The Reptile Man

I received a phone call from a middle school teacher named Scott Petersen who was interested in buying a pair of snakes for his classroom. Since he lived in the High Desert, I didn’t mind delivering the snakes personally. After I dropped them off, I would be heading towards Highway 247, an excellent road on which to catch rattlesnakes in the evening. Scott’s eyes opened wide with excitement as I handed him his Boas with brilliant red patterns on the lower third of their bodies. He was full of questions, and I was more than happy to answer them. Scott asked if he could ride along on the hunt, and I gladly accepted since there were few people I knew who would have anything to do with a truck carrying deadly rattlesnakes! We didn’t have much luck in the High Desert, so we headed south to Palm Springs. The road I had in mind was called White Water Canyon, and is well known in the reptile community worldwide. Driving back down the canyon we saw the headlights of a car stopped in the middle of the road. Two men were examining something on the ground. We walked over to see what they had discovered. It was a Mojave Rattlesnake, a species not found in this area. I had a feeling they were trying to pull a fast one on us when all of a sudden one of the men stooped over the rattler and picked it up with his bare hand! I thought this guy was either crazy or a greenhorn who was about to die. After we talked a bit, we were told they had removed the venom ducts from the snake, and it was harmless. From the looks of the head of the snake, I would have to say they did more damage to the rattler than good. With a little finesse, Scott and I were able to talk the man out of his snake, and I took it home. Within a month, the rattlesnake died, and my newfound collecting friend and I performed a necropsy on the rattler to find out exactly what had been done to it. The dead snake’s head was full of silk sutures that had been haphazardly placed between the venom sacs and the fang. We knew the principle of the surgery was sound, but the execution was sloppy at best. The Mojave Rattler was set aside for later study, and I began to tell Scott about a fellow from my workplace who had spoken of performing a reptile presentation over the weekend. I had kept reptiles as pets for many years and thought this may be something I would like to try myself. One night while speaking with Scott at the dinner table, we came up with a plan to move north and start our new reptile presentation business. After a year, we found there would not be enough work for both of us in Oregon, so Scott moved to Washington to continue his efforts. Since 1991, we have helped change the perceptions of hundreds of thousands of people to a more favorable view concerning the reptiles of our world.

PITY THE KITTY

My brother Dan liked to keep reptiles on occasion. When he desired to keep one for a while I would supply him with what he was interested in at the time, and then he would return the snake or lizard when his curiosity was satisfied.

            One such loan was a ten-foot Burmese Python. Dan had built a very large cage in his front room that gave the python plenty of room to move about. And move it did! This snake loved to climb up the glass to a height of about five feet. Eventually the snake would start to wobble back and forth until it finally fell to the left of the cage and hit the door with a loud thud!

            Dan’s wife owned a cat that loved to sit in front of the serpent’s den and intently watch the snake as it slowly crawled back and forth throughout the day.

            Dan was not aware that each time the snake would hit the door with it’s body, the screws that held the latch in place were beginning to come out!

            I was peacefully sitting at home with a dog in my lap when the phone rang. Between the screams and sobs over the phone I could decipher just enough of the conversation to know that I needed to drive there fast if I was to save the cat from certain doom. 

            The cat had been sitting in its usual spot near the door of the cage when the latch finally broke. The snake landed on the living room floor just inches away from kitty.

 Pythons have heat-sensing pits, which are similar to rattlesnakes. Combine that with the snake’s acute sense of smell, and they rarely miss the mark as they strike.

            I arrived too late. Although the cat had put up a noble fight, all that I found was a large snake with a very familiar looking lump in the middle section of his body. Yes, my brother is still married, but there are no more large pythons allowed anywhere near their home. I would have to say that in this case, curiosity really did kill the cat.