Alright, here they come!
This is Damaris the het toffee ball python. She is still a shy babe. This past weekend I did get her to chill out and explore!
These three are Papyri, the Rufous Beaked Snake! He/she (apparently super hard to sex) is an absolute dream to handle. He isn’t an immobile lump like a ball python, but he also isn’t a man on the run like my hognose. He is super alert and observant. He watches EVERYTHING with those big black eyes. They are not considered venomous, though they do have venom. I had to do a lot of research on these guys and I found that apparently their rear fangs are just really bad at envenomating people and I found no reports of a serious reaction to a bite. Love love him!
This is Jael, the het lavender 66% PH coral western hognose. I am so excited about her. I am actually purchasing a male for her from Singin’ River Reptiles which will be my first purchase from morph market. I have wanted hogs forever and I’m so excited to have her and eventually (I’m thinking spring 2023) breeding her.
This is my Firebellied Toad who has many names. The one that has stuck for the longest is Tuppy the Tupperware Frog. He is in the frogspital (a critter keeper I converted into a froggy ICU) recovering from a fungal infection and he is ABSOLUTELY THRIVING! The feeling of bringing a sick animal back to good health is such a satisfying one, as we are so often powerless over many health problems. I was gifted 2 a few years ago from a friend who couldn’t get them to eat, I bought 4 more over the course of the last 5 years and am down to one- mostly due to escapes which all happened within like 2 days, which I quickly rectified. I only ever saw one dead.
This is Eugene the moon crab, named after Mr. Krabs from Spongebob. I literally never see him because they burrow and are suuuuuper flighty. He hates being handled. Their care is super similar to hermit crabs and there isn’t much info about them online
I know he is still alive because the food keeps disappearing overnight! I picked him up from That Fish Place/That Pet Place in Lancaster, PA, which I am so very fortunate to live about 30 minutes from. His enclosure is bioactive- springtails, powder orange isopods, and I did have some plants in there that I need to replace.
These two cuties are Marigold (flame) and Tallulah (tricolor.) They are my only two who cohabitate and I sing the Sister, Sister theme song when I handle them together even though they are not actually biologically related, to my knowledge. I got them from Backwater Reptiles. I got them because I had a giant day gecko who I spent months converting an old aquarium into a beautiful, fully planted, arboreal bioactive terrarium for… the day I finished it I found him dead in his old enclosure. I got these girls to go into that unused enclosure, which they will once they get bigger.
This is Mad Eye. She is the apple of my eye and the light of my life. She is like 10. I got her from a local pet store as an adult. Her tail issue is stable according to my highly experienced exotics vet and has remained unchanged for the 6 years I have had her. She seems to live a happy life. She lives in an arid bioactive I have going on. She eats all her plants (I pay attention to what I give her) so her enclosure never stays luch for long, but the cleanup crew is THRIVING… giant canyon isopods, dubias, some crickets, etc. I watched her behavior do a complete 180 in a good way when I switched her from the artificial reptile carpet deluxe to bioactive. She eats her veggies now and loves life.
This is Flubby (top pic, Pacman frog) and Chonk (pixie frog in the cup on the left for containment during tank cleaning only.) They are great. They are also babies. Flubby’s enclosure now has no water feature (has a drainage layer and I mist and water to keep the humidity up) and is a flourishing bioactive. Chonk is too young for me to know for sure whether he is male or female and he destroys his tank constantly- he is like a bulldozer. It is half aquatic. He has his very own goldfish which I bought for a feeding experiment that now just lives with him.
This is Janet the Planet. She is an aponaphelma chalcodes. She is fuzzy. I don’t handle her, but I have handled her. She is super low maintenance and very freaking cool.
This is Merope, my male (supposedly red albino) corn snake. I had no idea of his gender when I got him so I just guessed and gave him a girl name. Oh well, he doesn’t mind. If you notice the scar on his neck, it’s from when he crawled somewhere he shouldn’t have a few years ago and got caught on something sharp. I absolutely lost my mind and drove to an emergency vet on like a Saturday night where they treated him (technically not perfectly, but better than nothing for not being an exotics vet) and gave him pain meds until I could get him to my regular vet the following week.
And those are my guys. They’re mostly pets and I just like them. We’ll see about breeding in the future!
