At the Zoo

People, think about it. In the wild, when a tortoise accidentally finds itself upside-down, who comes running to turn it over?

It's not an emergency. Just go about your visit. Thanks.

Man vs Nature

This is my boss trying to persuade that cottonmouth there on the floor to go into a clear plastic tube. I know, it's not the greatest picture, but I was wearing sandals and didn't want to get closer. It is not recommended to wear sandals when there is a venomous snake on the floor, but I had no idea when we started that putting it on the floor was going to be part of the technique.

The point of getting the snake into the tube is so we can safely do medical procedures without being bitten, or, like we were hoping to do here, figure out what sex the snake is. Which, unfortunately for the snake, requires a bit of poking into its private parts.

It didn't work this time, by the way.

(PS: Click on the picture for a closer view.)

Low tech

Here's a six month old green tree python with my fingers for scale. I promised earlier I'd post one together with the baby and fingers picture for comparison. But I realized that figuring out how to lay out the pictures next to each other was harder than figuring out how to lay out the snakes next to each other and take another picture:

Mother and child reunion

Here's one of those baby green tree pythons again, this time with its mom.
(It does not live with her - our professional green tree python wrangler is offscreen, holding the baby's stick, as you can see on my Flickr.)

Transformation

Here's a six month old baby - well, toddler - green tree python starting to change color. Compare it to the yellow baby in the post below. You know you can click on the pictures to see them huge, right?

I have some pictures with my fingers to show the size comparison too, which I will post whenever I have time to figure out whether it's possible to layout pictures next to each other.

Blessed event

Look at this snake:



Now look at this snake with my fingers!



So cute and tiny!

Here's another:



These are baby green tree pythons born about a week ago. There might be a link over to the right there to a story I wrote on green tree pythons. If it's gone, there's an illegal copy of it at the end of this thread.

Reptile delinquents

This is a gang of juvenile leopard tortoises with stockings over them. Obviously they are getting ready to rob a bank. I managed to sneak up on them and snap a picture with my cell phone, to be used as evidence later.

OK, no, actually they are being shipped to California in a box, but that doesn't sound nearly as exciting.

RIP

This Asian water dragon at the Reptile House died on Monday. She was ancient, 19 years old, probably close to the maximum possible lifespan. We all thought she was sweet, because she was kind of blind and helpless and we had to hand-feed her earthworms behind the back of her former regular keeper who we didn't think spoiled her adequately.

No, she didn't have a name. That's something mammal people do. In fact reptile keepers often don't even use the English species name, but the Latin name instead. Sentimental fools.

What I learned...

while researching an article on effects of possible federal regulations on snake ownership:

Of the 4.8 million American households that have pet herps, 50 percent have a turtle, far more than any other type.

(According to a survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturer's Association.)

I was surprised by this at first, because my feeling about turtles, especially aquatic ones, is that they're too much trouble to take care of unless I'm getting paid. But of course - it's because turtles are so cute that people probably don't even think of them as reptiles really.