Reptile Fight Club - What constitutes a morph?

Episode Date: April 22, 2023

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

Welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club, where Chuck has just unleashed his inner mutton. Yes, I have. That was a good time. We were driving through Darwin. Nick was eating an ice cream cone. Well, an ice cream bar with chocolate covered and uh breeze went through the window and pulled a piece of chocolate off of his chocolate bar and slapped it onto um mark spittaro's face mark spittaro's face yes that's correct and nick didn't notice and kept on talking and mark spittaro's like really man come It happened twice. So that was pretty fun. All right. I don't see any chocolate flying off your little treat there.

I don't have a Mark Spataro to put it on right now. It's true. It's true. Well, yeah. Those things. Good. So, yeah. How about you?

Really good? Got a new package from FedEx yesterday, and I joined the club. Which club is this? I'm trying to be cool like you, man. Still unclear in which way you are talking about. Oh, okay, okay. You've got to be more specific. My pair of diamonds arrived

no yeah yeah yeah they're pretty sweet are you uh are you stoked when's what tell me more tell me more they're really cool uh they're from terry burwell um and uh yeah he made some nice uh diamonds there they look really good the female's got some really nice dark color, you know, kind of along her dorsal, the, you know, man, why can't I think, along her spine, so kind of a dark around the lighter elements there. It's pretty cool looking, so hopefully that'll continue as she gets some size. Nice. Yeah.

Pretty stoked to finally be working with a pair of diamonds. Ben had some back in the day, and we worked with those for a bit. But there were all these rumors going around that Cypress Creek's diamonds were impure. And so we got rid of them. And then we found out later that that may not be true. So, yeah, who knows? Oh, I remember those days. I know, right?

Everybody's trying to disparage everybody's animals because they don't look perfect. Yeah. Like the one picture in a book or something, you know. But then when you go look at wild diamonds, there's pretty nice variability in those things, which is one of the reasons for the book, right? That was kind of, you know, the first edition of the carpet book, I wanted to really highlight the variability of wild carpet pythons. And so I hope we achieve that. And I think we did it even more so with the second edition and included more diverse photos of wild specimens. Although

it is kind of surprisingly hard to find wild diamond photos from outside, like outside of the Sydney area. Not many people find them, you know, kind of further south at the more extreme extent of their range. So most of the pictures we have are kind of from a smaller area, but I think that kind of highlights it. I don't know. But yeah, I'm stoked. They're cool. I don't have them housed outside yet. When do I get to see like pictures of, you know, like, they're still pretty little, huh? They're pretty little. Yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're juveniles for sure. Yeah.

I mean, they've got a little size on them. But, yeah, they're really, really looking good. So, and then I got another package the other day as well. Jesus, dude. I know. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just like getting all these. Okay. Okay.

Okay. I'll bite. I'll bite. What did you get justin this is a a legged reptile this time um i got a group of beano's geckos or bino's geckos however you want to pronounce it from they're an australian species so staying with the theme there and they are another parthenogen so they lay eggs that hatch into more females and so yeah they're kind of cool nice i yeah i've been i've been wanting to get those for quite a while and and i thought i think like josh's frogs carried them but every time i saw them at a show and asked them they didn't have any so

i saw a group for sale on morph market and picked them up so yeah they're pretty cool nice nice yeah looking forward to working with those and then the uh collared lizards are doing well my little office pets i did give one i got a trio but i gave one of the females back to brody because she she was a little smaller than the other two and she just was kind of like always hiding and looking like she was stressed now so i'm like yeah i better just do a pair so went with that nice there yeah it's just funny because you got half of your face on and half off of the screen oh really so i was gonna i see my whole face i just move over to match it yeah oh so i see your whole face yeah that's weird ruby says hi hey ruby what's up how's pete call doing doing yeah yeah but yeah i'm uh i'm excited to watch these diamond pythons get bigger oh i got

woma eggs too so it wasn't the best uh circumstances i i was checking on all my gravid females and there were eggs scattered all around the the enclosure so she didn't wrap them or anything they were just kind of pushed off to the side and there were only three that I could find in a slug so I wasn't sure if she was for sure gravid it was kind of one of those where she I guess she didn't have many eggs in there there were only three but um I guess three is better than zero so as long as I as long as they can hatch they where they you know were outside the hatch, they, where they, you know, we're outside the, she didn't wrap them or anything, you know, you never know how much they desiccate and that's

kind of a death sentence for Python eggs in a lot of situations. Um, so hopefully the nest box that she was in will had enough moisture to kind of limp them along and they can maybe hatch out, but yeah, black blackheads blackhead eggs are still going strong i did have one kick the bucket and it was kind of a smaller sluggy looking one from the beginning it was maybe a buck chest and destined to be a bucket kicker i think so yeah so it didn't surprise me let's just put it that way. Okay. So we'll see. Oh man, I was, I was bringing the, the woman eggs in last night after I, after finding them, I just put them in with the blackhead eggs cause they're in a pretty good sized container and I needed one immediately.

So I just put them in with the blackheaded eggs. So hopefully that works out. But, um, as I was coming in the house, I had some pinky mice in my hands too. And so I was, uh, you know, I, uh, was going to freeze those down for later and, and, uh, you know, euthanized them. They're just sitting in my hand and went to put them in the freezer and dropped one of the eggs on the ground outside. So it was like, man, I, I keep making really stupid mistakes. But what do you do? So we'll see if that one hatches after taking a little tumble onto the driveway there.

But, yeah, one of these days I'll learn. Some jobs are a little riskier. Being an egg at Justin's house, risky job. Don't want to be an egg around here. I mean yeah and especially because it's like you don't want to like of course of course of course you dropped

it outside like of course of course that's where it's going to drop. Yeah. I mean it landed on some stuff so it didn't like hit the cement. So hopefully it kind of had

a more gentle landing and i knew which orientation was in so i don't know i don't know there it's already a bad situation i'm just making it worse but what do you do consistent so we had a a beautiful spring day yesterday i actually got some snakes shipped out so so that was kind of nice. All the snow had melted and everything was looking all springy and nice. And then this morning, so yesterday, like I was thinking, maybe I'll get another group of inlands shipped out. And so, you know, I had a bunch of people that purchased them back in the fall or winter. When I put them up, I started going through my waiting list and then I went to,

or I shipped some out on Tuesday and then I'm like, I better get the others out, you know, just to, well, the weather's so nice. And then got the others, the other four out yesterday. And then this morning I woke up to a couple inches of snow on the ground again. So just kind of back into it. But it looks like it's pretty much gone. I mean, there's still a little bit on the ground. But, yeah, nice little Utah spring. Yeah, you're definitely not safe in April in Utah.

Yeah. Not that California was much warmer. We did a little spring break trip to California, and it was a little chilly out there. Nice and windy, and we jumped in the ocean. We were about the only ones on the beach. I called them and told them you were coming. To set us up with some weather to make us fly. I don't want you to feel like you're being grossly gypped by living in a state that

maybe doesn't have as nice of a climate just saying thank you i appreciate it no no you're snow really made us feel comfortable i was just gonna say i mean you know it's like you you're good you're that i that ocean was pretty frigid but it was it was fun dude no there was another family down on the beach as well and uh we we you know they were kicking around in the waves too and i walked up to our vehicle and they were at their vehicle and they were also from utah so the only people crazy enough to be out on the beach we're from utah so yeah good times it's awesome but it doesn't matter hey yeah whatever brings the utah people together and if it's california if it can be california man i'm here for you it sounded like it was saint george because most of the state went down to saint

george to try to escape the the weather and it snowed and rained down there on them. So they did have a much better time than they would have up north. So, yeah, good times. But we wanted to do a little last row. The Super Bloom was nice, though. We went up to the Poppy Reserve up in Orange County. I mean, you don't have to say that I told you so, but I did tell you so. No, we tried to, I tried to kind of steer him towards Borrego just because I wanted to get out

there and have a kick around in Borrego, but we didn't have a ton of time. So it would have been a little bit of an undertaking as it was. I think we drove about two hours to get to the poppy reserve, but it was pretty, those orange flowers are nice looking there were the first yeah we uh we stopped at kind of a like it was almost like it was like a field and and i don't know if the poppies had grown there or if they were planted there it looked like they were kind of invasive in some farmer's field and he was taking advantage of it or well i guess he was just letting people check out the poppies because there was, you didn't have to pay admission or anything. So we just walked and

took some pictures in the poppies for the, the girls had a blast doing that. And then I did sneak a little herping in. So after waiting for it, I had to, yeah. After our 12 hour drive, um, I, I like dropped the kids off, dropped all her luggage off at Trig and Jenny's and, um, Anson was staying with them again. So, uh, we picked up Anson and he, he and my daughter, Ashley went with me. The other two stayed, they didn't want to go out again. They were tired from the drive, you know, that sleeping all the way is pretty rough on them, you know? So, so I, I drove another 20 minutes down to this, uh, spot that a friend shared and, and there's a little board line. And now in the past, I've hit this spot a couple of times and I haven't found much there. It's been really dry, like some dried grass and stuff, kind of low

lying. So, and there's a board line that somebody's put out there. And so we were, you know, I've checked the board line a few times, haven't seen any snakes. And my friend was, Oh, it's there's, that's a great place for cow Kings. You know, I usually see a cow King there and I'm like, Oh, I've never, never seen the snake there. He's like, really? That's so weird. But I've gone, I guess at the wrong times, kind of the drier times of the year. So this time I'm like, it's been raining a lot. It's nice and lush. I'm going to hit the borderline, you know, even if it means, uh, going right after the long drive. So I drove over there, um, and it was like a forest, man. The, the, the plant life was just almost, you know, over my head, some of the flowers and stuff. And

the downside was there were a lot of thistles. And so I'm wading through thistles getting poked left and right. I'd pulled out a couple of thorns out of my hand, you know, when I got back after looking, but first couple boards, uh, had ring neck snakes. And that was my first, uh, wild ring necks. I hadn't seen any in the wild so these are the San Bernardino variety and bright red tail you know under their their bellies so up top they're kind of dull like kind of brownish greenish colored and then below they just have these bright orange bellies that kind of fade into red as it gets toward the tail and they'll do this little curly they curl up their tails

and kind of flash that red at you as kind of a warning. So yeah, we saw five or six of those. And so that was really cool. I mean, my hands smelled like Schweez, you know, after grabbing a few ring necks, but, um, yeah, we saw half a dozen of those and then, uh, um, it, it got dark. So, you know, we know, we kind of got there right at sunset. So I didn't have a lot of time to look. And it was hard to find the boards and all the growth. You know, you had to really search. It was kind of a little Easter egg hunt there for the board line.

And then so we went back after sunset. And then it was kind of funny because I didn't tell my friend that I was going there. And then I see he posted some pictures of snakes that he found that looked like he was at the same spot. And so I messaged him like, hey, I got my first ring neck, you know, and send him pictures like, oh, wow, that's crazy. I went there this earlier today and got a cow king and a gopher. And I'm like, oh yeah i saw i saw your pictures and so he's like well here's where the boards were where i found them and so i went and checked those the next day and like around noon or one o'clock and sure enough the king and the gopher were right

there so no kidding just right where he had found them the day before so there you go yeah i guess he didn't disturb him too much. And then I think he went back a few days later and found a couple more kings and, and that gopher, the gopher and the king that he found the first time we're still there. So our two, uh, you know, interruptions of their daily, uh, comfort or whatever was, uh, didn't, didn't dissuade them from using those, that board line. So they were cool with it, but I don't, didn't dissuade them from using those, that board line. So they were cool with it, but I don't know. I always wondered about that. You know, if you disturb something, um, in their, in their home, if they're gonna, you know, not use that site

for a little while or, or ditch it, you know, and I imagine some species are more sensitive, whereas like a King and a gopher probably aren't as sensitive, but I did see a few repeats on the ring next the next day too. So I saw, and then I saw another five or six. So all in all, we saw probably 12 ring necks. Uh, my first King snake in California, well, California King snake. I did see a mountain King snake, uh snake on that California trip we did with the NPR crew. But so that was kind of cool. And then the gopher was pretty nice. Had some nice yellow on it.

Pretty good size. I kind of I was kind of stupid with the king. I was trying to get pictures of it. Right. And I was trying to put it under my hat or whatever. It kept crawling away and then it crawled. I thought it was just going under the board line. So I'm like, I let it go.

And I thought, well, maybe it'll coil up under the board. And because there's just so much vegetation everywhere, I lift up the board and it's gone. And then like where it went under the board, it actually went down this like gopher hole or whatever that was next, like on the edge of the board line. So I only got two kind of crappy shots of it before it took off. So, uh, next time, but yeah,

it was a nice trip. Good to see Anson. Good to see Trey and Jenny. Uh, they're always fun to see. And their daughter, Mania was, was there as well.

So we got to see her and play some games. Trey's always a big gamer. So he had some fun games for us to play. Nice. Yeah, Anson took the girls for a ride on his motorcycle, so they enjoyed that. It was a fun trip. So, yeah, is Ruby done playing with her little school toy? I don't know, dude.

We just opened the new box and you give them. So the toys are cool for them, but they basically, so it's mostly Ruby, but she jumps on it. She rips a hole in it. She pulls all the insides out of it, grabs the squeaker, shreds the squeaker into pieces, and then leaves it all on the floor and just walks away yeah that's like you're like that's some money well spent destroys it in just yeah she is absolutely preoccupied for about a good 45 minutes and

then after that it's just cleaning up the kitchen. Yeah. Cleaning up the corner of the kitchen. Yep. That's funny. We, we bought it. We had our, our, uh, dog Annie. She passed away a few years ago, which was really a sad deal, but, um, she was such a good dog, but, um, she was out, she was an outside dog and it was kind of cold. And so Heidi, um, made her like a blanket, like, you know, uh, a little quilt type thing and, uh, and put it out there in her kennel for her to kind of cuddle up in.

And she came out the next day and that thing was just trash, like shredded, you know, she just chewed it up and spit it out. That's awesome. She's like, that took me like three weeks to make. And we, I mean, we'd bring her in the house during those cold times and she would just sit at the door and whine. She wanted to go back outside because it was too hot in the house or something. It was crazy. She loved it out there.

Yeah, she'd go roll in the snow and stuff. But, yeah, I miss that dog. I'm sure she appreciated the quilt. Yeah. I'm sure she did. Well, man, there's some pretty crappy news coming out of Florida, it sounds like. Those Fish and Wildlife that euthanized a snake that was not legal during their euthanization of a bunch of snakes that I guess were illegal.

I didn't really, I probably should have read the story, but I just see all these posts going around. I don't want to see a snake being killed, so I didn't really open those. But it looks like kind of a black eye for the Fish and Wildlife in Florida. I mean, I don't really open those, but it looks like a kind of a black eye for the fish and wildlife in Florida. I mean, I don't know. Do they even do they even take black eyes? Yeah, you never know. No, I think I think they do.

I think this negative press is probably going to hurt them a bit and they're probably getting chewed for it. You know, I hope. to hurt them a bit and they're probably getting chewed for it you know i hope but i remember there was a there was a case in utah and uh they you know it was ryan hoyer and his rubber boas i don't know if you heard that whole saga where they confiscated them because one of their informants told them that he had an illegal locality which he didn't he had paperwork for everything and all his stuff was above board. And they confiscated his whole collection and they had like 30 days to make a case. And they didn't make their case within like 120 days, you know, and just dragged it out. And he kept requesting his animals. And one by one, they were dying under fish and wildlife care. And so he sued

the state because they found no wrongdoing and they returned like a handful of rubber boas to him and the rest had died. And he was just furious, you know, so he sued the sued the state and he lost the suit. So that, you know, cost him a good 10 grand or something. And it's just like you can't fight City Hall. They did everything wrong, but there was no accountability. You know, it's just like, you can't fight city hall. They did everything wrong, but there was no accountability. You know, it's ridiculous. That's how I mean. But, but they did, they had to come do an inspection when I moved up to Smithville and

got my business license to make sure, you know, everything was above board with my facility and stuff. And they were, they came in and I asked them about that because they said, oh, you know, we need to make sure you don't have anything illegal. And I'm like, yeah, Jack, I don't have anything illegal. But I'm just curious, what would you do if I did have something illegal? Because my friend got all his stuff confiscated and he didn't have anything illegal. And they're like, oh, yeah, we know that one.

I mean, those guys got in huge trouble. A couple of them had to either transfer or one of them got fired, stuff like that. So, I mean, there were repercussions to the officers and the people that were in the, you know, fish and wildlife at the time. So I think they gave them a little more perspective on how they should be conducting themselves in this. Because, you know, they may not care about it but we care about the reptiles you know i see a lot of those memes going around like you know if if somebody killed the cat the whole world would lose their mind but just because it's a snake you know only a certain number of people care it's but it's the same thing i mean you're

killing something for no reason so they should be held to that same standard. But what do you do? Hopefully this will teach them a lesson. Yeah. I mean, I, I guess I wish I could say I'm surprised to read that, but I mean, you know, I'm not, and I, I wish I, again, you again, one of your strengths is your positivity. Well, that's what makes us a good duo, I suppose. That's right. You're the yin and I am the caca. That's not where I thought you were going. That's not where I meant to go.

I don't know how I got there. Right in the crap room. Listen, she's like, no, now she's brought it over here. She's like right behind me just squeaking. Play with me. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. I don't know.

You about ready to fight after you're done? I'm screwing around over here, yeah. I don't know, you about ready to fight after you're done? I'm screwing around over here, man. Yeah, sorry, no. No worries. All right. Do you want to introduce the topic or do you want me to? I want you to. Okay, all right.

Well, this kind of arose from a little conversation, phone call we were having the other day we were talking about morphs and kind of like some of the some of the morphs are very difficult to uh you know even see that they are morphs you know you've got some that just kind of look normal or or may have an additive effect to others and some that are polygenic and some that are simply inherited. So we thought, let's talk about that in regards, mainly focusing on maybe carpet pythons because we know them the best, but maybe including some of the things that are seen in ball pythons because they're probably the most well-estab established in regards to morphs. But yeah, we're going to kind of fight about what does or what doesn't constitute a morph. So we're going to kind of take the side of everything out there that is claimed as a morph is a morph.

Versus only a limited number of morphs are truly morphs. Does that sound like a good way to split it up? You had me at morphs. I know your love of morphs. Morphs. All right. Well, hopefully this will be a worthwhile topic. But I think it deserves some discussion.

So let's go ahead and do the coin toss. Oh, that's tails. It is. Good job. You got your tails. What side do you want? I want to be on the... I don't know. Hey, man, this is your suggestion, man. I thought you'd have it all ready to go.

No. When you won your coin toss, you'd know exactly what you wanted to fight about. I'll do that... Wait, how's it go again? Is it not all Morse ors are morse or wait what or yeah like there's there's probably a lot of morphs that we could probably say or not true morphs i'm on that side i guess it's kind of how you yeah okay okay so i'm gonna take the side of everything that they say is a morph is a morph you can take it to the bank man okay so i assume i'm going first yeah i won that's not an assumption at this point okay you just i don't know why i even ask i just

think one of these days you're gonna like be like scrooge and have a chance but like but buy a christmas goose justin but that's for me to do right like so i win the coin toss i i pick my side after laborious you know choosing and then you just go and then the one day you don't go or the one day you go and i'm like just excuse me wait i'll take this one and you'll be like oh dude thanks so much you know what i mean so i have to wait i can't like you know what i mean okay okay i have to wait. I can't like, you know what I mean? Okay. Okay. I got you. I'll just, I'll just launch from now on. Okay. So, um, I think, you know, if you look at the definition of, I mean, what does morph mean? Morph is a shortening of morphological variant, right? So I guess, you know, first of all, you have to have a standard, standard look, right? So I think with a lot of snakes, you can get kind of that standard look, um, California

King snake, right? Like, uh, uh, just a banded black and Brown or, or sorry, Brown, black or Brown with, you know, white or cream striping, not striping, but banding. Right. So, um, if you find a California King that has a longitudinal stripe instead of the typical bands, you could probably say, Hey, look, a morphological variant of the California King snake. It's a striped animal. And so, you know, from that perspective, anything that kind of deviates from the normal would would probably be fair to call it a morph. Right. Would you agree? Or I guess maybe you disagree, but I'll I'll let you get to that soon. But so that's kind of what I would start with is like just just by the definition, anything that is kind of out of the normal would be a morph. So I guess technically, you know, if they, they look different than the

regular old version of that species, then it would be a morph. And so I think when things get, things get difficult when you don't have like a typical look now, um, you know, carpet pythons come to mind, right? Because carpet pythons naturally are variable. There's a lot of different, uh, colors and patterns and appearances that you can get, you know, in a, in a given population. And I mean, if you don't believe that, look at any, you know, uh, snake catcher group in, in like Brisbane and you'll see a wide variety of different, uh, coastalam across the ocean, then, you know, you might have more what you think is a standard look because that's what all the carpet pythons in the U.S. look like

is, okay, that's a coastal. It looks like this. But then you go to Australia and there's this huge variety. What's the standard? What's the normal looking one for you to say, oh, that's a morph? Now, you know, if you see something like that's very, very that's a morph. Now, you know, if you, if you see something like that's very, very light in color, it's, you know, lacks black or, or it's albino. Yeah. That's an easy call. Yeah. That's a, that's definitely a morph, you know? Yeah. But I think there can be variations to what a morph is. And, but I think it, it kind of requires having a standard to deviate from maybe so that's what i would say is a morph is anything that deviates from the standard but you have to have that standard yeah and that's how i'd start that's kind of tough and and especially in my opinion

with carpets because that like you had said that there's such variation in them. So, so the standard can be wide from, you know, clutch mate to clutch mate. Um, and, you know, given the fact that some, so like specifically like the red gene in coastals, the, the caramel gene in coastals. Um, and I even feel like the tiger gene sometimes in coastals makes, uh, such a, uh, kind of a tough, a tough go at it as far as like what is and what isn't like caramels, for instance, you can have caramels, you can have quote unquote, super caramels, but I mean, how many times have you heard, where's the line between a caramel and I'm not sure this is a caramel. Maybe this is a super caramel, you know, people can't tell. And that just doesn't sit. I don't know. Maybe it just doesn't sit well with

me or it's very hard for me to like, um, when you have these in air, morphs that don't have a very, you know, a very defined or the edge of the phenotype is not as clearly defined. It makes it really hard. You know what I don't know. I guess tiger is one that really messes with me a little bit because you can get people who have animals that have tiger kind of – they're striped. They're really striped. But I don't know. To me, like tiger has a very specific stripe in the way it looks and the way it is. And, you know, stuff that doesn't look that way isn't a tiger to me but there's other people will be like nope that's tiger right there

they i can clearly see it i don't know i think that term tiger has been kind of conflated with striped coastal carpet you know anything that has any amount of stripe, oh, that's a tiger. But like you said, I mean, tiger came from a certain line, you know, that was that may have been naturally, you know, somebody hatched one out or got, you know, came out of the wild just with that nice, clean stripe and kind of that lighter appearance or whatever. I guess I always think of that vivarium ad picture and say, okay, that's tiger to me. Yeah, exactly. And again, it came from a specific line. And that was probably line bred or, as Warren would say, inbred throughout the years to bring that phenotype out and kind of clean it up or or but it seems like you never really saw that many that had that same clean classic appearance that you wanted you know so i think that that gets tricky once you start out crossing with you know what

you have available say you have or you try to breed it into other morphs and you might end up with something that's not as great. And then the whole breeding, you know, the jags to anything with a cloaca, as Chuck likes to say, you wind up with a bunch of intergrades and then, you know, oh, some of these are striped, you know, they might have now they're tigers you know so yes i think things get muddied up and so i i guess we need to make that distinction between line bred or or a line trait you know that you've because i think you know the especially like a polygenic trait where it's not a simple mode of inheritance. It requires several genes to line up to have that phenotype. So, you know, I think by definition, it's a morph because it's a little bit different, you know, that, that clean striping, you don't see that commonly or, or, uh, normally. So you would

probably say, yeah, that's a morph, but, uh, the mode of inheritance is probably the more of the the discussion from that point because uh you know there were clear uh results of different breeding um experiments you know where where tigers were bred to different animals and some of the some of the clutches had no striping right if you outbred it so you could it wasn't simply passed on like everybody assumed because these tigers were line bred. So of course they're seem to be such an issue because it's a quote-unquote morph that behaves almost like a line-bred animal. Which is technically a morph right

I mean I guess it's just one of those things where yes you know when you have red coastals you know they're red coastals there's very clear ones in there that you're like yep that's a red coastal born from a red baby you know

caramels very clear sometimes tigers sometimes yeah that's i'm just yeah and that was one kind of where i went the rounds with uh nick on was the the caramels yeah because there was such a diversity of phenotype now i mean granted you could it was so tricky because, you know, how do you differentiate if you don't have a genetic test to show, you know, here's the gene that's mutated and it displays this phenotype and you say, well, I outcrossed it to these different females and they shouldn't have had the, the, you know, the color of the offspring or whatever, you know, but I did see them here and, and it was in the expected ratios. Well, what if that's just lining up the

genes a certain way? And, you know, it's, that's what I, that's why those kinds of morphs that are very indistinguishable. I mean, nobody doubts like an albino, right? An albino is a clear, and you can, it's a, you know know a recessive trade and so you know you can clearly see the difference between the albino and the wild type um caramel is a lot a little more difficult and just the fact that they can't tell if they have a super or not until they breed it and produce all caramels from that animal um i, I guess that, I guess having a super form or being able to produce all caramels from a super, um, is, is guess evidence that they are, uh, you know, incomplete dominant trade, um, because there is a super form, but, um, you know, I just kept

thinking, is there another way to achieve those results without having it be a simply inherited trait? Now, Nick was – and I think he kind of talked me into it as well that that is the case with caramels. But I think my reservation for those still is that it's really – you can't tell a super from just a single gene animal. It's really difficult to tell. And I mean – That just gets into semantics, but – I get it. I get it.

Like the mandolinly inherited genetic traits, like genetically striped ball pythons. That is a simple i believe it's a recessive simple recessive so same with brettles yeah and same with brettles right yeah but then you look at stripes and coastals like oh my god it's a shit show right like so yeah polygenic yeah so so like one gene is needed for me the morphs are those those animals that can mendelianly inherit predictable traits whether that's striping hypomelanism lucism albinism whatever any any ism that can happen to the skin um you know in this case uh i just i think what would be the bit oh go ahead so so sorry so like you know striping it's and and and kind of this this this melanism that is the red and the in the

caramel and i just think that you know this isn't like a mutation that popped out in a collection. This is stuff that was brought over here and it popped out because it's in their genetic pool. It's in their gene pool. These reds are these caramel looking animals. And we're selectively breeding these. And that's why we're getting, you know but but they're not necessarily and maybe they are i mean you know maybe maybe nick's you know got the the incomplete dominant thing down with them or whatever but it's just it's obnoxious to have stuff that is considered a morph but yet you're kind of like having to explain it away to people when it doesn't or selling as possible super you know for the same price as a caramel or

i think it's more it falls in with marketing you know that kind of that's where it becomes difficult because and and i think the thing that also goes along with that is the negative by-product of, of mutations in animals, you know, like the kink tails or the neurologic, you know, inner ear issues that Jaguars have, um, things like that, where you have negative consequences of, of making morphs and some are lethal like the super jaguar you know you don't have those leucistic animals surviving and so you know and and you know people want to make quick money and that's why morphs are popular it's you know because they are cool looking you know there's some really neat phenotypes but we're we to overlook, you know, a corkscrewing wonky snake because it

looks pretty, you know? And so, and, and I don't know, that's, that's gotta at least in some regard, go back to their worth, their money that what you can sell them for, because as soon as they were not very expensive, then you had all these people saying, Oh, we shouldn't be breeding these. These are not, you know. But where were those people when they were, you know, a couple thousand dollars a piece or whatever. They were on Morelia Python's forums going, I think there's something wrong with these. They kind of screw around. Does anyone else notice this?

Anthony Caponetto says no. And it was just Anthony Caponetto in a sea of people with twonky jags going, no, there's nothing to see here. These jags do not wobble. I get it. When a project first starts, it's hard to know if that's a consequence of the gene, if that's predictable. Yeah, but by the time that thread had burnt itself to the ground, it was pretty damn clear that he knew the whole fucking time that those things were fucked up and he never said anything. But he's a businessman. Right.

You know. Yeah. I feel like that's PC for something, but all right. Yeah. all right yeah um but you know i think there's there's a lot of uh lesser flashy or less flashy mutations uh i i always thought you know with the yellow belly i was really um the yellow belly ball python right the breeding two yellow bellies you can make an ivory which is a lucas you know logistic snake basically um but who would have called that, you know, from those yellow bellies? Because they just don't look like anything.

They look like a normal ball python. But somebody noticed there was some, like, yellow flecking on the belly scales. And so they bred two of those together and popped out an ivory. It's like, whoa. Same kind of thing with, like, the Mojave. They had a neat phenotype, you know, kind of that incomplete dominant. The Mojave is a cool looking snake in its own right. And so people are all excited about that.

And I think it was the snake keeper that originated those. And they didn't realize that there was a super form because they hadn't proved out the morph that far. And so all of a sudden they're selling all these Mojaves and all of a sudden somebody pops out a... I had a super Mojave. Yeah, they're cool looking. They're cool. And then, you know, those blue eyes and white scales. And then they were like, Hey, wait, they're,

they're more expensive now because they have a super form and like, you can't put a Pandora back in the box. Right. Is that how it goes? That's, that's how that's the same. And I guess, you know, I guess for me, like, you know, I, I look at morphs more of like stuff that is, I, I look at morphs more of like stuff that is, is, has pretty clear boundaries,

right? Like Mojave to Mojave makes a lucid, lucistic animal. So it's like, that's very like stark and very obvious. It's just like, when we get into the murkiness of like, well,

we don't understand how this works, but we're calling it a morph because we put a name on it. So, you know, that's what we're doing. And over time, we'll get enough information. I mean, and that's like that's like saying if we do this long enough, we'll get enough information to make the decision that we wanted to make in the beginning. Well, you can't expect them to wait to make their million dollars until they can prove it out. And nobody wants to wait around and sit on a pile of snakes yeah i just i just find it interesting that a lot of like the the the true mutation stuff that that like we don't necessarily see coming out of wild populations like granites and like zebras and like that stuff yeah a lot of it has issues, right? But you don't – I've never heard of issues with tigers or caramels or reds because they're just color phases that happen in populations.

They're not truly like mutated. You mean they're morphological variants that pop up in natural populations. I mean, you can say that everything is a morphological variant that pops up in different locations. Except for the wild type. You are a morphological variant of Californian right now, popping up on the internet.

You know, I, again right now popping up on the internet um you know i i uh i think there are some definitely the you know morph projects that are marketed as as morphs like maybe maybe like the blue lines in in um green tree pythons you know you have some a snake with a lot of a high amount of blue and but isn't that isn't that just a change from the normal and then isn't that what you said it was yeah i mean it is a morphological variant but that that mode of inheritance is what is lacking and i think that's what that's where people go wrong but i thought we had i thought we had i didn't think we had a problem with that. Because we're not exactly sure. No, what I'm saying is anything can be called a morphological variant if it's different from the normal phenotype.

I agree. And so if you have an animal like a green tree python that has a lot of blue markings, you know, that could be considered a morphological variant. Now the, I think the discussion lies in, um, how predictable that is or, or how, you know, how that's inherited or how that's passed on the offspring. Obviously with, with the blue and green tree pythons, it's not a simple mode of inheritance. And so you've got a number of, of genes that need to line up to make make it look different and now i think that was also complicated because people were creating hybrids they were breeding the two different species and i guess there's a few subspecies in there now of green tree python which you know everybody kind of knows that if you make hybrids you usually have some weird phenotypes in the hybrid animals. You look at a super ball or something where you bring a ball python to a blood python or angry ball or whatever they call it.

There's some pretty cool looking animals, especially in the F2 generation of those hybridization events um but yeah you you mix two different populations that have that have you know um split and um differentiated from each other genetically you mix those back together and you're gonna have some weird looking things like the sickness or some of those other weird ball or green tree python um morphs or morphological variants morphological if you're trying to morphology if you're trying to get those if you're trying to produce more of those you're going to be pretty frustrated because it's uh it's a lot of different genes that lined up in just that way to make some crazy looking snake. Whereas typically you're not going to have that. You're just going to have, you know, the default, which is just a plain green snake. And so,

you know, which is completely beautiful. And I don't know why we need to make morphs of something as beautiful as a green tree python, but that's just my personal opinion. And of course, you know, I like some of the aspects. I like to look at some of those things, but like, I'm not going to spend 10 grand on that animal, you know, but I like to, I like to look at pictures. And a lot of those kind of have that crazy phase as a, as a juvenile, and then they kind of lose out as, as we go along. So as they are morphological variants, they're not simply

inherited. And so that kind of upsets people when they pay a lot of money for the genetics, but the genetics are polygenic and are not simply inherited. And then they don't get offspring that have that crazy look and they go, well, what did I spend all that money on? You know, why Justin? It's like, are you saying that? Are you saying that that that sometimes genetics is poppycock and that there's still genetics around it? Yeah, there's still genetic traits, but not simple genetic. But polygenic poppycock might not be a bad word sometimes. That's the, yeah, that'd be a good name for a band. Polygenic poppycock.

That's a good Czechism. I, you know, I think that's where people run into problems is when they market them a morph where in most people's mind, they think morph means I breed this to this and I get this, you know, I breed het to het and I get some albinos and I feel like a Mojave to a Mojave and I can get a white snake at, you know, 25% of the time, you know, on average per egg. So yeah, I think that's what people have in their mind is a morph. And so then when you sell an expensive animal and say, hey, this is a morph and then you breed it and you don't get more of that phenotype, you're like, hey, I want my money back. I got swindled. No, you didn't get swindled. You just didn't understand the mode of inheritance. It still is a morphological variant or morph, just not a simply simple genetic version of of you know you're not going to get a simple inheritance oh my god in my head there's somebody who's like yeah man he told me it was this and it wasn't this and he said that it just wasn't the correct morphological variant

what the hell is that supposed to mean man yeah yeah i mean it is i understand you know i just think that most people like when you tell them it's a morphological variant and they heard it was more and they just have a they they have this pre and rightfully so. You should be able to predict a mode of inheritance. That's why there's a Punnett square and that they've got very clear math. They did. You know, that's why the math works on that stuff. Right.

Because it's like you said, I mean, a lot of people try to get the money before they prove out the morph. Like I said, I said that, you know, a lot of people go for the sales and say, hey, look at this animal. It came from this animal. Look how crazy this animal is. Don't you want more like this? Aren't you willing to pay 10 grand, you know? And, and I think that kind of pyramid scheme mentality led to a lot of disillusioned people because they did, you know, later on when the morph was proven to be not simply inherited, but needing several genes to line up. And so you, it was very rare to produce

that phenotype. They were a little like, Hey, wait, I was not informed properly. Now, you know, I guess it's kind of a buyer beware, uh, scenario. You have to do your research and see, you know, is it worth the risk? Do I want to take this risk? Um, I was offered some of the first zebras that came in the country and it was obviously was obviously you know but do you see they did are you gonna let me finish no yeah the the zebras that first came into the country we we were offered those and this was before we knew there was a super right so it was just the the zebra pattern and stuff and so i said okay that's worth okay, that's worth, you know, that's worth the risk. And we knew they were, you know, kind of a incomplete dominant trait where you'd get some zebras and some normal jungles in, you know, when you breed zebra to normal. And so I'm like, okay, that, that, you know, that looks like it's an, at least an incomplete dominant or you know some kind of trait there that's being simply inherited and so

but then after we purchased them and we're waiting for them to come over from europe they found out there was a super form that was a patternless now we didn't know the issues with the patternless necessarily at the time i think a couple of them had little balls at the end of their tail, you know? And so, but you know, then we had that information. So we bought it without knowing there was a super, but then when the super came along, it was like, okay, that's kind of a, a nice little bonus, but it seems like the supers are a little weaker than the zebras. And so I don't even, I haven't, I produced one super, but it died in the egg. So I haven't had a live super pop out. And I haven't done a lot of zebra to zebra breedings just because of that. And they haven't looked all that great.

But anyway, that was kind of a deal. Yeah, they really don't do any. I mean, I kind of held out some hope for those things that they could clean them up and really get them really bright. They'd be refined. Just didn't pan out not really but if i would have gotten if i would have gotten that zebra and and it would have you know i bred it to something and i got no zebras i would have been like wait a second you know i thought half the offspring on average you're supposed to be um zebras and and none are, you know, I'd be a little upset.

And, you know, some of those early project had some people like swapping out hats for normals. And so people would buy hats and get no, you know, none of the homozygous morph. Do you remember that when Anthony was running around just absolutely telling people that Tiger was a simply inherited? Remember that? Oh, yeah. I mean, he threatened to burn me to the ground because I disagreed with him on that and said it was a polygenic trait. Oh, yeah. But he knew. he was convinced i guess that's that's my thing is like you almost have these instances where you're shown

the true intention and the intention was always to pass them off as a morph and sell a ton of them and you couldn't get the production going because it's not a fucking true morph you know it's it's a it's a polygenic it's not a morph it's not stop stop just stop with the nonsense man it can be a cool thing doesn't have to be a you know i guess my point in doing that is to to make people aware there's different kinds of morphs right you can have something that looks very different from the normal but that doesn't mean it's simply inherited that doesn't mean it takes one gene and you're going to get that look in the offspring right away i mean you could you could say the same thing for albino right if

you sold somebody an albino and they bred that albino to their normal, that phenotype. And you passed one copy to each of the offspring, not two. And so you have to breed the Hets either back to the albino or to each other to get that, those two copies of the gene to line up. And I guess I'll switch it and look at it from a different angle. You know, if you're investing in morphs or if one of the reasons why morphs are cool is that you can predictably put two animals together and predictably get some reasonable ratio of morph to non-morph or, you know, outcome. Right. Yeah.

But you can't do that with some of these like polygenic, you know, you, you can't do that. So like what, so, and I guess at some level you could sit there and be like, well,

everything is morph. I mean, at some level it's all genes, so it's all inherited. So any weird little thing is, you know, I mean, like that's what I'm saying is I think that's a that's a shitty little chintzy way to win your argument. Well, no, I'm not trying to win the argument. I'm trying to educate that if you everything's genetically based, I mean, you're, you don't have a phenotype necessarily that's not genetically based. Can you, can you name a morph that is not genetically based? You know what I mean?

Like there, there's some kind of, the genetics drive the phenotype, right? I mean, maybe there's some kind of case of, of, uh, you know, some weird mode of inheritance or, uh, you know, the, uh, what's it called? The non-genetic inheritance, um, where epigenetics epigenetic inheritance, there you go. Um, so, you know, you might, there might be something out there that, that is epigenetic. We had to have Ben on here. He could probably, you know probably educate us on all those kind of things. But if you're getting into a project, you should probably ask a lot of questions to try to figure out what the most likely scenario for the inheritance of this trade is. And if you have a breeder that's not sharing that information, either they don't know it, they haven't done the work to figure it out, or they're trying to swindle you for money. I mean, I think another good example of that is the Macklots bred to a carpet or the Carplots or whatever.

And then somebody bought the Carplots and then just forgot to mention that they were a hybrid. And so everybody's like, whoa, look at those crazy looking carpets. I need some of those. And then they found out it was just a hybrid of a, of a carpet and a Mack lots, you know, so people, and I think a lot of the, the big name breeders were fooled into thinking they were something special, you know? And, and I think when you get that excitement or the, the dollar signs in your eyes, because you're going to get a new morph or, you know, ground level of a morph and you're going to make all this money off of it, then, you know, you're probably going to get taken some of the time if your focus is on making money. You need to say, wait, how is this inherited? You know, and if they don't know, then you roll those dice. That's up to you. But try to get as much information as you can before you spend your

money. If you're, if you're looking to get that, that morph, that different looking animal, because it could just be somebody spray painted a carpet Python black and said, Hey, this new melanistic carpet Python, send me, you know, 15 K and I'll send you one. So then that actually happened. So, you know, we need to be careful with your investment and be careful who you trust. And sometimes it's not a bad deal to wait until you're the, you know, second state, second, you know, down the road a little bit from the people who first made it. Because usually there is some refinement of the morphs people make them look better or and they also go down in price so if you really like that animal for that phenotype why not wait till that's all worked out and it's

less expensive but uh yeah technically they're all morphs but the mode of inheritance technically importantly that's the important information now i guess i shouldn't say that because i've seen some things and i'm like are you sure they're calling this a morph but granted i haven't really looked into it much but i'm just like there there's like how many million morphs of crested gecko and i look at them and i go these all look just like normal crested geckos. Like, I don't know what they're really kind of reaching here. You know, now let's say the lily white. Yeah, that's a morph, you know, that's shown to be predictably inherited and in a simple recessive manner.

So I think, I don't know. I haven't really looked into that one that much either, but you know, there are very few non polygenic morphs in a lot of these things. Um, and green trees seem to have that a lot too. There's also a lot of bullshit where they're like, Oh look, a new spot on this fucking gecko. It's a new morph. We can sell it for more money. like that is going on and i guess exactly what i'm saying is that i don't like my morphs dirty and all over the place i like them neat and tidy in the box you only accept simple inherited if you do not if you do not fit into the morphological ratios that prescribed by Mendel, then I, sir, cannot mess with you. You and Mendel would have been great friends.

Yes. I understand him and his putting people in boxes. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, I guess buyer beware, do your research, understand what you're getting into, you know, think about these, how these could be inherited. And, you know, if you're, if you have some weird variant pop up or you get something, you know, field collected, that's weird looking, do your, you know, that's kind of a long road, you know, make sure that's something you want to do. Now, granted, there's probably a lot of people that sell dinker projects or things that could be morphs. And, and it, you know, it is a lot of work. You gotta, you gotta breed them to a few different unrelated animals. You gotta hold back

the offspring. You gotta breed those back to each other or to the parents or whatever, you know, and then you wind up with a bunch of inbred things. But you could discover that they are morphs. So maybe I don't understand how these things operate, but could we start up like a dinker morph NFT? Is that a thing? Could we make that a thing? You're way out of my area. I have no clue what constitutes a true NFT. I don't know.

Well, as I understand it, I'm very fungible. I'm not non-fungible. It's actually nothing that's worth something. That's how I've had an NFT explained to me, which would make sense that a Dinkerball Python project could be an nft right and it could be worth something but really be nothing and now you're thinking and and i have come full circle and pulled the two ideas together it's the next big money maker in reptiles nfts nfts yeah i have coming to you by picture of that. It's worth more than the morph.

It is itself is, you know, I think, I don't know. I think power lifting gloves was sponsoring that project. Hey, Hey, we need a shout out to our sponsor.

What? And power lifting gloves, power lifting gloves, get more of every lift with mutton power lifting gloves. We need to get Nick back on here. That would have been a fun discussion with Nick. He gets pretty passionate about proving out more. Oh, I know.

No. And I would love, I would love to give him the ribbing, especially in this discussion. So, you know, yeah, I love Nick, but. We need to think of another good topic for old nick yeah maybe i we can know we can always revisit this down the road too but um i'm still waiting for that podcast nick i've heard he's been recording some episodes but i'd like to hear his hear his stuff you know gotta get 96 episodes in before we air anything. Yeah.

I feel bad we didn't get anything last week. Lucas, it's time to release. Lucas, release the Kraken. Oh, my God. All right. Well, any cool reptile-related news or discoveries you've seen lately? I, I kinda, I did a little, uh, diving in and looking for some literature revolving around reptiles and there's some cool stuff out there. All right. You ready for this? What do you think? Did, did T-Rex and other dinosaurs like T-Rex have lips or were their teeth kind of hanging out like a crocodile?

You think they were more lizard lips or crocodile lips what do you think or or i guess you'd say crocodile no lips because crocodiles don't have lips oh my god dude stop is that a good question come on man dinosaurs this picture of these t-rex with these big ass lips like duck lips? Like T-Rex in an Instagram? That would be disturbing for sure. Yeah. Oh, boy. I saw a cartoon that said future fossil and it had like two like silicone implants and like these giant silicone lips sitting on a skull.

And the silicone implants were on the ribcage. It was kind of funny. Yeah, okay. So what's your guess? What do you think? I've got to go lips. Lizard lips? Lizard lips.

Way to go, lizard lips. No, yeah, a new study suggests that predatory dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus, did not have permanently exposed teeth as depicted in some of the films instead scaly lizard-like lips covering and sealing their mouths now it wasn't like mammalian lips they couldn't snarl and show you their teeth you know and like a mammal but more like a lizard where you know that covers the teeth and you have to open the mouth to see the teeth but when the mouth's closed the teeth are not exposed that that's their latest thinking

that's kind of cool t-rex had lizard lips huh no nice you're not you're not excited by that where's your inner kid listen i know i i get i get geeked out by dinosaur stuff, I guess. Yes. Okay, let's try this one on you. Now it's a bird. This is bird-related news, but birds are technically reptiles. They discovered two species of bird that are poisonous.

Is that cool or what? So their feathers have these batrachotoxins, and that might sound familiar if you're into herpetology. Where does batrachotoxin come up? Chuck, I'm going to quiz you here. Batrachotoxin, maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong. Batrachotoxin. That's found in poison arrow frogs.

That's what I was going to say. Where do poison arrow frogs get it from? Do you know where poison arrow frogs. That's what I was going to say. Where do poison arrow frogs get it from? Do you know where poison arrow frogs get their poison? Their diet? Their diet, right? And so they found beetles in the stomach of these birds that have the toxin, the same toxin. But the birds have found a way to concentrate that toxin into their feathers. And the scientists who discovered it, like, described it when they were handling the birds,

trying to get them out of the nets that they used to catch them. It was like cutting up an onion. So they're getting these fumes or whatever from the batrachotoxin in the bird's feathers. And then their hands would kind of get uncomfortably warm and kind of tingly or whatever so yeah poisonous birds isn't that crazy i guess they they have discovered poisonous birds before but these are the first in in you know a couple now maybe a century or a few decades since they've discovered one so one is called the rufus naped bellbird and the other is called the regent whistler so be careful don't eat the rufus the regent whistler or the rufus

don't mix them up either if you're if you're cruising through new guinea which is where they're found um isn't that cool i don't. I thought that was neat that they can store that. Then the third one that I wanted to talk about was they've discovered an antibody that is pretty broadly protective. It's a human antibody. So they found this in people that neutralizes snake neurotoxins across a wide variety of different venomous snakes so this might be something for our buddies over at venom exchange radio podcast so you hear that mr wolfie listen up do you hear that, Mr. Wolfie? Listen up, you man. Do you hear that?

So, yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. But yeah, it protects against cobras, mambas, king cobras, which are not true cobras, and crates. So that's kind of cool that they can protect against so many different species of venomous snake. So they, they actually took a mouse and injected it with a venom from a monocled Cobra, I believe. And then they injected the antibody and they saved the mouse from death. So it was a,

you know, they could treat the, treat the mouse and protect it from death. So I guess if somebody's bitten. I feel like that's a positive way to say that they tried to kill the mouse and protect it from death. So I guess if somebody's bitten – I feel like that's a positive way to say that they tried to kill the mouse. Well, I mean, yeah. That's what I do all day is infect mice with viruses and then try to protect them from the virus. I guess if that's what you do, you take the positive side of that, right?

Well, I mean, that shows us that it's possible to treat somebody that's been bitten by a cobra inject them with this uh antibody and save their life so it didn't work with with black mamba venom so it wasn't but it did prolong their lives so they didn't die as quickly so there was some protection just not full protection and the mice actually died but um you know step in the right direction and you got that's typically maybe a little difficult to see well apparently that that doesn't happen very often where you have such a wide variety of protection from different snakes now typical, typical antivenin is made from like injecting a horse or something like that with some venom and then harvesting their antibodies, right? But there's

a lot of new technologies coming along to actually discover human antibodies. So I don't know, I think that would be really cool if you could vaccinate people to snake venom. How cool would that be? You'd be a lot more, you know, easygoing and herping, you know, not worrying about lifting logs and getting bit by a rattlesnake underneath the log or something. Because you're like, nah, I'm vaccinated. It's all good. Oh, my God. I don't know. Think how sloppy you'd get if you were vaccinated.

You already almost snap on them. Well, no, that's why I want that vaccine. Or at least I have a vial of antibodies in my pocket. I can hurry inject myself. I guess we kind of have that with the different antivenin. But if it's a human antibody, you're not going to have those anaphylactic reactions that you get sometimes with the antivenin. Where you're allergic to the antivenin because it's made in a horse or some other species. And so your body recognizes that it's foreign.

But if it's a human antibody, you're like, hey, I'm not going to attack the antibody. The antibody is going to attack the venom. So, I don't know. Cool stuff. Cool stuff. You don't seem impressed. I just... You're doing backflips.

Come on, man. Did I go nay when you said horse? Yes, I did. Okay. Okay, that's your way of showing enthusiasm. Giving me animal noises. Just because I don't contribute the way you contribute doesn't make it not a contribution okay okay okay see my artistry i'll take it i'll look at it in the positive all right well good times anything else you want to throw out there?

Anything cool you've listened to? I finally got around to listening to the, the rest of the venom exchange radio podcast, a holiday show. And they gave us a shout out. They thought our field, our, our discussion from the field with Dustin and Steve,

um, that was their favorite episode of last year. So that's kind of cool. Thanks, guys. That's so funny. I was so negative on that episode just because it seemed when we were recording it, it seemed so chaotic.

And then you listen to it and you're like, oh shit, it was totally chaotic and crazy. But that's why they liked it. Because they're like, hey, we were in you know i was i was convinced that vehicle but yeah i was convinced that whole episode was just trash the eric was gonna reject it and just throw it out but yeah it was like they they felt like they were in the vehicle herping with us you know because we'd stop and go hey we gotta go see this rattlesnake push pause and come back and so i don't know i had good memories that was a fun one to do i don't i don't think steve was too excited he was focusing on driving so he's like

i don't want to sound stupid it was good steve was i think he was yeah he was he did a good job i think he was tired that night he he drove like a champ man he he. He drove the whole time. And back through California, he drove through horrible weather. He was like marathon, man. That was awesome. That was an awesome trip, though. What a great trip. That was amazing. Man, Dustin's killing it already down there.

Did you see that ring neck he found? I love the Utah and Arizona ring necks. They're so nice nice like that color that i don't even know how to describe it's like kind of an olive blue color it's really pretty and then that bright orange and red and yellow belly so cool i'm jealous i need to find one of those i need to go hit up my buddy uh sean in utah and see if he'll take me out looking for those. He knows how to find them. Nice. But yeah, good stuff. Uh, I need to get out herping. That was fun to do a little bit, but I need, I'm just itching for more. Got to get the weather warming up. I know I'm waiting for

the weather to kick into high gear around here. So yeah, they just fed Aspen and Chris. They're finding a lot of stuff down in St. George. I think they've already found a speck and leutosis, a few different lizards. They're already killing it down there. I mentioned to get down with all this rain and stuff. This is going to be a good

season, I think. Can't wait for May. That'll be a fun trip. Alright, So, yep, can't wait for May. That'll be a fun trip. Yep. All right, well, any other cool things you've been listening to? Boy. You haven't hit the podcast stuff much lately.

Yeah, I have not. I did listen to NPR with Tony Hurt. That was cool. Oh, did you? I listened to it during work, so I was a little distracted with work. But I need to go back and listen to it a little better because he talks about diamond pythons. And he's got some really nice diamonds and some diamond crosses that are really spectacular. And some jags and other carpets.

Man, Tony's got a killer collection. It's good stuff. He's seen, he's a cool guy too. Really. I got, I got a, I got to listen to that. So yeah, I just, I just fed my diamonds again. So it's like, it's still kind of cold out. So see, still taking food.

So that's cool. I, we should have come and visited you it would have been cool to see your outdoor diamonds and your tracy you're always welcome but you got there okay i understand i need to make it down i understand yeah yeah maybe i'll have to look for cheap flights and just fly down real quick do a little quick herb tripp trip and fly back. That'd be cool. It seems like plane tickets are too expensive. They are too expensive. It's crazy.

Two Australia trips cancelled because the plane tickets are too high. Although I did find a plane ticket for like $1,300 but that was from LAX so I would have to drive down anyway. I typically do that anyway to save a few hundred dollars on plane tickets. Anyway, shout out Morale Python Radio Network, the podfather himself. What a guy, what a guy.

Thanks, Eric and Owen, and for that you do. It's good stuff. Good stuff. And, yeah, we're happy to be on the network. Check me out at JGJewlander on Instagram or JustinJewlander on Facebook. That's about where I am. Posting a lot of bird pictures. I got, I found about 50 species in France. So I'm trying to get those pictures up on Instagram.

So you might see a lot of birds lately, but I did post up those pictures of the cow King and the gopher snake. So Hey, the ring necks, the French birds think they're better than other people. They stick their beak up a lot. A lot. There were some cool birds out there. They were pretty fun. I saw a

short-toed snake eagle. Whoa. That sounds fancy. I think that means they eat snakes. Yeah. They're cool looking. I only got a quick glimpse so not the best picture. Alright, well, where can the best picture. All right. Well, where can people find Mr. Chuck Poland?

I am on that. Chuck Norris wins. Yeah, I am on that Internet. And you can get me on the IG at Chuck Norris wins. And I'm just Facebook at Chuck Poland. Right on. Yeah. Well, oh, yeah, I guess I have a website.

Yeah. Australianaddiction.com. You do. I do. I don't update it very often, but you can see the stuff I'm working with to some extent. Yeah, some are not active projects and others are more active than some. Anyway. Some are more active than others. That's right.

Hey, you guys, thanks for listening. We appreciate it. We'll catch you next week. Reptile Fight Club. Later, lizard lips. Fight Club. Thank you. Outro Music