Reptile Fight Club - s it Important to be Honest When Presenting Reptile Media?

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob discuss the question "is it Important to be Honest When Presenting Reptile Media?"Who 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/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

People, it's your old pal Justin. With me is Rob. We are here to fight. Reptile Fight Club is what you're listening to. I'm sure you saw that when you clicked on the link to listen to the show. So with not further ado, how's it going, Rob? Dig, ding, ding. Yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Getting back to the old ways and things is a little break. break from the changes and all. So, yeah, excited for it. Yeah, you've got us quite the lineup. It's been really, really nice. I've just kind of taken a back seat and you're driving the vehicle now. So it's been good. Got some great guests coming up and, yeah.

Yeah. So hopefully people enjoy it. But I certainly have. You know, I think it's been good stuff in there. So it's a nice rare opportunity when it's just the two of us to chat a bit. and fight about stuff and kind of update on what's going on. I like it. Yeah.

Sounds like you've been doing some trip planning and getting ready for an upcoming adventure. And I know the fun and the misery that that can be at times. But, I mean, I guess that's what we both enjoy quite a bit. So I wish I was making this trip. But, yeah, just the cards didn't line up or however you say that. the cards didn't align. Is that a like a, like a, what's it, a fortune teller type thing with the tarot cards? Is that where that comes from?

I don't know. Yeah, something. Yeah. All things you're well known to be interested in. Exactly. Being the, the, I'm not superstitious. I'm just a little stitious. All right.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Heidi kind of planned the whole Germany trip, so I was just kind of the driver there, and she'd tell me where to go, and I'd go there most of the time, unless I routed to the wrong place. And, yeah, we went to the wrong country again. That's fine, but, you know, I got most of it right. Yeah. But, yeah, it seems like kind of a whirlwind. Like, now it's a little bit of a memory, you know. It goes by. so fast. I guess that's life. You've been back in two weeks? Yeah.

That's crazy. And, you know, that trip right after with Mo or Canab and, you know, heading right out again. And it was pretty, pretty fun. But, yeah, what do you do? Did I give the little factoid last time? I found out that harvester ants, the venom of a harvester ant has the same LD50 as a rattlesnake. No, that's interesting. Isn't that crazy?

I mean, they're much smaller, so there's much less venom. But, yeah, per ounce or however much you can get out of an ant, they have the same potency, which is pretty crazy. And I mean, I don't know if you've been stung by a harvester hand. It doesn't feel great. I mean, you know you got stung. It's pretty crazy. But he was on the trip with Chris Smith and Aunt Spencer, especially. He researches ants.

He's looking at communities kind of thing and using ants to kind of prove hypotheses and things like that. But he was telling me, you know, he told me that thing and then was telling me about some, like the green ants in Australia that make those nice little mess that, apparently they, you can kind of squirt them on your tongue. They kind of squirt formic acid. And so it's kind of like a little citrusy faith. Yeah, citrus bumpers. Somebody heard that. Yeah, yeah. And there's another kind of ant out there.

Maybe it's in the U.S. And they taste like citronella. Like, you know. So, yeah, you can just, he's like, yeah, you can just pop them in your mouth and eat them. I never thought of eating ants. About those green ants is there's a green ant trail, something like that at Kakadu, I think,

either Kakadu or Litchfield. And, but it's like presented as one word. So it looks like granant. And I was thinking it was like granite, but it's green ant. Oh, yeah. Oh, one word. Yeah. I think so, at least in my recollection of saying like, I wonder what that is.

Like it didn't jump out as being, oh, it's green ant. Yeah. Well, when we were out herping in the, in Kakadu area at night, and I bumped into a green ant nest, and all of a sudden I was covered in green ants. But fortunately, I had a layer of sweat all. covering me. So they just, yeah, he just right off. Yeah, no big deal.

I was like, oh, no, I'm doomed. Yeah, you don't want to get covered in ants. That's not a great thing. And when I was, I would order harvest or ants to feed when I kept horn lizards a few years back, or many years back now. But you'd just get a, you know, rubber may or a deli cup full of ants. And then you would put them in the fridge. And then take, you know, take the number out that you need to feed. And they'd kind of warm up and start moving around.

The horn lizards would eat them. But one time I was trying to get them from the container and I, one got on my hand and just went to town, stung me. It was a big old welt, you know, like it was crazy painful, too. Like, I'm like, oh, man, I don't want to get bit by a rattlesnake. If that's the, you know, that times the volume, you know, of a rattlesnake bite. So kind of crazy. But I thought there was a neat fact. I don't know that I've been bit by a harvester ant then.

I think certainly I've had fire ant interaction, particularly, I think, in West Texas. So I've certainly felt that. But I don't know that I've been bitten by a harvester ant. My dad got bit on the toe by a jumping jack ant or stung. I'm not sure which. But, yeah, he was limping the rest of the trip. Like, it was crazy. He was taking pictures, you know, by a, and just marvel.

at these giant ants with their huge, you know, jaws and just kind of filming them. And then he wasn't paying attention right, you know, by his feet. And one crawled up and just stung him on the toe or on the, he was on his big toe. And he would, it just swelled up and, ah, not a great situation. And that was in Australia? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I, uh, I'm, I think you're jumping jack. Can't. Right. I'm glad it was just the one ant because, man, if you would have gotten multiple bites, that probably would have almost incapacitated him. I mean, for all people talk about how everything in Australia is out to kill you. You know, I mean, I think that might be the only negative interaction with an animal that I've, you know, been with somebody, right?

We haven't had anything on the last trip that was, yeah, I mean, other than, I got. stung by a wasp twice in subsequent years in the same place like basically in the back or in the behind you know like it did not I thought I got shot and then Steve saw the second time because I was off alone the first time Heidi stayed down below and I climbed up on top of this waterfall and walked back a ways you know and it was in where was that that was in Kerrigini and then we were down below in a lower area and Steve was behind me and he saw this dainty little wasp land on my back and and then it stung me and I you know like what you know exclaimed something and then he's like oh I saw this little tiny wasp land on you I was

just seeing where it went what happened you know I'm like thanks buddy now I know what now I know what shot me the last year but it was crazy I mean it's it's pretty impressive how some of those insect stings can just mess you up and not feel great. I mean, I was seriously looking for somebody holding a smoking gun pointed at me, like, shot me in the butt, you know? Like, what happened here? Yeah. But, yeah, I hadn't had any negative reptile interactions.

Like, no snakes coming too close. I mean, but yeah, it's, I can't even. I think Rico got bit on the boot by a scrub python, but... Yeah, I got bit by a big scrub on the calf, but nothing to... Yikes. Didn't mess you up too bad, huh? No, it was just, I mean, it was a nip. You know, it was a, hey, he grabbed me out for it.

Defensive, yeah. Little snap and not a, but it was, you know, a young adult male. So, right. Not a small snake. Right, right. But, yeah. Even a small scrub is kind of a big snake. Yeah.

This is true. And it was then when I was checking it out that I, and it backed up in my chest that I thought, oh, it's one thing when that's on my leg. It's another thing. Right. And they might notice that going to your customs. Right. What happened to you? What's with your face, mate?

Yeah. You've been harassing our wildlife? Yeah. Ben had a scrub at one point when we were partners back in the day and he's, it was just a juvenile in it. And he opened the cage and this thing launched at him and hit him right in the chest. And he had this big bullseye bruise where the snake like hit him, you know, or bid him or something. But like he's like, man, I don't know what's going to happen when these things, you know, 12 feet. long so I don't know that I yeah I can't remember I think he might have

sold it you know like thinking if this is what it does when it's this small he could correct the record if I'm wrong but yeah I remember him being like man look at this bruise I'm like holy crap I did have the same thing with a ball python that avoided

the mouse but it was you know a big female there were these big females that I was taking care of and but I would feed him just large adult mice on four septina feet in four or five, six in a sitting or whatever. And yeah, she just went right over it and bit me in the chest and pulled herself out of the tub on by her mouth into my chest. From your chest. That's kind of felt great.

Solidly four and a half, five feet long. Yeah. You know, a couple thousand grams. Right. And her pulling herself out via her mouth on my chest was not. not the most pleasant experience in the world yeah oh man yeah i've had a couple like i i don't i don't think i might have gotten bit once on the face i had a blue tongue skink go for my ear once he was i was i had him on my shoulder i was like cleaning out his cage or something i just kind of

sit him on my shoulder for a minute and he saw my earbud i think and he went to to take a bite you know, and got a piece of my earlobe, and I just kind of, ah, you know, and jerked away before he clamped down on my ear. But, yeah, that was a little bit of a close call. And I think I got a brush on my face, like it just kind of a nip on my face by a carpet python once when I was opening up a cage, you know, face level. Yeah. I remember the, uh, when Cameron first started getting in big female Southern white lip pythons in 2005, 2006, something like that. These were big, you know, five, six foot snakes that are in heavy-bodied. But they were seemingly really placid.

And so I was sort of playing with them. And I had slung one over my shoulders, which wound up being a mistake because she went behind, went to the back of my head. Oh, and I must have turned. You know, somehow there was a, she reacted to it, and she bit me in the back of the skull. Oh, go. And I'm just like, you know, your head bleeds quite a bit. There's a lot of vessels, I think, in your head. Did you run around the room screaming and spreading blood everywhere?

I did not run around screaming. I was like, she did go into a feed bite on the back of my head. Oh, yeah. But I was bleeding all over the place. And this was not the first time. So Cameron's reaction was to just be like, dude, get the mop. Like, I don't have time for this. These shenanigans.

Yeah, he seems like a very no-nonsense kind of guy. What are you doing? Pleading on my floor. How dare you spill my precious blood. Wait, what's the quote there? Dang it. Oh, you spilled my precious acid. Oh, girl.

Yeah, that's... Very good. I always enjoy a good camp. story. Yeah. So anyway, either here and there, what is the, I saw that you got some exciting eggs? And maybe you talked about them last time, but I don't know what he did. I might have mentioned those, but yeah, I kind of like to wait until things hatch, but it's week five on the clutch of pygmy bandit python.

So I'm excited to have a new, for me, type of snake. Species. I'm going to say species, but some might disagree. Controversially. Yeah, yeah. I just can't get over how, like, different they are, right? So they, this thing had a, so it laid the clutch. The clutch weighed 68 grams. And the female, after laying this clutch, weighed 128 grams. So basically the, the clutch was about half her weight, you know, like, that's crazy. And, you know, you know, You just don't see that with the other. And the eggs are fairly large compared to other, you know, antarisia eggs. They were larger than Eastern Stimson's Python eggs. But, of course, they're all children. I, so, you know, no such thing as Eastern Stems. But I did have a clutch of Eastern Stimpsons Pithons hatch.

And these are the black hides that I don't know if I've talked about them on here either, but kind of a, you know, a dinker project, I guess you'd call it. But I hatched out some, some eastern stems a while back. Well, actually, yeah, I sold some to David Haston's. And he was getting out of them. So he said, hey, I got this, you know, this from you. And this male just started getting darker. And he has like silver eyes.

And he started getting blacker and blacker. And he's kind of like really kind of cool looking, this dark adult male. Yeah. Like some sort of increasing melanin gene type deal going on. And so I bought it back from David and bred it and then saved a couple of the females and bred them back to that male. And I got some that had these pie-pied tails. So they were missing some pattern on their tail. And this was around the same time that we moved.

So I don't know if it was like a factor of moving the eggs. and jostling around or, you know, if it's something like that, some environmental factor, because I haven't seen like that clear piebald patches on the tail since then in subsequent clutches. But I just hatched out and some of them will be black eyed. So they have that, those are really dark eyes,

similar to what you see in children eye. But they tend to be darker in color, you know, overall like a dark. or Stimson's Python. So not the most dramatic morph, but something interesting and, you know, curious. So I just produced a, another, that clutch just hatched out. And I noticed, you know, several black guys in the clutch. So, and I've sold a few to some people that back in, you know, a couple years back.

But so they're making their way out there. But so kind of cool. So that's the only, so now all I have in the incubator are those pygmy banids, It's like the slowest season ever. I found another clutch that I missed, a Woma clutch, of course. So second missed Woma clutch of the year. That is the second one. So not the same.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Stupid. So I've got one more female that is probably laying soon. And I went to that. I realized that rack that had tripped a breaker. And so the lights weren't coming on on that rack.

So I'm like, how long have they been out of light, you know? And I just noticed it a couple days ago. And so I got to thinking, why aren't those lights on? You know, I have the timer to set to turn them off in the middle of the day, the heat of the day, so the lights go off. But I, so I just figured, oh, I'm just in here when the lights are off. But then I'm like, they should be on right now. Why are they not on? I tripped the, you know, trip the breaker, reset the breaker.

And the lights all came on. So I'm like, oh, gosh. So stupid, those kind of things. But I noticed my diamond python female was kind of acting different. You know, she wasn't wanting a meal. And I'm like, that's weird, you know. But she's been, I've been cohabitating her with the male for a couple years now. And, yeah, I pulled her out.

She's got, she's swollen and looks like she could be. Yeah, look pretty good in those pictures. Yeah. So I'm very encouraged, although she'll probably lay a bunch of slugs. you know, that seems to be the way this year is going. So I'm not getting my hopes up too high, but it would be very nice to have a clutch of diamond python eggs. So, yeah, I, maybe for Eric's sake, I hope that they get plugged.

So he can beat me to diamonds. I feel bad. Like, you know, but I did go back and kind of dig up. They were hatched in 2020. So they're six years old, you know. So they definitely should be able to breed. this age at least and you know they're plenty pretty big i mean they're not overly huge i was thinking they were a little on the small side but i'm like you know they're they're if they do it they do it if

not you know i i think a lot of times we have this idea of what a female needs to be how big a female needs to be to reproduce but usually age kind of trumps size in a lot of cases and a lot of A lot of species can breed at much smaller sizes than we give them credit for, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Pig-be-banded python was only 120 grams, you know, that's crazy. That female diamond, that's a cool look. It's like a stripe look with how condensed the rosettes are and things. Yeah.

That's pretty neat. Yeah, I was really lucky to get those from Terry TB snakes. Terri Burwell. Burwell, yeah. My name brain is terrible. But, yeah, I message Terry and told them, you know, hey, I might have some eggs on the way. So, yeah, I'm probably talking about them now is just, you know, jinxed it. So we'll see.

I'm not superstitious. Just a little stitious. But so we'll see. But yeah, she's really cool. And the male is neat. He's like a, he's more black and white and the female is yellow. So it'll be curious. you know, interesting to see what comes out of that.

Yeah. Might have to hold them back for a while, watch him develop, all that good stuff. So hopefully they won't be as difficult as they were for Lucas. But maybe he was just excited for his first clutch of diamonds. I don't know. We'll see.

Because it seems like he got him feeding pretty, you know, okay. I haven't heard many people having that much trouble with them. But not like a... No, I think lizards, right? You know, they're skins. But, you know, meaning that's the natural predileals. election, but I don't think it shouldn't be that big of it.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm, I'm very excited. And the two, the pair I have came from unrelated, well, I guess semi-related. I mean, he got all his, maybe unrelated. Right, right. At least from two separate clutches, you know, the male and female came from different clutches. And from zoo breadstock from through cam, something like that.

So yeah, whatever zoo it was or, yeah. So maybe San Diego Zoo, that seems to be one of the leading zoos that, like, diamonds go. Right, yeah, I don't know. That's interesting. The other cool thing with that pygmy bandit, just looking at those photos beyond what you're talking about with how wide the eggs were. Right. And the eye color on those things. Between their, you know, their blotch coloration versus the base coloration.

and then the eye color, they're certainly phenotypically very different. Right, yeah. And I've actually been going through photos on INAT and measuring the distance. Did I already talk about this? Looking at the distance between the eye and the nose and the ratio, right, between the, what was it? I, you know, doing some ratio. Between the eyes and the face and things like that. Yeah.

Exactly. And showing like, okay, these things are significantly different in their, snoutland. Like, how is that not a diagnostic characteristic of something? You know, I don't think everything is genetics, right? I mean, if we can have identical looking birds differentiated in, at the species level by their calls, you know. Or frogs. Right. Exactly. So, I don't know. I'm, I'm still, I'm still holding on to the belief that these things are a different species. And, and I always wonder that too like if just rolling them in to children I and you know that big lump in general makes it more difficult to show like okay this is something different absolutely that seemed like vulnerability of

the methodology right explained it of saying well necessarily right you're going to see less you're making your population have a much broader distribution you know of genes that are within that if you include these things it should ostensibly be different exactly and I mean they did see the structure but his His claim was that they weren't very, the level of difference wasn't there for to be called the separate species. But he's a lumpert. Yeah. Like we know that. Unless it comes to spot it by then he's a, yeah.

So anyway, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. I mean, I do think there's something to be said for the various different approaches. because I just don't know how much it's my focus at this point. Because there is so much, there is so much room for interpretation and opinion. Right.

And frankly, I don't care. Like, I don't care what they're called. I know what they are. They're a regional variant of whatever, you know, so whatever label that is.

They want to call them children I? Call them children I. But if I can pick them out of a lineup, you know, if I can get on INAT and go, no, that's not a spotted python. That's a pigmy bandit python.

You know, I can clearly see them, you know, for what they are in their native range. So I don't know. To me, that means there's something special if you can pick them out of the line up there. So, yeah. Yeah. But what do you do? What do you do?

Snakes in boxes. Yeah. Indeed. Okay. Well, yeah, that's, I guess that's enough of that rant. Yeah. I don't know. I'm really looking forward to getting back to Australia, hopefully finding some new python species at some point.

I don't know. I've been looking at, you know, thinking about that, I guess. I think my next trip I want to do is up to the Kimberly. Yeah, look for those rough fees. Yeah. I mean, someone had just posted one, right? Yeah. They took a helicopter in something like that.

And then, you know, sure enough, within a day, it turned, turned up. Yeah, it seems like not long after they landed, they found one, you know, and then got back in the helicopter and took up. I wonder if that's an option, like to helicopter into there or something. And, you know, it seems like enough people, tours go out there. They say you just hear helicopters all day. So I don't know. Yeah.

I mean, I certainly, right, it interacts with something. of the dynamics of what, you know, length of trip, you know, how much downtime do you need to build in, you know, all those circumstances versus driving versus wherever you take, are you trekking over from Broom? Are you coming down, you know, from Darwin? What are you doing? Right. There's a bunch of different, yeah. I mean, you probably have an easier decision, but I still need to find an own telly. So I'm thinking flying to Darwin, go out to Kakadu for a day or two, you know, just camp out. out where they're found and just live there for a day or two and then and then head back over to Kondonura, grab a helicopter or drive out because it is a shorter drive from Kondonura to the Mitchell River Plateau as compared from Broome. So I don't know if that, you know.

And I think it's a little bit hard to rent a car in Broome based on the like particularly an unlimited amount, you know, all the different things we want to do. Yeah, I think there's some of that. It's interesting, right, that you do talk about Owen Pellys in the context because we're seasonality. You needed to be dry, especially if you're driving. Although, remember, we talked about when we were talking to Dugel, we were talking about this a little bit either before or on or whatever. But I think there's something, too, looking for Owen Pellies and dry it in, you know, more dry than cold season, you know, up there. but yeah an interesting idea as well so yeah that's true i mean it might be i don't know i i'd have to look at that and you know is there a bias to when people go because that's when people

saw them you know so nobody really goes in the but i'm sure people have we saw that record there was a record last year that was distinctly during the dry right but it was like a birder a birder record on one that had come out and i think eaten a bird and was then seated out For a day or two, there are multiple records of the same snake in the same position in the same tree. Right. Over the course of what's clearly two or three days. So it had just come out, posted up, got, you know, multiple people saw it at different times. Yeah.

And so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it might be worth the look, look around. I suppose if you're there, you might as well. Right. And then having the excuse to go through Kunaer again. And that was one thing that, you know, that they're more commonly active or easier to find and see in the colder months, you know, in the winter months. July and June, you're going to see the Kimberly Rock monitors in kind of a more easily.

Or even the form at the Kakadu form as well. Right, right. So there is, yeah, there are certain things that have been really difficult that I do. do think maybe might in a different season might help me yeah yeah might land it to it so i you know i think there could be some definite pros to going at a you know off time of year that we haven't been there um yeah i mean i've i've been there in october and october or november when did we go we went in october we went in october earlier in october than we had gone the first time, but I think the first time you went was later than when we went.

Okay. But not by more than a week or two, because we were there in October as well. That's probably not right. Yeah, you were, I think the 2019, so the O. Mpelli was on Halloween. So right in the middle of the, you know, end of the month into November. Right, right. And I think, I can't remember 2011 whenever we were there. Well, I was saying, oh, it was later.

I think it actually must have been earlier because remember you guys came back and those were those first Maralia Plythons shows. Because you guys haven't just come back. And that was October probably when he was talking to you. So yeah, yours must have been probably about when we went most recently. And that and that that was like, I mean, we went for one day, basically, you know, drove early, early in the morning, got there as early as we could, you know. So, and we were driving in from, you know, basically south of Darwin just a little bit. So, yeah, it was a long drive in and a long drive out and just, yeah. Although the night we turned that one up, right?

That was the day of Eric's phone, you know, returning for the phone and all that. So, yeah, we had gone. We drove probably nine hours that day. Right. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, I'm very glad you did after seeing that.

I still, I don't know. I still was like after even after seeing it. I was like I would have looked for a way up to up on top of that rock at least. I probably I do I do concede that I wouldn't have climbed the tree. I think I would have gone and found the way up the rock to see it in the tree. I don't doubt it. Yeah. I don't doubt it.

Yeah. I mean, not saying that I could have done it, but I almost was thinking, well, maybe I'll look for a way because, you know, just to see if it could have been done. You know, a tree. Yeah. Certainly. Right. It certainly will sit in. But, I mean, that is a pretty, pretty large undertaking if you add in Darwin and Kavanaura on the, you know, fun.

Yeah, I mean, I think it necessarily becomes probably two weeks, 12 days, two weeks at a bare minimum. Right. Yeah. Whereas, yeah, if you can take a flight to Broom and take a helicopter from Broom, that takes an hour each or a couple hours each way or whatever, it just, completely changes the dynamics of the whole. Exactly. Yeah. And how much stuff can you even take on the helicopter, you know?

Probably not much. Jack in some giant bag or something, you know. But if you're going to sleep out there, do you need a tent or, you know, at least a sleeping bag? Because it does get down in close to freezing in the winter. So if that's the only time you can access it. But then if you're going to take a helicopter, you wouldn't necessarily need to go in the winter. You could get in there during the wet season, too. And is that better or worse?

I don't know. Yeah. The data is so limited at that point. Right. Right. And it seems like John Weigel was in there during the wet season, right? At least the shouldered on wet for sure. Right.

Like the springtime or whatever. So, yeah. He had a tough time finding them for, you know, like. Yeah. But I don't know if that was just a, now that we have better. idea of where they're easily or readily found, you know, he didn't have that luxury for sure because there was only like one or two ever that have been found up to that point or something. Right. Well, and even then the spot, at least the Marco Shea episode talks about the spot where

he liked to look for them, right, getting flooded out and all that damage. I don't know where any of that sits now 25 years on, 30 years on. Right. Yeah. And I mean, They have been found on the island, like Biggie Island and stuff like that. So, you know, there could be other places you could go find them. So I don't know. But exciting to think about and definitely a grand adventure regardless of how you get in there and how you get out of there. So, I mean, the drive actually, that would be kind of crazy. And I don't know how fun it would be, but it would be kind of type B fun where, you know, the end result hopefully would just.

justify the drive and all the rough terrain you have to cross getting in there. Yeah, either way, it's going to be a pretty epic adventure. So hopefully we get to do that one together and, you know, have a good crew going out. Yeah. Because, I mean, I was talking to Jordan a bit. And, you know, it sounds like it would be, I mean, it would be kind of a smart thing to take two vehicles, you know, despite the, you know. If you're going to drive that you want to take two. Yeah.

And having a crew of, you know, six or seven people or eight people, you know, wouldn't be a bad thing to do, too. So then you have plenty of people to help get out of fixes or whatever, you know. Yes. Eight brains to think about problems and work out of solution. Yeah. But, well, hopefully we can get together a good big group of folks. Yeah, the logistics. But, yeah, I mean, that's the other fun.

part of planning a trip is, you know, hey, who's interested in going? And all these hands go up. And then comes time to buy a ticket. And you're like, hey, who's ready to go? Wait, where did all the hands go? You know, that kind of tricky thing to get a lot of people on board. But I don't know, especially for something like that. Yeah, right. I mean, I think it's in some ways, not that this is a spot that I've been in it all recently, but it becomes the same idea is when people, you post a snake on eggs, and everyone's excited and there's a ton of interest. And then, oh, you know, people, I'll definitely get some of those or whatever. And then put me on the list.

Yeah. Crickets when the list is ready, you know, or when they're ready to ship out. But I know Stephen talks about that. Stephen Coach talked about that on the show, I think, a little bit. You know, certainly something, sort of the ubiquitous experience. or whatever. Right. Right.

Yeah, definitely. Something of the same thing. So I think it's important to, yeah, kind of get people invested, you know, so that they're equally motivated to see it through simultaneously and kind of resolve any concerns on the front end before anyone maybe has put out their investment. And I guess if you have a, you know, a backup plan, maybe. you know, like a helicopter is plan B. If you can get enough people and get a couple vehicles and drive in there,

then maybe that's plan A. And if you can only get two people and, you know, maybe the helicopter is the more economical route to get in and out. So I don't know the feasibility. I need to look into that and see if people are even willing to land and drop you off. Well, seemingly someone is. Yeah. But that may have been like, hey, I work on a cattle station.

I have access to a helicopter. Like, let's take a weekend trip. The boss says I can take the helicopter out kind of thing, you know? Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, I do have a friend that I met in 2010 that is now working on a big station and flies around a helicopter all the time. So hit up old Steve and see if he wants to go on an adventure with us.

There you go. Yeah, that'd be cool. He was the one that let us wrangle us. wrangle a big, big crocodile into a shipping container. So that was pretty fun. Yeah, we got to, he top jawed roped it, and then we pulled it out of the enclosure and across the yard into this giant box. It was pretty, pretty crazy, fun story for sure. Yeah. That's good. All right. Well, yeah, I don't know, lots of fun adventures to be had. I, I, I, I, I, I did enjoy listening to Ryan talk about the trip as well.

I think Nick did as well, among other things. Yeah, not as explicitly. Right. Yeah. It's more of a trip recap with Ryan, but I'm still waiting to hear his trip to Australia. I mean, we need to have him. Never came out. Maybe we need to get him on here.

He said, how's that a fight? And I said, I don't know. I'm sure we can find a way. I'll fight with him. I'll say my trip was better. better than his. Yeah. But yeah,

it would be good to get his sense on that. You know, because, I mean, he did that huge. Didn't he go all the way from like South Australia all the way to Darwin

and back or something? Yeah. I mean, kind of a Justin versus a Robb trip, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Because,

nah. But so that might be part of it. Like, do you have better success doing a short? short focus trip or do you see more covering lots of ground, you know, and going all across the country. So I don't know. Yeah. We can compare notes where we've been to those areas on short stints versus that long. And I think Jordan, I mean, Jordan went into South Australia and he,

he drove up from South Australia with Nick Fine and met us in, in Central Australia. Aspen and I were the only ones that didn't do some epic adventure on the front and back end of the trip. We just came straight to Alice Springs, you know, whereas Jason got in a couple days early, drove up to Darwin, went and found a blackheaded python, a few cool monitors and stuff like that, and then drove back down with Dale, and then they joined us. So, you know, yeah, that's kind of cool. I mean, Jordan saw and Nick saw like a ton of different geckos and things on the front end. And they already had a species count, you know, pretty high before they even got into Alice Springs. So I can see, you know, both sides. And I'm happy to do an epic long, you know, a giant trip like that.

But, you know, I don't know. It's kind of a pros and cons to both ways. So that might be the fight with Ryan. Maybe we can get him to come on for that. I like it. Yeah. All right, while speaking of fighting, should we discuss the fight we have planned here? So I was listening to a podcast.

Oh, man, Will Robertson, I think, was the one that was on there. And speaking of which, I was just watching one of his videos, and he flips a piece of tin, and you see this timber rattlesnake coiled up. He proceeds to step, like, strapped. the snake and and he didn't notice it. You know, he's like getting ready to lift another piece of tin or going through the leaf litter. And then he kind of steps back and steps on the timber rattler. And he's like, oh, whoa.

And he kind of jumps back. But like, you're watching this the whole time because he's got his GoPro or whatever. And you can see the snake. Like, dude, it's right by your feet. You know, like how did you miss that? But I mean, obviously timber rattles, timber rattles, timber rattles, blend in really well with their surroundings. You know, they look like a pile of leaves when they're coiled up like that.

So I can forgive him for missing that. But man, that's not a good miss. But it didn't bite him. Didn't, you know, strike or anything. So that was kind of crazy. But anyway, so he was talking about, you know, the ethics of setting up things or, you know, almost misrepresenting things. in your herping videos, you know, do you set it up on this pristine branch when you found it under an old broken toilet, you know, like what, what's a more honest representation? And does it matter? Do you just

want to see artwork when you're looking at pictures of reptiles? Or do you want to see them under trashy, you know, dirty? I don't enjoy, like, you know, when people lift up a rock and there's a snake coiled in the dirt, I don't really like seeing pictures of snakes on dirt patches or on roads. You know, like that doesn't really do anything for me. So, you know, I really like to see something that's a little more, I guess, in some ways, artificial. But in other ways, I mean, obviously they're living in that environment. You're not driving them across the country to a pristine area, you know. Sure.

And there was some talk, we, on one of my other chats that I'm involved with, we were talking about the bretles. on the cliff, you know, overlooking the gorge and whether or not they took the bretles and hiked up to the, you know, the cliff and set it up there or if they found it in situ up there. So, you know, I would hate to think that's a fake shot. But so, so I do think there's kind of pros and cons to the argument. So I guess we'll, I guess say, nah, it doesn't matter that much or yes, you should absolutely record everything as, as done, you know, so. Um, let's go ahead and flip a coin. See what side we get here. Go ahead and call it.

Tails. His heads. The victory is mine this week. All right. Um, I'm, I'm going to go with, uh, it doesn't matter. Just put it wherever you feel like it looks best. Sure. And, uh, you know, I'll go ahead and kick it off to you, let you kick it off. Sure. So, I think the A-time, certainly, that when we're saying it, so we have this framed, you know, in the title or whatever, is it important to be honest when presenting reptile media really meaning, specifically in this context of kind of in-situ versus posed pictures or the presentation and discussion of stuff, which I think is almost equally, it probably is equally important relative to what I'm going to. to say, which is I'm planning a trip right now, right? And that's been the, as you say, the joy of the past week, two weeks of really digging in deep, trying to make the plan that makes the most sense,

doesn't guarantee something's going to turn out, but trying to give myself the best chance of doing that, right? The more that the media, scientific information, literature, that I've been able to take in that's being honest in terms of presentation on these things, I'm obviously the more helpful, right? Right. It does remind me the, in light of the Australian Prohibition on manipulating animals for any purpose, let alone for photography, right? The idea of what's the name for the root, the kind of the root, the strong, the wall roots from reinforced roots.

Oh, buttress, buttress roots? Yeah. Yeah. And Eric's preconception when we were at. in Queensland in 2018 of saying he kept perpetually focusing between the buttress roots of trees looking for there to be coiled pythons. Right, right. Because that's sort of a contained environment that's relatively easy to take pictures of them. And so that was his search image, was looking at all the butcher's roots to all the trees and waiting for there to be a perfectly coiled snake, just right in the middle of that butcher's root.

And we didn't turn up any there. And I would say that we have sort of, it hit us at some point during that trip of saying, oh, people are utilizing this for their own purpose. This is not a function necessarily of how they're encountering them. Right. So we had taken that in as true when it was, you know, a representative of a different purpose or motivation and it was misleading us. So that, you know, the absence of honesty within that context was actually had us led astray, right? Right. Being said, it wasn't that complicated. We were able to figure out the motivators and, you know, put it together quickly enough. But it definitely had us down the wrong path. Well, I, you know, I might challenge that because, you know, I wouldn't say that you would never find them there, right?

I don't know. They're not, not tight butchrous roots, meaning like, you know, take a four-foot carpet and it's got an aperture between these buttress roots of maybe six-foot. Sure, one could conceivably sitting there, but even if it was, it wouldn't be seated there as though it had just been pulled from under the Frisbee. It would be posted, probably posted up into the route, maybe waiting for a rodent to run by. And it's sort of a different expression and probably not during the day. Yeah, well, and probably not a carpet, which is probably used to be. Right. Or scrub that's in the tree. Scrub would be up high on the tree.

And, you know, granted, I did take one of those pictures and I found the scrub crawling. across like a parking lot, you know? Sure. In one of the gorges up in northern Queensland, but the, yeah, like you said, putting them in there kind of contains them a little bit, you know. Oh, absolutely. I understand why it's useful. Right, right, the desired effect.

But, I mean, I could see like, yeah, a pithe, a big scrub coming down the tree and maybe resting a bit there. Or maybe they don't go up trees that long. large or, you know, it's hard to say. Right, they prefer thinner branches. Who knows? Right. That could even be sort of an additional and unintended manipulation when you do that

is saying like, actually, right, what we see with green tree pythons, how they have a preference and a lot of arboreal snakes have a preference for thinner branches, you know, particularly in terms of where they post up and things. So that a tree that's five foot across probably doesn't have a ton of utility for them or possibly doesn't have as much utility to them. Yeah, I mean, a lot of those large rainforest trees also epiphytic, you know, vines and things, so they could get up there. And that is one of the pieces in the literature that I came across where scrubs will actually use those epiphytic ferns and they'll just curl up on top of the ferns that are up on the side of a tree high up in the canopy to rest and, you know, and to. I don't doubt it get cryptic basking.

Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, the aboriginals knew about that, knew that they utilized those. And it was kind of a new discovery for Western science or they were taught that from the Aboriginal people there. So, you know, I think that would be a better representation of a scrub at rest. But how do you get that shot? You know, like, so I can see why they might do it. And I think that's your contention is that it makes it easier to contain them and to to. Probably. And it looks cool, right? Right, right. Well, and there are definitely species that can be found, you know, within butchers. For some reason, Gaboon vipers and some of those heavy-bodied vipers come to mind where that's kind of one of the places that they are actually looked for and found. I seem to remember hearing that on a podcast where they were looking specifically in the butcher's roots to find a certain species. But I can't recall the specifics. But there was something that comes to mind that were, you know, there was a targeted area where they use these buttress roots and maybe any listeners that have better information than my ramblings can share that. But yeah, so depending on the species, you might be able to find certain ones there that, you know, definitely lend themselves.

But your point is well taken, like a scrub or a carpet, probably not so much. although we did find a southwestern carp, an imbracotta, next to one of the pinnacles in, in, right, which it seems most unusual anyway, yeah. Right. And it was just curled up at the base of one. That's where Steve found it. I really wish I would have gotten a picture before, you know, it was disturbed, but what do you do? Yeah.

But I've got a really nice picture of it on top of the pinnacle, you know, it was just kind of cool. But, you know, but that was definitely posed. Yeah. Yeah. And that's another good point is a lot of times when you do find something, you either get excited and pick it up or get too close and spook the snake so it leaves, you know, and you're trying to corral it or put it on. So if you put it up in a tree or putting it on the pinnacle or whatever, then it kind of sits still and poses a little better versus if you just leave it on the ground and try to, you know, wrangle it that way. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think fundamentally, right, that if you're at least within appropriate habitat, I don't think you have, you know, again, somewhat for the opposite side of the argument on this, I don't think you have an obligation to be completely factual, right? So if it's flipped under a piece of tin or something like that, that the only appropriate photograph would be on the,

leaf litter or dirt underneath the tin with kind of half holding up the tin and sort of the prototype voucher phone shot or whatever i don't think that level of authenticity is required i think being in the habitat that they exist within in a broad sense um if you're authentic to that you can have what functions is basically artwork right where you have do have opposed situation but so long as it's still within an appropriate context that can still be instructive and not lose sort of the point of the fundamental honesty of the thing. I think that would be fine from my perspective. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I think most people would concede that that's reasonable. And it is kind of, I mean, I don't know, certain species are much easier to get an in-situ shot up, you know, like green tree pythons,

you know, where I was listening to, you know, that story again with the Nick tells about how he's walking up the mountain. he's waiting for Ryan. He sits down and the guide comes up and goes, there's a green tree python right there. You know, like you're basically staring at it. And then they take all these pictures of it. And then they hike up the mountain, get Chris, and then come back and it's still there. You know, like it's not going anywhere. They're taking pictures and, you know, disturbing it in that regard. But it's not, you know, disturbed enough to leave. And that's where it's set up. And they set up those ambush positions and stay there for hours. So, you know, obviously. it's it's a lot easier to get an in situ photo of a green tree python versus you know

and an eastern indigo yeah exactly it's not going to stick around and going to do its best to get out of there as quickly as it can i still laugh about that uh the big blacktailed rattlesnake that uh in uh in southeast arizona and dustin uh or i put my hat over it's you know to try to calm it down and it just lifted the hat up and started crawling away with the hat you It's kind of funny. And I guess our show last week kind of had a story similar with the Eastern Indigo and picking up the whatever was covering it or running off with it or whatever. The frisbee and walking away. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of the way it goes, I guess, with some of those things. It's hard to get a decent shot. But, you know, I think in those instances, especially with things where it's illegal to. to move them. You don't have a lot of a choice, you know, with the, uh, the twin spot rattlesnake we found there. It was fortunately crawling on a rock that looked nice and, you know, you could get a shot of that. Um, so, you know, you're, you're, it's illegal to manipulate them or move them around or carry them to

different spots and you could get a hefty fine, you know, for, you know, picking, you know, picking them up with a hook or something. So you, you leave them where they're at and you try to get the best shot you can. Or like your San Francisco Garter, you know, the first round where it's like, yeah, you got a glimpse or Lucas got a glimpse of it, but then it disappeared down into some Yeah. And there's even

exactly on point for those, there are different the different publicly accessible spots that you can go see them have their own peculiarities in terms of one of them, like there's for a portion of what you'll be able to see, you're going to be, you're going to need that telephoto lens, man, because you're

probably 20 horizontal and 30 vertical feet from that water. So like, you, you can see them, you know, and you can certainly clearly see birds that, you know, predatory birds and you see them. It was actually, it was funny that Lucas and I were watching at that kind of, probably most publicly accessible, but least furthest away, there was a stork of some variety that was

very clearly locked in on something in the water, and then it like shoves its head under the water and it comes out and is half eaten something. I'm just going, if that's a San Francisco Garda's name, but I'm zoomed in and I'm watching and I'm going, I am going

to be, I'm going to have such a gamut of emotions, if that That's a tetra-tania, that that thing is sculpting down, slurping down, you know, when it comes out. So, yeah, absolutely, right? There are different access questions, for sure. There's, as you say, the level of intervention that's permissible, varies. And I would say, too, that, like, I think of Ross McGiven and the glowered eye, and, like, those sorts of wide-angle shut, wide-angle-in-habitat, that, you know, is it,

I don't recall the tale around that one, but being the context and all that, I think that actually is probably, I had taken that to be as basically legitimate. It's just, it's art because of all the composite imagery and the length of exposure and all these different things that are happening.

But, I mean, that tells a great narrative. Right. He's got a video of that encounter. And that animal is just sitting in that spot, perfectly posed waiting for a shot to be taken and I mean that's one of my favorite all-time favorite reptile photos and it's it's perfect you know it's it's in a beautiful spot of a beautiful animal and like that's you know and and fortunately I kind of got my moment you know with that kind of animal unfortunately my you know zoom lens had been fried in the in the hot darwin sun yeah that was kind of a bummer

but, you know, I got a second chance and got, you know, phone shots of a glowered eye fairly close up. I could have reached out and touched it, but I didn't. I just let it do its thing and just followed around with a camera. And, you know, that said, it's probably far easier to get nice, in-situ shots of lizards because lizards are usually doing their thing in their habitat. They're not under something or, you know, for the most part. and at least during the day and moving around and looking cool, you know, posting up on their rocks or whatever. So, you know, it was difficult to get a shot of that Keith Horn Eye and in the Iron Range because it's doing the monitor thing going on the opposite side of the tree from you, you know.

But, yeah, those kind of things can be difficult. I mean, you rarely see a really good shot of a Keith Horn Eye. And I think the answer is, is like, you know, with Ryan and Nick, they had a team of local and, you know, people that knew the area, knew how to catch the animals. And they would just scurry up the tree and grab it and come down and show them. You know, it's like, yeah. So, you know, and that's kind of how you have to do it in those areas if you're going to get a good look at anything. Right. From a permission standpoint, as much St. Ryan kind of talks about that on the show.

right in terms of um and maybe nick as well but uh yeah i don't know it's i guess you know to the extent that we're doing something more than just the the vein oh look at the cool thing that i saw that you did not see um i do think there's inherent utility to honesty within the messaging right and that could again as i say i don't i don't think that that that's necessarily cleanly divided between posed and purely in situ shots. Right, right. Pose shots can be equally instructive. It's just a function of making sure that we're being honest about what the sort of the background looks like,

the context looks like, where they could reasonably be found. Even if you found them under the old ceramic toilet bowl and the pine barons, right, Well, they could just as easily have just been sitting, you know, cryptic basking in that perfect little sunspot right over there. If the temperatures were slightly different or, you know, slightly more or less wet, all those different various factors, it probably does spend some of its time there, right? So much of this is an observability question, as we've been talking about a lot lately. And, you know, we need with snakes in particular, we need to seize our moments of. findability or detectability moments. We need to seize that opportunity.

And sometimes there's value in the image in sharing the search image that someone else could use to detect them. Other times it's, well, here it is within absolutely, you know, its utilization of the environment some of the time. It isn't actually what it was doing at this time because of the temperatures or the humidity or whatever specific conditions when you happen to observe it. Right. But I don't think that's disingenuous because it is. speaking to the nature of the animal and stuff. Right, right. And, you know, I think to understanding the natural history and what they do in their natural environment definitely helps where you can accurately represent what they're doing, you know,

like, you know, for example, like, you know, we found a WOMA on the road. And obviously, we're not going to sit and take all these nice photographs of it on the road. when two feet off the road, there's beautiful red sand with spin effects and, you know, their natural habitat. And, you know, we probably could have followed it around and waited for it to move. But it also might have just gone immediately down a hole. Right. You know, like, you followed it. Oh, I'm going to take the hands off for it, you know, whatever.

Again, I understand that. I appreciate that. I think it's, as you just said, you know, I think lizards are. Depending, varying by species and type, much more willing to just sort of display natural behaviors, not really be bothered by us. And if you gave them that little bit of space, they probably won't instantly seize the first opportunity to run. For the most part, when we're in a snake space, I think we represent, I get the feeling

that we're representing, they perceive us as representing such a threat that they're not, as soon as they're fully aware that we're there and they're reactive in response, to it, it seems like their principal concern becomes pure flight, as opposed to, oh, well, he took a step back, so I guess I can just exhibit my natural behaviors. Right. That doesn't typically happen. Right. Unless you're Rob Christian, then you can go tickle them on the chin and back up.

And I think there's something to that where, you know, sometimes if we see a snake in our first inclination is to run over and pick it up and check it out, you know, that kind of. He's it like an avian predator. Yeah, exactly. Then, you know, we're not going to see natural behaviors. We're not going to see it sticking around in its natural environment. But, you know, I guess, again, if you've got a really nice, natural, beautiful setting, for example, you know, in, was it in New Jersey when, or no, it was in Pennsylvania, in the Poconos when we, you know, went and saw those water snakes. And, you know, there was a ton of snakes in the crack, but what, you know, wasn't the most compelling images trying to, you know, get your lens right in there to get a shot of those. But the, the water snake that was out and we got it, you know, got it in hand and put it on the, put the water fall on the background. Yeah, it's a nice little beautiful shot. So I, and obviously it's probably crawling through there to get to the water

from the crack. And anyway, so it wasn't that far from reality. And I think as long as you're honestly representing it based on your knowledge of its natural history, I don't think there's any problem with those kind of setups. I don't think that's dishonestly representing how, you know, the animal. It's in its environment. Again, you're not like putting it up in the tree when it's a fossorial snake, you know. But then again, I mean, you might find a woma up in the tree.

So it wouldn't be unheard of to see a woma crawling up a tree to stalk a bearded dragon or something. So and documenting those kind of behaviors is obviously very exciting. I mean, with the, that mulga snake that we found in the act of consuming a DOR, uh, death adder, like I was filming that on the road. And that was very exciting regardless of the background because you're filming some cool natural history. You know, I guess if you're seeing like a pair of scrub pythons wrestling or, you know, combating males, you're not going to care that they're on a roof or, you know, somewhere. Or a lawn or whatever. Exactly.

Or, you know, they have a big chicken in their belly. You're not going to take it out of the chicken coop because that's kind of a compelling story and you're telling the story of it. And, you know, I guess, you know, fossil oil snakes that are often found under rocks. Maybe that is a reasonable story to tell, you know, you're taking picture of them in that environment. I don't know. I still, I still would prefer to look at art over, you know, but I definitely can see that, you know, having them in situ can teach you more and, you know, you can learn about where to look for them. I do think that's a great example of Eric looking in the buttress roots, you know, like, because that's where all the pictures. are taken or, you know, that kind of thing.

Right. That's why it sticks out so, so well. And he, you know, kind of got that full circle within the context of that trip. It's not finding fault and it's not saying, oh, look, how silly we were or whatever. We figured out within hours of that being a starting point of saying, oh, actually, maybe this is what's a big driver for what we're actually seeing that evidence. Let's take a half step back and try and figure it out. And I know, Keith, even in the context of it. the Owen Pelly, right, being the one who found it, he, that evening, that we had had a ton of

discourse around, okay, what would, what is the search image? What, what is the presentation that we're anticipating? How, what would the context be that would have them out? And certainly his eyes were where they were relative to the expectation based on a lot of thought, ideation, conversation that we had been having over the course of the trip. Initially, we're just sort of wandering about, right? Right, right. As we have plenty of time within our own heads, as we just talked about with Stephen Fallick earlier, right,

that, you know, you get plenty of time in your own head to try and think it through for better or for worse. And, you know, that was, I know, Keith credits, you know, that find with those internal and external conversations we were having, based on all the time we weren't finding stuff and saying, okay, well, what is the context here? What would that look like? Right.

Yeah. Now, that becomes very difficult in a large, you know, 3D landscape with epic proportions, you know, like, I guess I got the same sense looking for bretali, right? Yeah, you could see a bretelai in the top of a tree, you know, a 30 feet off the ground, but how good is that, you know, what's that going to do you? good is that going to do? I mean, it's a little less exciting than seeing one at eye level,

you know, or crawling on the ground. So, you know, maybe I'm going to, I'm going to look in more trees and spend less time looking high as looking in the places where I can get a reasonable shot or, you know, have a better chance of actually seeing it, you know, than trying to scrutinize, you know, hollows way up in the top of a tree, you know, so. And granted, I mean, there's definitely luck to that and things. But that's kind of what Gavin mentioned. He's like, yeah, they're absolutely all the way up in the top of the trees. But you're not going to see him. And even if you do, you're not going to get a great pitcher. So why spend time looking? Yes. Why are you focusing there? Exactly. Same conversation with Stephen. Relatives that we're talking cuts looking on cuts for

Alternate. And it's like he mentioned that, yeah, he in general disfavors cuts that we're either looking or walking. cuts that he wouldn't be able to get an alternative off. Right. Like, what, what are you doing to yourself? You know, or we've had, even going back several years when we talked to Blaine Mazzetti in the conversation of, you know, do you cruise roads that are sketchy as heck? Right. Right.

Is that a good idea? You know, sure, there are snakes there. A lot of them are going to be dead. And you might join them, you know, if you're not careful. Well, is that worth cruising, you know, and his. His standpoint was yes. Right. Absolutely.

You know, still do it. There's no shoulder that, you know, it's got the little lips and all that. But that's, there are snakes there. Right. Yeah. And I mean,

all the kind of stuff has to be weighed and, you know, and yeah, if you do find one there and, you know, I guess that's your choice. And when you're the finder, you can say, hey,

I'm going to pose it absolutely falsely. And it's going to look ridiculous to people who know the natural history of the species. you know, but I don't know, I guess it's your, your option if you find it. You might look stupid or you might look foolish. You might be judged for it. Yeah, or you might mislead people for a long time, like thinking, oh, I need to look here or this is where they're found. And I, you know, I do think there is something to that with the bretles in the rock escarpment.

And I mean, but for a given time of the year, they are absolutely utilizing rock escarpment. you know, probably in the colder months when they're more inactive and they might be coming out in the spring or something like that. You might catch them on their way out of their, you know, area where they're kind of overwintering. Same with diamonds or other carpet python for that regard. But yeah, do you, you know, find one in a tree and put it on the rock? Maybe you do. I don't know. I mean, technically that's illegal.

So you probably shouldn't do that. But, you know, I'll just say we didn't see any game. wardens patrolling out in central Australia, but that's not to say there couldn't have been some. Sure. You want to follow the laws. Yeah, but yeah, even probably taking a pitcher is probably technically illegal because you're, you know, altering its behavior or whatever. So some of those things are kind of ridiculous. Things like that.

It might be, you know, you might not see a game warden, but someone might still be seeing you, you know, and what you're doing. Right. Right. For sure. Yeah. And definitely, I mean, there's that story that Dustin told of his buddy getting popped in, you know, and with a twin spot. Like, I found one. And then the Warranger pops out of the tree saying, here's your ticket.

Here's your $5,000 fine. Like, whoa. Yeah, you don't want that. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that go into this, obviously. It's not a, you know, clean cut. Always do this or always do that. But, yeah, keep in mind.

there could be legality, there can be misleading, you know, poses that you might put the, put the animal in, where you could, you know, have somebody misunderstand what they actually, actually do or how they're actually found. And you don't want to send poor Eric looking at all the buttress roots, you know. All the buttress roots, you know. Yeah. And I mean, another part, just in situ photographs that, you know, it's the idea of acting natural when on television, right? And how it's actually incredibly difficult. That's true.

In situ photographs, right? Often, there's a subtle beauty to those images that is often great. You know, that being said, the flip, the flip clips aren't really in situ photographs in the sense that very clearly, you know, the lid just got removed from that snake's universe, right? So that's not a true expression of that, but just. in terms of if they're in their context, if they are out, they're detectable. All those are the perfect rattlesnake, nook, you know, there is an appeal to that.

Sometimes, as you say, you can get a good photo that's compelling and speaks to that. Other times you can't. So, yeah, I do think it's a range of, range of results. Right. Oh, I was going to mention another thing. I was watching, re-watching that footage from, oh, go, a YouTube video on the spider tail vipers, that check couple that goes, you know, the living zoology.

So they went and found a number of spider tail vipers. And at the end of the video, it shows them, you know, going, running over to one that they found on a rock pile or, you know, kind of a, you know, four-foot-high ledge or whatever. They grab the snake with the snake hook and take it over across the little, you know, depression onto the hillside where it's kind of just, you know, not really rocky like they hang out in. But, and then the snake's kind of crawling on open ground and that kind of thing. Now, I'm thinking, why did they do that? Why didn't they just film it, you know, on the rocks where it was in situ?

And there was actually when, when they went to get that one. one, the, the gal said, hey, there's another one right there and I can hear it hissing in the, you know, and she, she looked down and there, there was, you know, in one of the cracks just right next to where this other one was found. So probably, you know, maybe a pair or maybe this is a good spot for them to hang out. But anyway, so they did pull it on the other side, but there's some crazy footage of this animal. They show it crawling using concertina locomotion, serpentine. locomotion and even sidewinding locomotion. I'm like, I didn't know spider tail vipers could sidewind, you know, and maybe that's a little bit artificial because it's plopped out in the middle, but absolutely if it can do it, it probably uses that, you know, if it's moving at some point one area to another. So, yeah, something you can learn by actually taking it out of it. Yeah, exactly. And so they were filming that and, you know, you might look at that and go, oh, did they find it crawling across the hillside or is that you know did they flop it you know where it wasn't and

disturb it and so now it's trying to crawl away and it's using any method of locomotion it can use to get away and get to where it needs to go get to the safety of the rocks and that kind of thing you know and and you know i always i still just that footage of the galapagos iguana is hatching you know and in these true filmmakers that spend months months, you know, following certain animals or waiting for Galapagos iguanas to hatch and run across the, you know, the gauntlet of racers. Just, I mean, my hat goes off to those folks. And I actually got to meet a filmmaker down in Canab. I don't know if I mentioned this, but he filmed the documentary titled Willow.

It's a nature episode, the, you know, TV show Nature, Nature. I've always loved that program, but I haven't seen this one yet. So I need to go find, find out where to watch it. But it follows the entire life of a mountain lion named Willow, you know, over the course of like 10 years or something. So when I met him, I'm like, how did you fund that? How did you get the money to follow around a mountain lion for, you know, a decade? like because he had footage when it's like juvenile you know spotted and then up to an adult and until the animal eventually passes away and so you know a very compelling story and and he said that

I also asked how did you track you know how did you know it was willow because you see in so many documentaries like it shows clearly one animal and then it shows a different animal you know in the next scene, but it's telling, oh, this is the end. Now it's laying eggs. Now it's doing this. And it's just a compilation of different animals doing interesting things, but they try to make a story out of it. So again, you know, like the Steve Irwin coming on a clutch of hatching green tree pythons where it's like, did that really happen, you know, or Brian Barcheck, you know, riding a camel to find venomous snakes in central Australia. And, you know, knowing that one of my friends over there provided some of the animals for his show and they were not they were absolutely not wild animals you

know some of them might have been but you know that honesty like how do you know which ones were wild and which one were captive obviously the giant you know fat a well-fed snake is probably not wild but you know there are some wild snakes that actually look very robust and very healthy and very better than you know some of our captive animals for sure so um Yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to tell truth from fiction. And I think a lot of that does go back to, you know, these nature shows that are dumping lemmings off of cliffs, you know, to show that they run into the sea. So, you know, I guess as long as you're representing the natural history story accurately, you know, sure, maybe that's, that's okay. But if you're if you're just throwing a bunch of baby green tree pythons in a tree going,

hey, look what I found, you know, I don't, I don't agree with that. I think that's misrepresentation, you know, like that. Again, that's kind of set up to make you look like a naturalist, but in actual actuality, it's setting it up and it's fake, you know. So how do you tell the fake from the real in those documents? And they're trying to entertain. They're trying to, you know, get people excited about. animals, which is fine. That's a fine goal to have, but, you know,

the ancillary motivations and things. Yeah. We just happened upon this. No, you didn't. Tell us the truth. Right. It doesn't detract from the beauty, you know, the beauty and the ability to share to impart knowledge, being honest about what's happening. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I think that's the, that's the area where it really frustrates me. So comparatively, you know, you've got planet Earth that's camped out and waiting for these, you know, iguanas to hatch or or waiting for the hunting pot of, you know, killer whales that are known to do this certain technique to catch seals or. And sitting out on this island in the sun baking and miserable for weeks waiting for their opportunity to film this. I mean, that's, that's, that's honesty.

You know, that's crazy. But it's, but it's very hard to get that, you know. And so sometimes you got to dump the lemmings off the edge to tell the story. I don't know. I don't know if that's, that's reasonable or not. So I guess you guys can decide what's ethical or what's honest to you. Yeah, because I do love to see the animals. You know, I went and saw the Steve Irwin movie in the theaters just so I could watch a

Perentee run across the big screen, you know, like, that's kind of cool. Yeah. Even though that, that movie's kind of corny and, you know, seeing a Perente on the, on a full-screen movie theater was pretty, pretty dang cool. Yeah. That's, yeah, I guess, I, I, I want my videos. I'm mostly the videos I take are for me to remember how cool that. that trip was, you know, that's kind of the main thing. To share that with other people, sure, but also to, to document what I saw, you know, as I saw it,

rather than trying to, you know, manipulate it or contrive something. So, yeah. Again, lizards are much easier to photograph doing cool things or video doing cool things as compared. Snakes don't do a lot, right? I mean, especially the ones I, the pythons, like, they're sitting, wait predators. They're ambush predators. They don't move a lot. So if you want to get them doing something cool, you've got to watch them quite a bit or see them at night.

And that has its own challenges for photography, especially videography. You know, you got to have all this artificial light and it looks terrible. But, you know, it can look good. But it's hard to make it look good at night. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, any other points to hit on? or we kind of covered it.

No, I think that's pretty good. You know, the idea is, as always, to kind of prompt some ideation and thought around it. I did, although this does fit in, the algorithm had recommended a page. I think maybe you would like some stuff on there. It seems like it is a composite page where someone's putting together, you know, results that are being put to get, put photos from other photographers. but in situ photography, insitu perpetology, something like that.

Okay. And that actually was, yeah, just recommended this week. And it's, yeah, it was thought-provoking, you know, and it actually, you know, in line with your prompt to have this conversation today,

it did jump out to me. I know as I was going through the various photos, Yeah, I had a lot of different sort of natural reactions to a lot of those photos. Some of I said, yeah, maybe. You know, others capture amazing natural history moments, you know, feeding, different behaviors, some of those things. Some of them presumably are in situ because you can barely see the animal, right? It's actually behind, you know, a bush or whatever, you know.

And so I don't doubt that that's, you know, genuinely as found, right? Right. Kind of the page goes into that as an idea and all those things. So, yeah, I would recommend folks check that out. That's always a little bit awkward in the context of compendium accounts, right, that are reposting things from other people. Is that a, it's on Instagram? Is that what it is? Okay.

Yeah. That's always tricky. So there's kind of, there's a lot. I did see that photograph of the puff adder that was. inside the line tilt? That's crazy. Yeah, I was like, what the? Yeah.

Reading the comments is never a good idea, but it is sort of like, what? Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I don't know what to make of that. Right, right. Yeah, that's cool. I do enjoy those kind of neat natural history moments that you can capture and just come upon like that, you know. but those are kind of few and far between.

Oh, the other question I wanted to pose was, if you're lifting up a rock, does that automatically make it not in situ? Right. Because you've, you've, yeah, taken the lid off. It's not in situ anymore. It's artificial because the rock should be down on top of the snake. I think, yes, is functionally, you know,

you've just opened up a window that didn't exist. So probably, that's probably correct. Right. Unless you can see through rocks or, you know, photograph through rocks, then you're making them not in situ. Yeah. But how about in a zoo, you know, if you're taking pictures, something doing a natural behavior in a zoo, you know.

It's certainly interesting, but yeah, probably. And maybe interesting, instructive potentially, you know, if there, if it's. You can learn things from it, but. Yeah, if it's analogous, you know, to. a function that it would engage in in the wild for sure. Yeah. I got a cool... Maybe not on the hammock,

but in that context, but something that, you know, you might see the function work the same. Yeah. I was watching a toad head of the gamma come out of the sand at the Prague Zoo and it was, you know, kind of shaking off the sand and it was puffing out its little side frills or whatever. It was pretty

cool, you know. That's absolutely cool. Yeah. Yeah. But... That's absolutely cool. I would not count that in situ. You wouldn't say that you saw that in Kazakhstan, in situ, you know, like, yeah. Yeah.

So, or Mongolia, you know, whatever. So, yeah, and that's, I guess that's a whole other topic is,

does the, if they're in an art of, if they're invasive somewhere else or, you know, not natural, or naturalized somewhere else, you know, is that in situ,

you know, if you, right, you're watching a Burmese, Python in the Everglades, is that in situ or is that X-situ? You know, it's not there. Now they've become naturalized or invasive or however you want to look at them. Yeah, I've been thinking about that a fair bit.

Right. I don't know. Maybe I'll have more thoughts in a few weeks. Yeah, we can maybe revisit this down the... Yeah, I think there's... Yeah, I'm not totally... And part of it, right, is I have lots of different ideas, but I don't necessarily have lived experience to tie it to. And so maybe if I'm at a point of having a lived experience, it'll inform, pick a direction, you know, inform a direction for all these various different feelings and ideas that I'm having now.

Right. Cool. Well, I think we've done it. Okay. Or done the first part of it. Done a part of something. We've done something. Any cool herptical,

cultural, herpetological things you've seen or listened to lately? Yeah, so lots of good podcasts. I don't, certainly the one you mentioned, Ryan was talking with Stephen Cush. Yeah.

Yeah, that was good. Nick and MJ. we're talking. That was interesting. There was a lot of interesting stuff there. Most of my time has been task-focused over the last week. So lots of time in INAT, lots of time in thought, lots of time in lit, lots of time in satellite images, things like that. So that's kind of been very introspective and self-focused. So I don't know that I have a great other references.

I came across that responsible herpticulture magazine recently, and I was compelled to subscribe. So, yeah, I've been reading through those articles. There's some good articles in there, you know, really interesting things. Okay. One of them was the breeding of one of the grisiest type monitors. That was pretty cool. That is very cool. They detail the, I guess, first captive breeding by.

maybe non-zoo, what's that, private, you know, individual. But yeah, pretty cool. But, yeah, I think they kind of credited their success to having like a room size enclosure, like a giant enclosure. Interesting. That they're very nervous and they like to have lots of room and boroughs to, you know, get away from people and stuff like that. I did get the opportunity to work with those decades ago. Oh, wow. They're beautiful animals, like the banding, and especially when they're hatched out.

Juveniles are really impressive looking. Yes. Yeah, kind of a fun article to read. And then, yeah, there's one on the Spider-Tale Vipers and their success at the Plisun Zoo or a Pilsen Zoo. Really cool stuff. So, yeah, fun. Lots of good articles in there, though. Okay.

One on Darwin Frogs. Pretty interesting. small frogs from South America that brood their offspring and the male broods them in his throat pouch. So he'll basically swallow his babies and, you know, the eggs. I think that it's the tadpole stage and then once their little froglets, he kind of spits them out and they go on their way. Pretty bizarre way of rearing your young. But they're, you know, impact. acted by Kittred.

Sure. So they've had to set up, you know, facilities to reproduce these things in captivity and then had some places where they could fence off their natural environment and release them back into the wild in Kittred Freez areas. Sure. Things like that. So kind of a cool, cool effort.

Sad that we have to go to these things. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what a terrible scourge that Kittred has been. And, you know, it's a very, very sad tale for sure. Yeah. Yep. I think I listened to, I think the ones you mentioned are, you know, the ones that kind of came to mind.

But I listened to somebody on, oh, is Kevin Messenger. Yeah, I have that cute app. I was going to, I'm sure that it's good. I did get that book. So Zach had talked about it on a recent Calubrid and Clubber. brood radio as part of his science discussion on the front end of the show. I think, oh, I think it was actually the one, maybe it wasn't. They just had Jordan on.

Yeah, yeah. I listened to that one really. Yeah, that was fantastic. I mean, Jordan never disappoints. He does a really good, good podcast interview. So, yeah, I'm excited to get him back on here. It sounds like he's pretty busy, though. He's traveling a lot over the next few months.

And so we'll have to catch him after a lot of the travel. But I'm looking forward to herping with him at IHS and getting out. It's going to be a challenge, though, with all the people, kind of concentrated in that little area. We're trying to figure out where we might go to be free of crowds at least, you know, and have those. I mean, it is fun to be social in some ways, but at the same time, it's like, I had almost rather be herping, you know, than chatting with folks. But I am looking forward to

seeing a lot of friends and new friends there that I haven't met in person yet. So it's going to be a pretty big group there. Yeah. Yeah. It should be a neat meeting for sure. But looking forward to that in July. Still

weighs off. But it's getting closer, I guess. Time goes by pretty quick. I can't believe we're already halfway through May. I sound like one of those idiot newscasters. Can you believe it's already May? Oh, boy. Yeah, that's how time works.

After April comes May. All right. Well, thanks for listening. And thanks to Eric and Owen. As always, appreciate their support and help in doing this and keeping the podcast coming out. So good job, Eric. Thank Eric next time you see him. here. All right. Well, thank you for listening and see you next time.