2010 Tucson Reptile Show

I guess everybody has hobbies.  Joel and I have a somewhat unusual one - reptiles!  We love snakes, lizards, and tortoises!  This year we had the opportunity to attend the Tucson Reptile Show in Tucson, AZ and it was a blast!  We have been planning on buying an Argentine Black and White Tegu (our first lizard) for a long time, and we were hoping to find one at the show.  Alas, no tegus in sight...but we did come home with a few surprises!

Last February we picked up a 100% het pied female ball python from AZ Reptile Center with hopes that breeding her would produce this:

We've been on the lookout for a het pied male and we found one this weekend for only $40!!  We had to pick him up.  Here he is:

We haven't picked out a name yet.  Our female's name is Juno...any ideas?

As much as we love ball pythons, our best find this weekend was a little green snake who will now become the highlight of our collection:

A Barons Green Racer!!

This is by far the rarest snake we own.  They're not very popular yet in the pet trade for one reason:  they're venomous!  Despite having a mildly venomous saliva, the Barons aren't considered dangerous to people for 2 reasons:  1) The venom is only strong enough to cause mild swelling and numbness for approximately 48 hours and 2)  They're so nice they never bite!  There are only a few rare anecdotes of people being bitten by racers and they're all due to error on the part of the keepers.  This species of snake is not aggressive and they actually make great pets!  So far our little guy has been a total sweetheart.  He's very interested in what we're doing and loves climbing the vines in his tank.  Barons get around 6 feet long, so eventually we'll have to move him to a larger enclosure, but for now this will do!  His name is Stewie. :)

Here are a few more pictures from the expo.  If you ever get a chance to attend one of these shows, they're amazing. Even for people who aren't reptile lovers, there's so much to see and SO much to learn.