasn't great. And so they're like, yeah, I think we're just going to hang out here. And he's like, well, we're here. We might as well go, you know, you're not going to find anything. You're not looking for. And went out and found a gray band, you know, I was like, or two or something. I can't remember, you know, the exact story. But it was like, you know, if you're if you're just saying, oh, you know, the temperature is this.

I'm not going to find anything. And I probably had more than one or two of those experiences where I know one was, we were looking for jungle carpets in in northern queensland and and uh i had just made the statement like ah it's probably cold it's too cold and rainy we're not going to see any pythons and then we turn a corner and there's a python you know in the middle of the road it's like instant eating my words of there we're not going to see you on and then i see my first uh wild jungle carpet you know it was pretty cool so um you know i think if you have that attitude of like oh we we've had we have everything figured out, you know, snakes never come out on a full moon. Well, not every, you know, species follows that rule. There are actually some geckos that are, um, that come out during a full moon as a strategy to avoid others that are avoiding predators, you know, and they're also predatory geckos that prey on these smaller ones, but the smaller ones come out because the owls aren't going after them because they're too small to bother with or whatever. So, you know, there, there might be a strategy to come out on a full moon.

And I think same kind of thing. Like, I wouldn't have thought you'd find a bunch of green tree pythons in the middle of the winter in, you know, far north Queensland. And some of the Aussies went out there in June and found, you know, 20 or 30. Yeah. Yeah. Ridiculous numbers of green tree. Probably easier to see when, you know, foliage is less green, less burden, right? Right, right.

And there's, yeah, there's probably many different reasons for different. things like that. And maybe that's all you're going to see is green tree pythons. Maybe all the monitors are maybe too cold or down or something. So, you know, I think there's definitely tradeoffs. But I think also, you know, if you're flying across the ocean, you know, you want to give yourself the best chance of seeing a lot of things rather than just, you know, going over for one thing. So, you know, a lot of things play into that, of course. But I would say If you're, you know, just looking locally and, you know, figure it out. Like, see, during all times of the year, you know, you might find some really cool stuff.

I still, another thing that comes to mind is the time when I was in California and saw, like, 30 patch-nosed snakes or whatever in a night. Leaf-nose snakes, not patch-nows, yeah, leaf-nose snakes. And then on three or four subsequent trips, didn't see any. And it's like, wait a second. I see so many that that trip and then none, you know, the next couple trips. And then actually this last time I was in California for the reptile talks, I saw, you know, three or three or four on the road on that trip. So they were back out and somewhat full force, although these were all juveniles and the ones I'd seen before were mostly larger. So kind of an interesting thing to think about, you know.

And the funny thing is in so in the right and right handbook of snakes, in the leaf, nose affection and so that one of the cool things right and i know i've talked about it before but in that book is it has specific sort of anecdotes you know field observations and anecdotes with particular years of those observations and things i believe that the original or the discussion on leaf nose snakes in southern california talks about they're at times locally abundant and in other times entirely absent so that it you know literally for a hundred years people have seen the same thing whereas sometimes they're going on went and they're everywhere and other times you can't find a one exactly and you know some like

when we were out there looking for we were we're hoping to see sidewinders which were almost like a guaranteed species out there and then we didn't see any you know granted we didn't spend too much time in the area but it was still like oh yeah we should see plenty of sidewiner's and then you don't see any it's like the condition seemed perfect yeah that's true it could be and and there was a guy that was there just before us and he saw one so you know probably just scared the that one off the road and you know and in that spot you would expect more than the one yeah that he scared off the road or whatever exactly um especially when we were tripping over him on that one trip where I almost literally tripped on one yeah so yeah that's another I guess if you I guess

if you think you've figured it all out and you know sometimes I think there is some conventional wisdom that's going to save you some pain in anguish like obviously like i said you know you want to give yourself the best chance and so you're going to do as much research as you can but it was it was kind of like i guess it depends on what you're looking for too because my first trip i went to central australia in october and i thought oh that's the best month to be there and and we saw a lot of great stuff and you know it just happened to be the wettest year on record but i was talking to rex nine or if the, you know, the Alice Springs Reptile Park. And he's like, oh, man, you should come here in December.

That's the best time. You know, you just tripping over geckos. You know, there's Amy A everywhere, you know, that kind of thing. You're like, okay, but I'm here now, you know, help me out with here and now. Yeah. So, and, you know, when you're planning a trip, we say this a lot, you're planning a trip six months in advance. You're not going to know what the conditions are going to be. And when I got to Australia on this last.

trip. In March, I was like, this is way hotter than I anticipated. You know, it's about 10, 15 degrees hotter than I, than it typically is in this time of year. And I'm just like, oh, man, our whole, you know, trip is going to be ruined because this, but, you know, we. And it's so turned out great. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I, I, I don't think anything's a guarantee of seeing stuff or not seeing stuff, you know. Yeah, if I went on my first trip to, or that trip to California where I saw the, the, the, the, the leaf noses, then I would have been like, oh, yeah, yeah, leaf noses are easy. You'll see, you'll see leaf noses, no problem. But then if it weren't for the next four trips, I'd be like, okay, maybe leaf noses are

locally abundant at certain times of the year. And I don't know what, what the conditions for that are, you know, because I was there around the same time, you know, same months. And so it's just kind of things we don't understand, but, you know, and I, man, one uh my friend pat may and rye jones they were they went out and found like seven ringneck snakes in utah in a weekend or something it's like that is unheard of that is and even they admit like this is ridiculous i would have never have expected this you know and they found a bunch of um other you know um milk snakes and things like that it was just like some crazy you know all the planets are

lined yeah some unknown thing that just brought all these things out it's like you if I could replicate that, you know, and you knew, okay, if I'm going out on this day, I'm going to see, you know, a couple ringbacks. I'd be like, hey, that makes it easy, you know. Yeah, it's that, it's that kind of unknown uncertainty that makes it a little. And, you know, I think as you get more experience and do it more often, you're going to have more of that where, like, yeah, I can reliably predict that I'll probably find this in this area at this time, you know. I think that's what makes a good herper, I guess, is having that knowledge, but also having the knowledge that I could still not see it because it's, you know, a lot of luck and timing. And, you know, if you put yourself out there enough, you're probably going to see a lot more than if you don't. So, yeah, that's kind of a tricky thing. And if you live in the vicinity of a certain thing, you're going to probably see more more frequently than if you're not in that area a lot, you know, if you're just going once every twice a year or something. So yeah, that's the trick, I guess.

yeah yeah well anything else to add to that i know you're you like the shoulder seasons the you know the yeah i mean no i think you're uh you hit it there relative to my perspective too um and it's basically i think it falls into the box of things where you can um you can't make definitively good decisions you can try you can do things that should probably help you you can yeah to increase your chances to increase her chances but yeah you certainly can't guarantee a good outcome. You know, we have plenty of proof of that. Yeah. And, you know, not least that if you're planning that out six, nine months in advance, depends how far it is and all those things, that and your willingness to audible, right? I know Jordan, right? When he was just in West Texas,

you know, when he talks about going to West Texas, he's saying that he essentially doesn't make a plan at all. He wants to fly bespoke based on conditions and how he's feeling about it and maybe lack of crowds and all these different things. it's less it's probably not it he's so comfortable having gone there for decades yeah that it makes sense for him to do that if he you know if he doesn't have that experience you know and sometimes you can misjudge your own experience on that right like the second time in cacadu and i'm going yeah i think i got a good feeling but there were still unknowns you know sure but i've certainly felt that myself even just going up based on going a second time

let alone decades. So I think that can make a lot of sense. Obviously, some of it is how are you, where are you staying? What's the plan relative to that? Are you just camping where you fall, you know, or are you trying to center out of a particular spot? Do you need, do you have other obligations that you're trying to meet simultaneously? Right.

Sometimes on your trips, that happens. So, you know, certainly those are all factors. Right. Sometimes, well, the conference that they bought your ticket to go to, you know, speak at It's going to be on next day. You could either go have your kind of fun bit on the front end. It wasn't fun, but yeah, you're, you know, you're resigned to the front of the back, right? But you can make, try and avoid making poor choices.

And I think that's really the extent of what you can do, you know, try and be informed to do that. And if all things being equal to me, I'd rather plan around sort of, you know, shoulder season in the same way, that, you know, full into new. And, you know, the trick with that is always, it's not. only the illumination, it's that the sunrise and sunset times vary throughout the course of the monthly lunar cycle, so that between full and new, it basically is only up during the daytime. Right. So there's, it's not even a function of illumination.

It's the thing's not even in the sky. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the part, you know, where it's, we've certainly been spots where we're going, it's very dark, you know, and that's cool in its own way, too. it's its own sort of full immersion in the experience right we're at cacadoo you know hanging out on the escarpment and it's complete black and it always reminds me of the um idea from a kid i'm going man all the um constellations and things oh man people must have these vivid memories to

to kind of create you know oh that those three dots turn into whatever it is and it's it's only you know later in life being you know away from light pollution to say like oh they're not quite as creative as i thought you know there's a lot more to this yeah there's a lot more to this that you can't see right and fill with his phones taking pictures of the milky way which is totally wild it more than more ways than one but you know we're in west texas and he's just click and then it's yeah that's truly fantastic yeah So cool. And I think that's, I mean, that's what we need to retain. I mean, you see maybe people who are doing YouTube videos kind of for a living and they're going to places, oh, it's just this or another garbage snake. You know, they're just kind of losing that wonder of seeing these things in the wild. And, you know, I mean, I guess when you've seen your 500th, you know, Western Diamondback, you maybe get a little less excited than your first. But I would hope that we.

keep that sense of wonder and that sense of excitement, even if it's your 50th, you know, like, just I still remember seeing my first one and you were there, you know, like I do, you know, and that, that was not, as plenty of people were happy to tell us, that wasn't a particularly beautiful one, but it was beautiful to me, you know. Yeah, yeah. I still remember my first. It was on a trip down to Tucson and, you know, we were just like, I think we were making our way down to Mexico for a family trip and we stopped in Tucson to eat or something. I'm like begging, can we please just walk up this wash? I want to see.

And there was a, you know, Western Dimeback coiled up at the edge of the bank, right where you'd expect to maybe see him and what I would hope, what I was hoping to see. And I'm like, yeah, we saw one. You know, it's kind of cool. So, yeah, it's just luck of the draw sometimes. But I don't know. It's exciting. It's still exciting, you know, like seeing anything, even the great basins that are around

here and they're very common. But, you know, I see one. I get excited just as much as the last one, you know. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you can't necessarily recreate the initial moment. But, you know, to appreciate them, even if they're common as whatever, you know, that's a gift that keeps on giving if you can maintain that excitement. Yeah. All right. Well, always fun to herp and chat with folks. I think that's one of the best parts of her trips or visiting with people

while you're not finding things, you know. Yeah, putting in the miles or whatever. All right. Next one's keeping giant snakes with Bill Bradley. And obviously we kind of hit on a little bit of that, you know, talking about retics. And I don't know.

I mean, I've always just, I think everybody kind of that appreciate snakes is especially in awe of those giant snakes, you know. Um, I don't know. I see a lot of those, uh, who's the yoink guy on YouTube that he's Garrett fishing Garrett or something like that. Oh, okay. He did a trip over to Australia too. He does some kind of funny, uh, yoink videos where he's like, oh, here's a Burmese Python in the Everglades. Yoink and he pulls it, you know, picks it up or whatever, but he's, he's, uh, I think he's one of the Python hunters in the Everglades and he's removing, you know, he's, he'll have videos of like finding nests of Burmese.

pythons, you know, and stuff like that. We saw DOR Burmese when I was down there years ago, like for a conference back in the early 2000s, you know, and saw a couple DOR Burmese pythons and it was like, whoa, there's a python and, you know, in America kind of thing. It was kind of crazy. But I think just giant snakes have that appeal to, you know, see them in a while. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Seeing a big old scrub or an olive python in Australia was. It was pretty amazing, you know. Yeah. As much as I like Antaresia, yeah, I'd still get very excited. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. I'd much rather see them see them in the wild than try to cram them into a box in my reptile room, you know. So I think that's kind of the main main thing is just don't get into it if you can't house a, you know, 16 to 20 foot snake. And even just dealing with, I mean, that's a whole. different thing, right? Safety issues and yeah. Yeah. I need a big shovel to scoop that poop out. Yeah, bring a shovel. Yeah. And some species, they may not even need to be giants. They can still fill up a small area with a lot of urine and, you know, whatever feces. That's not fun, you know. So, yeah, big snakes equal big messes sometimes. Or big food items, you know, sourcing.

Yeah, expensive. Yeah, expensive. Yeah, the size of their enclosure and the size of their food and just everything is more expensive for those giant snakes. And, you know, I don't fault anybody for doing it. Just make sure you do it the right way. And you don't think, well, you know, by the time it's 15 feet, I'll be able to have a room size enclosure for it or something. You know, if you're not, if you don't have the means right now, you're probably not going to have the means then. and those snakes grow very fast. Like, that's their evolutionary, you know, mechanism of strategy.

As big as they possibly can. Yeah. And they grow very quickly and they get big very quickly. And I think that was something interesting in the Rick Schein book, the one that I'm reading now. The name escapes me, of course. Snakes Without Borders. We've talked about on two other shows, and I continue to forget the name of it. But Snakes Without Borders talks about his way. work with reticulate python. It's really fascinating that they found that, yeah, even the skin

industry where they're collecting them, you know, on a daily, weekly basis, whatever, they still maintain healthy populations. And that the younger, you know, males or whatever would be the ones that were most commonly encountered in the cities and towns where they were being collected. And whereas the giant females that were having babies were out in the bush a little deeper and harder to find. So kind of cool, interesting thing to read about and figure out. But yeah, that plays into their difficulty in captivity. They grow fast. They need a big cage pretty quickly after you purchase them as a juvenile, you know. They eat big things. Yep. Yep. And they can pose a danger to life. Absolutely. Or even if you don't die, I mean, I was talking to a guy that worked, one of the

big shops in California and he uh where they breed a lot of reticks and um he got bit by a male that was in breeding mode and it grabbed him on the the bicep and just ripped and it cut one of his arteries in his arm and he was just dumping buckets of blood you know they're trying to put pressure on it get him to the emergency room and he came very close to bleeding out from a retick bite you know like and normally these animals were very calm and you know not not typically ones that he was worried about a bite from. But during that time of year, they were being aggressive. Maybe the male smelled another male on him and decided it was time to combat, you know?

So, yeah, like even when you think, oh, it's my pet, he's calm. I know the snake. Things can change, you know, depending on what's going on in the background. And so, yeah, I need to be aware of that. that's that's uh i i'm not saying they shouldn't be kept but i'm also saying if you're going to do it do it right agreed yeah okay um the next show was kind of more of a trip recap with again myself chuck uh i think it was just me and chuck or did we have dust yeah with steve on as yeah so just recounting what what we saw what we did i think i think still the kind of the crazy

story there was getting up in the morning, seeing that green rat on our drive out from where we saw it. And then Dustin coming back a few days later and finding one same time, you know, in the same spot, you know, basically. So kind of crazy how that can work. And just how trips, even what, I think we were there the week before or two weeks before. And then I went back for that quick trip. and saw stuff that, you know, the twin spots, and we saw two twin spots and, and, you know, I think part of that was probably having Steve there where he'd found twin spots before in different spots. And so he kind of said, hey, check over in this area. Did he give you guys some insight into that?

Yeah, yeah, he was the one that kind of led us to that other area. Yeah, yeah, where we didn't necessarily intuitively get that, you know. Right. Not what you hear about it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a little different or paradigm shift or something. So pretty cool, though.

And, you know, just anytime you're herping with buddies, it's a good time. So, yeah. The next one, we had a double guest on this time, again, with Phil Wolf and Billy Hunt. And they had a topic they wanted to fight about. So I think that was fun to have them on, but they were talking about, does lineage matter? And I think we hit a little bit on that earlier. Any other thoughts on lineage and if it's important? No, I think I pretty much said my piece.

I think it's really cool. I think it's a cool idea, I think the idea, you know, particularly from the Condro community of, oh, wow, look, you know, there aren't necessarily, as we'd hope, photos with each thing or whatever. but I do think the sort of history and visual of like this animal connects to the, you know, Sedgwick County first animals that were hatched in the U.S. That's intrinsically to me really neat. I like that. Simultaneously, I just think it's true that with our focus on needing it to be the pairing of these two animals, I just think it produces fewer offspring because I think some of what we're missing is the ability to utilize multiple males, kind of, you know, this one isn't working, but not be healthy. hesitant to switch, you know, or to introduce multiple males simultaneously. Right.

You know, in terms of scrub pythons, you know, these sorts of things, I think, yes, there's risk, but I think that's also part of it, right? And the other thing I wanted to say, you know, kind of, I guess it goes more to that previous conversation when we're talking about morphs is saying, my concern was that the price will go up, so it's harder to have a big group to be working with. Because I think as much as you know, the ability to pair multiple animals, it's really also so about just having the ability to have a collection, you know, that really gives you a shot to do that. Right. Yeah, and that can be difficult. And it can kind of be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you have anything, you know, if this is something that's priced too high for the average keeper to get. And then, of course, they're going to be more rare because less people breed them. And, you know, then you can't afford to get a group. And so, yeah, you're going to have less chance. Especially, it seems very important within the bull in eye context that you need multiple mail. And we often, I think as a product of the ball python craze is we think of 1.5 or something, you know, you're spreading a male with some weird genetics across, you know, several different females. And I think that also kind of adds to that in some way.

But also, you know, the morphs kind of have shown us like we talked about with Ben, you know, that multiple paternity is possible and that you can get several sires in on a clutch and see different results, even to the point where only the males genetics are passed along. Yeah, crazy. Hopefully people pick up on that. Yeah. I had never heard of that. No, no.

I mean, I guess Nick had talked a little bit about it before, but I think until Ben kind of described it, I didn't quite grasp it or something. Yeah, exactly. Maybe I heard it, but didn't understand it. Right. Right. And Ben did a great job. explaining a lot of cool genetic anomalies or, you know, heritons methods.

So that was cool. All right. Is published data infallible? This was me and Chuck and probably in light of the Antaresia paper or something where it's like, do we have to agree with published papers, you know? And it seems like for the most part, especially in Australia, if there's just a lot, a new publication about taxonomy, they jump on board real quick, especially if it's published by an Australian. Sorry, guys. It seems to be the case. But yeah, I mean, the children's versus

Stimson's Pythons, I think there's still a few that are kind of hesitant or don't use the children's Python for Stimson's Python, especially like Western Stims. But you see a lot of people adopting that and carrying it out. And yeah, it's frustrating, but what you're going to do? You know, I guess prove them wrong. And, you know, I'm not a taxonomist, so that might be harder for me to do. And maybe I'm wrong. So I'll fully admit that. But, you know, I'm as I'm, I know enough, I guess, to be dangerous, but I'm not, I'm not a taxonomist by any stretch.

So I don't, I don't know that much. So I can fully admit that there's probably something that I, that they know that I don't. And maybe they're on to something and maybe they're right. So, but I don't think. That's very magnanimous of you. I would say that my perspective is that certainly I'm not a taxonomist, and there are plenty of, you know, you could fill a library with things that I don't know, absolutely. Simultaneously, maybe from the legal training background, I would say that essentially all of these scientific articles, everything, everything everyone's putting out, is trying to make an argument. Right.

And they're trying to give you the justification for their argument. and depending on the source and the peer review process and all those things that those things either give credence to or detract the credit from the credibility of the argument that they're making right you know and um that's basically it so that you could read something and say well my experience and opinion does makes it so that i don't find your argument persuasive and that's that's literally it and you could wind up um being, you know, the lone voice that's standing out there, in which case, well, you're probably wrong, you know? Yeah. You know, but like you mentioned with the entourage paper, other papers jumped mine. If, in fact, it's like 50-50 uptake, I would say that if there's, if we're in the context of scholarly writing and that the audience, the informed audience that's taking it in and you're

only getting like 50, 60% buy-in from the audience that takes that in, it suggests that at a minimum the paper probably needed more work in terms of expressing either just, it's justification or its expression of what I was trying to say. You know, if informed audience isn't being persuaded, then what usually happens in science is someone follows it up, either pushing that same argument further or presenting sort of the counters and suggesting an alternative of whatever it looks like but yeah to me it's so relative is it infallible published well published data we know isn't infallible because you know the academic fraud that we've seen associated with data manipulation particularly i would say in the softer sciences for sure you know it's a little

bit a little bit less common i think in your stuff but right um you know and we see that just in the context of well this raises suspicions because it doesn't what i was mentioned earlier right with neferus if genuinely we're getting anecdotal records of two eggs and a higher than anticipated percentage of them winds up being a genetic pair, that's just not what data distributions look like. So, you know, in the same way, it's an indicia of falsified data if the spread and variance in data doesn't look like a normal distribution. You know, so infallible?

No, we certainly not universally. We know that. That's been proven. But I think the context here, as you say, is mostly about a paper comes out. do I have to buy it? And the answer is, if you're looking at it with a fair and open mind and you're an informed reader, whatever that means, whatever the background required for that is, because there's plenty of stuff. I'm reading the paper and I don't understand sort of the methodologies. They're reference when super in-depth genetic stuff where it's, I have to go look

up a dozen things to even try and figure out what it is they're saying. Yeah, I'm certainly not going to be the one pushing hard against that paper. Sure. It's more likely all, I had, I better hope that I'm only pushing back on papers that I fully understand and just say, no, it even says in the paper that I can disagree. They said, we think there's a, they give several options for A, B, or C. You know, we choose A because our inherent bias is whatever it is. Well, my inherent bias is B. And you said I could choose B if that was my inherent bias. Exactly. That's the beauty of science is you don't have to agree, you know, if you have a compelling reason to think of something else, you know. And, you know, I think at least historically, it seems like a lot of gene jockeys that are looking at genetics, you know, they may not even see a live animal or hold it in their hands or see it in the wild or appreciate the distinctions that come from. Yeah.

And if you're just looking at the genes, yeah, you could probably make an argument for just about anything you wanted. But, you know, and so I think we've come a long way in that regard where we don't just have one thing that specifies whether it's a species or not. or you know that kind of thing so and in the fact that we're developing um new i i mean there's lots of different species concepts you know so which is somewhat new in itself right right an expansion in the last 30 or 40 years as opposed to having just sort of a singular or a couple competing theories now yeah there's so many different things where we could even be talking about something that's much more closely related but the whole idea of being on an independent path and what that looks like in an area of climate change and

all these different things are it's interesting and then that's before you get into the as I say more the dogmatic paradigms of saying well I just don't believe in subspecies as an entity either it's a species or it's nothing um you know versus someone who you know birders with their you know 80 to hundreds of subspecies per species or whatever right right yeah it's uh it's definitely a a fun thing to think about and I guess uh maybe taxonomy is an easy tar you know because we have a lot of strong feelings in certain you know especially species we love and think about a lot you know that yeah so it's hard to right right yeah and i forget the exact term for too right but there are other thing there are certain i guess is you know

a function of the variance but i'm thinking of like the genera that have just a ton of species right that probably aren't being described or discussed or plotted in the same way as as things that you know if something a genera in general has one to five species assigned to it the structure and plotting of that is probably different than annolis or veranus where we're talking about dozens to annolis it's what hundreds of different species that the answer is probably just that represents a fundamentally different method of plotting sure you wouldn't instead have you know anolis is probably viewed by someone that views things as genera should have one to ten species. Well, that implies that there should be, you know,

um, teens, dozens of genera come out of an olus. Yeah. And that's probably a fair argument. I mean, we, we see that with other big genera like buffo, you know, where they went, oh, no, you know, the European bufo are not the same as the American bufo. So now American is annex risk. I don't, I always have a hard time saying that. An exuris or something. Yeah. But, you know, things like that where, you know, those are warranted and probably, you know, and other groups are maybe less studied and down the road we might have a more clear picture.

And I think that's how science progresses anyway. It's like somebody challenges what the dogma is and they say, how can there be, you know, this many species in one genus? This is ridiculous. Yeah. Although, probably, like, things. Yeah. That's part of the part. Right, right.

Because you would have to, you kind of have to treat everything comprehensively to be able to plot through all those things. And that's a Herculean task, right? What would that even look like? Particularly when there are no doubt still are sort of clusters of, experts with clusters of expertise within those different groups. And now you've got one person who's trying to make this sort of compendium. And maybe the answer is they need. dozen co-authors, right? All the different experts from these little, you know, groupings or whatever to kind of be providing that subsidiary feedback and try and consolidate it into a single picture.

Yep, yeah. But then you have a lot of different views on how things should be done. Yeah, exactly. That could complicate things. Exactly. Yeah. I've heard of a lot of projects that have really cool information, really cool data, but they kind of got squashed because the different co-authors couldn't agree or couldn't move forward or were sitting on stuff. and weren't moving, you know, as rapidly as the other members. And it's just kind of a tragedy sometimes to hear that. I think a great example, I was listening to Aaron Bauer give a talk. And he's a gecko taxonomist, really brilliant guy.

But he was like a bad guy for a while with a lot of gecko folks because he took crested geckos out of racadactylists because they were, you know, it was a paraphyly situation. They just didn't fit there and, you know, keeping them in racadactylos made for breaking the rules of taxonomy. So he had to put them in a different genus in Coralophis. And so, you know, a lot of people were upset about that. You know, no, they're racketed there always be rackadaclis. He's like, well, not if you follow the science, you know. And if you don't agree, then give me some more compelling reason to keep them there or whatever.

it'll always be Burma than me so yeah so yeah that's we also have to be willing to let go of our preconceived notions or our you know the way we think about things and you know some some changes probably weren't warranted maybe Condro Python should still be a genus and you know there's probably good support for that

yeah yeah things kind of go back and forth and change over time so and I guess that's, you know, species in general, just because there's something now doesn't mean they're on, you know, not on an evolutionary trajectory and they'll be different in 10,000 years, but by then we probably won't care about that anymore. Yeah, we have such a tiny little speck in the grand scheme of things, you know, in our small lifetime. So I guess I try not to get as worked up. But, you know, certain papers might stick in my craw a little longer than others.

Yeah, I let go. I still think that obesity should be the genetic or the specific name for the Chuck's. Chuck Wall. Yeah. That's just such a fitting thing. They're just obese little. When they inflate with air, it's just a great fitting name. Atter, I will acknowledge Atter.

I'll go with Atter, even though I like Obesis better. All right, well, we got do another morph, do morphs take away appreciation of wild types? Yeah, absolutely. Like, I don't know why some people get excited about certain morphs. They look much worse than the wild type or take away what makes the wild type really cool, yeah. So, I don't know. I think it's just the function of exclusivity or being different or whatever, you know. We like that idea of having something special, different, rare.

You know, that's, and I think that goes hand in hand with the reptile keeping in general because everybody's looking for the next, you know, I think that's kind of a phase of herpeticulture is like, what's the next one? I got to get, you know, I got to get that adrenaline boost or that, you know, whatever. So, yeah. And whether it's to sell it or it's to say, just, you know, show your buddies or whatever, you know, it could be either direction. So, and often, right, I know we talked about this with Ben or, you know, in the conversation of snakes and boxes and, you know, they're not even the species and all those ideas, right, is that even in general, it's not a preference for any random one. It's, you know, even the most beautiful wild type. So even amongst that, right, there are, there's sort of a selection to the good news with that. You don't want the average.

If there's some, if there's variability to it, it's going to be the not average. to your perspective, which may be different from mine. And, you know, so there's at least some more flexibility and pliability. And it's not just a, no, no, I get to call it five different things at once. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's a, yeah, it's kind of a complex issue. But I think it kind of bears out when you see, you know, who's interested in when there's not a lot of money associated with the, the morph and, you know, who's chasing after these

things after the kind of excitements died down. is it really because they're awesome looking or beautiful or is it just because they're worth money, you know, and rare? So, yeah, I think that kind of answers it. But I don't know, it's hard to beat wild types. I just really appreciate that. I think we're on the same page there, and I probably said the same thing during that argument. But what do you do? And the last one for this installment of the clip show series, knowledge in the age of information.

You know, we've got everything at the tips of our fingers, which sometimes makes us think that we are knowledgeable when, you know, I guess it's just kind of the idea of the first-time keeper gets his leopard gecko, does a couple weeks of research, and now he's the expert, and he's telling everybody what they're doing wrong, you know, that kind of attitude. And that can be a challenging thing. I think it's hard because you don't want to step on the excitement that somebody has about learning something. And I think we can be a lot kinder in dealing with folks that kind of come in with that attitude of I'm the expert now. And everybody listen to me or pay attention to me. So, yeah, I don't know. It's a tricky thing. You see a lot of Dunning Kruger syndrome in the world these days.

and it's kind of scary in some ways. But information, AI has taken over, you know, that desire. You just figure, well, AI, I'll do it for me. They'll give me the knowledge, but I don't think that's how we gain knowledge. Yeah. I don't know, anything to add to that. No, I think that's fair. Different thoughts on there.

I just think it's cool. So that one went up 11, 29, 22. So, man, I think it just speaks to your. longevity doing this and i think it's cool that we're doing it you know we're talking about it now i think there's utility to that and yeah just keep keep keep keep the train rolling but yeah i think it's cool man we'll have to maybe do these a little more frequently to catch up to to some extent but it's a fun idea i don't even know what what show we're on i haven't like counted them up we know a lot of podcasts will number them which is a smart thing we just never did and so we've got uh but this this makes uh so

that last one was number 70 if we're you know and that I think that's not counting some of the shows like we're not going to have a clip show in our clip show recap type thing you know because you don't clip show a clip show yeah it would just be one of those inception moments we'd just be a clip show within a clip show we just get trapped you know we wouldn't be able to get out so um but yeah definitely fun to to chat about and yeah Anything in herpetulture, herpetology, got you excited this week? Yeah, as I say, most of my reading has been Keeper in the Cap. Still working through the Lost Frogs and Hot Snakes book from Marty Cramp that we talked about previously. Aaron Bauer has one. So that's a sort of compendium of different stories with different themes by different herpetologists. But Aaron Bauer has one in there. Definitely a good one.

Incidentally, on the Marty Crumb topic, I was over at our library, the U.S.U library, and they had, you know, U.S.U authors, and she had another book in there, and it was like a little like, almost like a kid's book. Not quite, though, but like kind of shorter, but pictures. And it was, I think, was it a frog a week or something like that? It would tell a story about a frog for every week of the year or something. It was kind of an interesting thing. Yeah, yeah. So really neat. And I read several of the stories while I was just kind of hanging out there for a bit and really cool stuff. And then I looked her up and she had several books. So, yeah. Yeah, I know I have at least one more.

Yeah, definitely very cool. Yeah. We ought to have her on the podcast. I agree. Get her on here. Grill some experts there. Yeah. I had talked to her husband.

bit, or a partner, I don't know what their situation is, but he's also a professor at Utah State and into herpetology and was willing to come on. But I don't know, it always seems like he doesn't know who I am when I, you know, pass him on campus or something, or he's late for something. And it only gets more awkward when you say, don't you know who I am? Look at me. Remember this face. So, and there's all, I still need to contact Susanna French and get her on here because, yeah, another really cool, um, researcher at Utah State that has a lot of fun experience, like, you know, researching Galapagos, uh, iguanas and all sorts of cool stuff.

So, yeah, we'll have to get her on as well. But, yeah, um, I don't know. I've been busy with the proposal, so I haven't really. Had much time to do much herphotologically wise. I will say I had a very similar situation with yours when I was in elementary school. The Keeper in the Capt was a book that I checked out on numerous occasions and was really geeked out by that book and had a foundational effect on me, I think. And thinking about how to keep stuff in captivity and, you know, I was really excited about that at that age and build a number of cages on my own or my dad with my dad's help, you know, Yeah, really a cool book. It's really fun to think about how many things I've been able to do

and how many cool reptile things I've been able to experience in my life. And hopefully there's many more to come. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, hopefully one next month. Yeah. Well, it will be either way. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But if we can hit our top goal, that would be definitely, yeah, we need to, we need Eric here to call the shot of, we're going to find the Owen Pelly Python.

Okay, Eric, good luck with that. I'm sure you will. He did. What the heck? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, we'll see. All good. Cool.

All right. Well, thanks. everybody for listening. Thanks Eric and Owen for your umbrella over us. I keep using that umbrella. It's kind of a weird thing. Stop doing that. They're like, quit talking about the umbrella. People can't know about the umbrella. Thanks for all your work, Eric. We'll put it that way, especially in light of your busy schedule. But yeah, we appreciate you. You're a good friend you're a good man so all right well uh say we'll catch you later and uh we'll have another episode out soon see you