Morelia Python Radio

Morelia imbricata- with special guest Justin Julander

In this episode we are joined by Justin Julander from Australian Addiction Reptiles and we will be discussing Morelia imbricata. We will be talking about the natural history of this species and some of the personal observations, by Justin, of this species in the wild. Check out Justin's website http://www.australianaddiction.com/

Duration:: 2h 49m
Broadcast on:: 30 Sep 2015
Audio Format:: other

Hey Chad Brown here, you may remember me as a linebacker in NFL, when I was a reptile breeder and their owner of Projak. I've been hurtful since I was a boy and I've dedicated my life to advancing the industry and educating the community about the importance of reptiles. I also love to encourage the joy of breeding and keeping reptiles as a hobbyist, which is why my partner Robin and Markle and I created the reptile report. The reptile report is our online news aggregation site bringing the most up-to-date discussions from the reptile world. Visit the reptilereport.com every day to stay on top of latest reptile news and information. We encourage you to visit the site and submit your exciting reptile news. So it isn't a link so we can feature outstanding breeders and hobbyists just like you. The reptile report offers powerful branding and marketing exposure for your business and the best part is it's free. You're a buyer or breeder, you gotta check out the reptile report marketplace. The marketplace is the reptile world's most complete buying and selling definition full of features that help put you in touch with the perfect deal. Find exactly what you're looking for with our advanced search system, search by sex, weight, more, or other keywords, and use our Buy Now option to buy that animal right now. Go to marketplace.the reptilereport.com and register your account for free. Be sure to link your marketplace account to your ship your reptiles account to earn free tokens with each shipping label you book. Use the marketplace to sell your animals and supplies and maximize your exposure with a platinum med. It also gets fed to the reptile report and our powerful marketplace Facebook page. Buy on a selling and ship your reptiles.com to take advantage of our discounted priority overnight shipping rate. Ship your reptiles.com can also supply you with the materials needed to safely ship your animal successfully. Use ship your reptiles.com to take advantage of our discounted priority overnight shipping rate. The materials needed to ship your reptiles successfully, live customer support, and our live on time arrival insurance program. We got you covered. Visit the reptilereport.com to learn or share about the animals. Click on the link to the marketplace. Find that perfect pet or breeder. Then visit shipreptiles.com to ship that animal anywhere in the United States. We are your one-stop shop for everything reptile related. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Moralia Python Radio. And tonight we are talking, well I should preface this by saying there was rough scales and Owen and tonight it's my rough lifestyle. Moralia and Brekata. I've wanted to do the show for a long time and really the only people that work with in Brekata is the people in Australia. And it's difficult to try to work it out and blah, blah, blah. So tonight I figured who better than to talk about Moralia and Brekata than the very own Justin Jewlander. Because back in, man, what was this 2012? I guess it was the very first, maybe it was 2013. The very first NRBC show I went to, Justin had asked me to do a talk on carpet python morphs at Tinley Park. I remember this. But he did a presentation at the beginning that was on the natural history of carpet pythons. And I remember being so like, it was just awesome. It was really, really an awesome talk. I mean, to me, if you didn't go to that, you missed out. Because not only did you have Jeff and Jewlander speaking, you had Terry Phillip, you know, and Terry Phillip got up and he talked a lot about the way he approaches his husbandry and just his thoughts on it. And he did, it was much better to hear him do it in that vein because he had a lot of time to talk and develop his, what are you just trying to say, you know. So, I figured who better to get on the show to talk about Marillian Prokata than Justin Jewlander. And the other reason is because he's been to Australia and he's seen him in the wild. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So not only is, you know, he just has some, I'm sure some awesome stories he's going to share with us tonight about, you know, his witnessing them in the wild and that firsthand knowledge, I guess that you can only get from being there in the environment. What is the environment like? What is the, you know, what's the temperature like? Where's the animal at? All those things that come into play that you can't get really a feel for from the internet or a book. It's just something that you have to experience. So I'm, yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. So it should be good. And we haven't talked to Justin in a while and what an awesome guy. So cool. I mean, he's been over there a few times. We've had him on a few times after he got back. And, you know, he is one of the guys that literally wrote the book. So who better to have on and talk about it? I mean, and just because he's seen him in the wild, I'm pretty sure you die. I'm pretty sure you just lay down and you just die. You know, I'm not worthy. Oh my god, I touched it. This is all time since I'd imagine that's what would happen to you. So it's like Hobbit, just all the kryptonite, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's it. Pete, it's over, it's on. What is left? But, um, yeah, so tonight we're not really going to approach the show from the aspect of keeping or breeding. It's more going to be along the lines of natural history, which is, I know I geek out about that stuff. So, you know, should be, uh, should be cool. Because one day, probably maybe sometime soon, I could help it will, it will happen because then that's the thing is that, you know, and I was talking about somebody that's about this, this week because there was that, um, I don't know, I know probably everybody seen it, and I know I was tagged in it a million times. There was a red white lip that showed up on some of the guy's video in Jakarta. Oh, yes. Now, it's one of those things of like, is it an animal that sat in Nevada Kool-Aid for two hours? Is it, you know, hair dye? And I have read the papers. I kind of know what it could be. Um, I don't, I'm not in Jakarta, so I can't tell you what it is, but it was funny discussing with somebody where it's like, you know, uh, I'm like, if it is one of these animals, it's very rare because it's only ever been seen floating in a jar, and I never expected this ever actually the heck have one that would be obtained. And some with it, you know, somebody at some point said that about a rough scale. I'm like, holy crap, they did. So it's the same thing. Oh, maybe one day. No, no, no, no, it, it will happen. It's just a matter of when. So same thing with Owen Pelly. Mark, my words. I may be, I may be in my sick, but you know, it'll happen. Yeah. Well, I think we might be a little closer with, uh, in Jakarta. Yeah. And I hope so. So, uh, yeah. So, um, before we do get Justin on, I guess I should always approach this. Like we have new listeners tuning in because, you know, every week, I see numbers going up. So I'm assuming that there's new people coming into this. Um, so if you're just into carpets and you have, you're kind of confused by the whole thing, you should definitely go and pick up the book, the complete carpet Python. Um, you know, Justin and Nick both wrote that book. Ben also had a part in it as well. It's an awesome book. It pretty much answers every question you could have about carpet by Thons. And it's, it's just an awesome read. I think I've read it like six times. Yeah. Yeah. I think I learned to find it somebody and I haven't gotten it back. So I'm just going to go and buy the new one. So, I loaned mine to Matt, right? And then, you know, he was, he's reading it or whatever. And I was like, man, I, I can't not have this in my house. So I guess I have to buy another one. I had to, I had to buy another one. Yeah, I gave it to my cousin because he was like, I really want to carpet. I thought I'm like, you have no idea what you're doing here. Read this. And then we'll talk about you getting a carpet Python. Okay. So I think, I think he took it within the college and I, I, I can't get mad at him. It's like, I want to be like, you can't, I can't. Yeah, you can't do it. You can't buy another one. So, so yeah. So, so we're going to be hitting on some of this stuff that's in the book. And there's a couple papers and whatnot that I'm, that we might be referencing tonight. I guess I can post them over on number a Python radio.com probably later on tonight. You can also also use Google Scholar, which is, you basically can type in the topic or a paper or whatever. And it'll pop up in there, which is awesome for that kind of thing. And also, towards the end, obviously, Justin also breeds reptiles as well. We're going to be hitting on some of the stuff that he has going on with Australian addiction. And we will also be talking about, he does his own podcast, which we'll have to get up to speed on what's going on. But it's more from the academic point of view. But I love it because he pretty much reads a paper and then digests it and tells you what's going on with the paper. So that's pretty awesome. It's much smarter than ours. All right. Yeah. Yeah. We are like the, what would it be like, hmm, come on, Owen, you're pretty quick, with world of the reptile world. Yeah. Yeah. It's more like the most art of the reptile world. Oh, sorry. No, we're Wayne's work. Yeah, that makes so much sense. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Well, I think I have another soundbite now. We're the wing and world of the reptile world. All right. So hold on to that one later. Yeah. So before we, before we get him on, the one thing that I wanted to say is make sure that this weekend is the Northwest Carpet Fest, Northwest Carpet Fest. It rhymes. So if you're out in the Seattle area, or if you thought about going, I mean, we've said this numerous times. There's been two so far, there are two. Yeah. Three so far this year. Three. Three. Three. Three. So far, yeah. And if you've missed out on all of them and you've wondered why didn't I go to, you know, I wanted to go, was on the fence and I didn't go, this will definitely be one that you probably, yeah, you're going to rub shoulders with some of the, dare I say, coolest people in the Marrelia world. Yeah. Obviously, Mr. Nick Mutton will be out there. Casey Laysick. Man, I'd love to have a beer. That would be cool. That would be fun, I think. Yeah. Doug Taylor's hosting it and he has Ballons by Thons, which they're always cool to see. So you'll be able to check them out if you were ever wondering what they were like or never seen them. And, you know, it's not something you see all the time at a reptile show. So he ever wanted to see what's going on. He has, he has also works with Moose Rana, which they're pretty cool snakes. They are. And he works with other Marrelia as well. So it's definitely going to be a good time. So if you're able to get there, unfortunately, I can't go because Tinley Park is next weekend. So once again, I'm going to miss out. Holy crap, next weekend. Tinley Park is next weekend. Yes. Wow. I guess I'm doing stuff anyway. Good. Tinley Park. Yeah. The auction, they're going to be doing an auction. The page is not ready yet, but be looking for it. You'll see it. I'm blasted all over the place. It will be on Marrelia Pickett of the Week, your Python, radios, Facebook page, carpet, Facebook page, or carpet, Facebook page. You'll see it, I don't know, you'll probably see it all over the place. But they got some cool stuff. All donations are going to U.S. Arc. So it should be awesome. I know myself, I have a $200 voucher in their running, I think. Can you tell why? Oh, okay. We have it. I know there's a few other people. I'm sure Nick and all those guys have something as well. So as we know more details about that, you'll be seeing it. But if you have the chance, you should definitely try to make it out and go hang out with those guys. It'll be a good time. And the one thing that I'm looking forward to seeing is what is Nick going to eat this year? Last year, I think they just slapped him across the face if I remember the videos from last year correctly. So it was like first year, he ate a rat. Second year, it was like you auctioned for the right to slap Nick across the face or something like that. So... They were slapping pests or something. Yeah. We would do that at Northeast Carbon Fest, but someone would probably kill me. So it's like, you want to write the puncho into the face, and that's when I get stabbed. So we're not going to do that. Sorry, good. Yeah. I think I don't really have anything else to hit on. I don't know if you do, I wouldn't. Pretty good. You can head on through to this thing. Yeah. So let's, I think Justin's here. So let's click them on and get this going. Hey Justin, that's right. Hey guys. That's what you're doing here, right? Yeah, yeah. And we can hear you. This is not your first rodeo with us, unfortunately, for you. We're sorry. So I'm happy to be on guys. We appreciate the opportunity to blab a little bit. And we love it. And especially when it's something that not a lot of people hear a lot about. So it's good that we have you for these things. So well, I'm hoping I can add something's worth. I mean, beyond what we've written in the books, I, you know, I don't have a lot of firsthand experience. And some of those, some of my buddies in Western Australia would probably be much better to talk to in regards to the actual keeping and breeding and things like that. But I'll give it a, give it a shot here. We'll, we'll track some of them down later, but we'll grab you right now. So there you go. It's a little easier to work it out in the, in the United States, trying to get somebody from WA to call it. Right. We, we've done that, but it results in like us having to do like a five o'clock show or something like that. Keep it on the normal table. With the Southwest Carbasset, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm not going to be able to be there this year. I'm kind of sad about that. But, you know, the, the only, the next logical conclusion for Nick is to have people kick him in the junk for money. That's, that's where it's got to go. It's right, it's right there. I mean, it has to be, it's, it's just logical. It's the next logical. It's, it's just a little bit. So I mean, yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. You know, and, and the chance to, you know, rub date, Doug Taylor's shiny head, you know, that's kind of, that's got to be worth something to, I would think so. Of course. I mean, come on. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. I'm sad. I'm missing it this year, but I've been gone like every weekend for the last couple months. So, I better stick around here. I mean, I have a family come back too. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why Eric, I go in and I'm broke. So that's why I'm not going. Yeah. Right. Now, Justin, let's, let's talk about your thoughts on when it comes to taxonomy of the satellite. Yeah, I know. We're, we're, we're not falling punches. We're going right for it. Oh, yeah. Right for the truth. Exactly. Now, there has been some research, correct me, if I'm wrong, that shows that Maralea and Bracotta is genetically distinct, almost as distinct as Maralea bloodline. Can you talk about this? Sure, sure. I can give a little bit of thought on that. But first off, you know, taxonomy in general is a dynamic process. It's really hard to kind of nail down something as it's always changing and things like that. So, you know, I, and, as highlighted recently with the Barker's recent publication on the state of, you know, Python taxonomy. I think I did one of my podcasts on that's been a little while, been a little lazy, but they talk about the difficulties and the problems that have arisen through the very, you know, various publications on taxonomy. You know, a lot of the earlier work was based on morphology. And so, you know, a lot of those things kind of made sense to people, but later inclusion of DNA has kind of muddled it further, I guess. So, it's really hard to really find that evolutionary history of Python's through the current classification system and the definition of what makes a species and what doesn't. That's, you know, very ill-defined, especially with reptiles. I think they've originally tried to take a lot of mammalian taxonomy and tried to apply it to reptiles. And a lot of things just don't fit. The fact that you can breed a ball python with a blackheaded python is kind of evidence for that, I think. You know, they just don't fit the typical species profile. The other thing is there's just, you know, each analysis that has been done since, you know, about the late '90s has kind of given a different, you know, organization of things. They don't even agree, you know, which species kind of come, you know, at which time point. They haven't nailed that down as to, you know, the appearance of different species on the scene. And so, it's really hard to make any conclusive statements based on the analysis that's been done. Now, a rigorous analysis of carpet pythons, specifically, has only been done in one work. And that work is by Taylor, Duncan Taylor. And that's, you know, that's been a while since he did that analysis. And that was basically his research for his master's degree. And so, to take too much away from that is difficult. Because, one, he, you know, he didn't finish and publish it in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Okay, so, in public, that's kind of the step to kind of eliminate faulty science. You know, you submit it to three or four or five depending on, you know, the journal and what kind of work is being done. You submit it to these experts in the field that are doing similar work. And they just try to, you know, find flaws, find things that could have been improved on, could have been done differently, find things that don't make sense and try to, you know, get further input on those, tell them to do different analyses and things like that. So, obviously, you know, getting a paper published in a journal is a fairly difficult thing. You've got to go through, jump through different hoops once people review your paper. And with a thesis, you submit it to your committee on campus who may or may not be experts in that area. So, I imagine, you know, he, of course, his major professor was obviously an expert in the field. And so, the work is likely very sound, but just the fact that it hasn't been reviewed outside of his university and published in a peer-reviewed journal makes it, you know, difficult to say how much to buy into this or not, right? But since it's the only thing we have, you know, that's what we go off of. Okay, so, would you call it as an officially, it being a distinct species or a useful kind of like the, hey, it's a good theory, but it needs to be reviewed. Well, so, in my mind, if, you know, or well, I guess in general, evolutionary theory says if it has its own evolutionary trajectory, if it's got, you know, a barrier between it and other species that are similar, and in a lot of ways, Inbracotta makes that, or it has that available. So, I think because it's separated by that Nollar arbor plane in Western Australia, that population, at least, in Western Australia is distinct and far enough away from any other carpet python that it's on its own evolutionary trajectory. So, unless the Nollarbor Peninsula or anywhere in between, you know, the ranges of Bredalai or Spilota comes in contact with Inbracotta, then it's on its own evolutionary trajectory. And I think, therefore, it probably warrants species status. Also, you know, there were some genetic differences that were identified by Taylor. And so, I think that adds, you know, weight to the argument that they are their own species. And, you know, there's, you know, there's some morphological differences, including the nasal scale, you know, it's got lacking the suture. And, you know, it's different from Inbracotta, sorry, Metcalfi, which also lacked the suture, but the Inbracotta nostril is in the center of the nasal scale, whereas the nostril is on the side of the nasal scale, and Metcalfi, which is kind of outlined in the book. And the picture to kind of illustrate that, although it's somewhat difficult to see that. But those are some of the things that have been used to kind of differentiate the two, you know, and show that there's some morphological distinction between the two, as well as, you know, whatever what Duncan Taylor showed to be differences in genetics between that population and others. Now, when you throw in the whole air peninsula and, you know, gam and rangers populations, that kind of messes things up a little bit. So, okay, that kind of throws the link off the side. Yeah, okay. A little bit. So, you know, it's debatable still. I think I don't think it's been conclusively answered. And so, that's kind of where we stand now. Great. Well, I think we're done with Morelia debates. Here comes another one. So, all right. Now, personally, do you find yourself as a lumper or a splitter in the process? And what must one go through from taking an animal from a subspecies to a full separate species status would die? Yeah. I think myself, I would probably side more on the splitter category. I kind of like when they identify distinctness in animals. You know, I kind of get excited when these papers come out showing that, say, you know, the verana stilberensis has been split into verana stilberensis and verana stilberensis. That's kind of neat, you know, to see. And then, when you go and see them in person, you say, okay, yeah, they look different. They're, you know, somewhat different in their behaviors or this or that. You know, you can kind of see that. And I think Herpitz culturalists or Herpers have seen that difference for a long time. And a lot of times, you know, that's kind of our opportunity to play a part in the whole scientific process as far as taxonomy. If we're out there, you know, from our passion and our interest, we're out there in the field looking at these things in the wild. And we see differences. It, you know, might be time to bring in a true verpetologist who can help us describe that and publish that information. And there could be some validity to it. There could be some importance to it, as such as with, you know, the example I just gave. And, you know, same kind of thing with the carpet pythons. I think, you know, we see these distinctions between, you know, a diamond and a coastal and a jungle and things like that. And maybe there's something there. Maybe there is, you know, that genetic flow across the populations is kind of tricky to define where one ends and one starts and one begins. And actually writing the book, you know, before I started doing research for the book, I kind of thought, you know, there is a distinction. It's easy to tell a difference between a coastal and a jungle. You know, it's easy to see the difference between a jungle and a Darwin. And, you know, but once you start looking at these things in nature, you know, all those ideas kind of went out the window a little bit. And I kind of started thinking, wait a second, you know, maybe, maybe it isn't as simple as that. Maybe it isn't as simple as what we have in our minds from, you know, looking at captive animals or what we've kind of defined as what they are. And now I've kind of changed that a little bit. And I think in some instances, I probably would be a lumber. I think in the case of, you know, a jungle carpet and a coastal, I think if you stick a nice coastal, you know, tan color, you know, typical coastal, stick it in the jungle for, you know, within a pen for a few generations, you might see them change to adapt to that environment and start to be darker, you know, more contrasting, black and yellow, and you might have the same appearance as a jungle just from that selective pressure to survive in the jungle habitat when before they were adapted to kind of survive on the plains or more grassland-type things, the eucalyptus forest, that kind of, so, you know, it depends on the story. But I think I've, I can see myself being both a wampirana splitter in, depending on the case. But overall, I kind of get excited more by the splitting because it means something new to learn, something, you know, somebody's doing cool work with these animals. And actually, there's a ton of research. One of my favorite websites is the AROD, A-R-O-D, the Australian reptile, something database, or something like AROD.com.au. It's a collection of all the Australian species. And on that site, they put up this tour of McDonald, I believe, that's the site. And he puts up all the latest papers, including taxonomic changes. And so, you know, you see what kind of new species there are out there and what you get to learn about and differentiate. So, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. It's fun to learn about that stuff, I know. That's a reptile nerd website. That's what that is, yeah. At least we know. Yeah. All right. Jesse, apparently, I remember you reading on Riley Pythons that your thoughts on carpets, perhaps, being what's called a ring species. You can elaborate on that and kind of tell us what a ring species is. Okay. So, the concept kind of goes back. And they did some work on the salamander population. And the salamander population actually went all the way around mountain, basically. And so, they kind of tracked, you know, genetically and found that, you know, they probably originated here and made their way around the mountain. And by the time they made their way all the way around back to the original, they had become so distinct that they were classified as different species. And so, the beginning and the end couldn't interbreed. But all the way, you know, the end could breed with the population next to it, you know, going back towards the first. That's cool. These changes as they go around and adapt to the different, you know, niches that are in different parts around the mountain, you know, were enough selective pressure to make them differentiate enough between, until the end, where they didn't really recognize each other as a compatible breeding partner, basically. And so, you know, you might envision that with Australia, although, you know, there's some maybe flaws in that thinking. But, you know, you might envision the Australian python, you know, as they, you know, they kind of originated in Europe, kind of these, you know, descendants kind of came down through Europe and down through Asia into Australia. So Australia is kind of the terminus of their migration, right? And so, as they enter Australia from the north and kind of make their way down, the eastern side and down along the bottom and kind of up in the Western Australia, you can kind of see how they're migrating down and through and across and back up again. And, you know, I don't know if that's the case or if they just kind of generally percolated down through all of Australia. And then as Australia dried out, they kind of got stuck where they are, you know. It's hard to imagine how brittle I got to the, you know, that center around Alice Springs, unless there was some sort of path and, you know, who knows where that path would have been. I'm sure maybe there's some fossil evidence or potentially to show how they might have migrated or what path they might have taken. But, you know, you might be able to say that, you know, the Darwin carpets are kind of more of the basal and they were the original and then it kind of went around. And, and Ibracata, as it comes up through South or Western Australia, is more of the derived species. But, of course, that's just kind of a fun little idea to think about. And it hasn't been proven one way or another. And it probably will never be investigated in that regard. But, you know, it's kind of an interesting way to think about it as potentially have happened. That's always hard to nail down, you know, how things got where they are. You know, we have some scant fossil evidence of, you know, where they might have originated from and, you know, what, I mean, first, you know, the populations up in Europe were kind of the original stuff and they migrated. And, you know, I think we've got evidence to show that. But, you know, what, how that preceded once they hit Australia is very difficult to say. They have found fossils in Australia in the, let's see, River slances of the species name that they gave that carpet python fossil. But those are indistinguishable from current carpet python. You know, so they haven't really changed in millions of years. They've been around, you know, and so they, they're the same today as they were back then in a lot of ways, at least in their, in their structure, bone structures and things that they can deduce from fossils, you know. So, yeah, I'm sharing things with them. Yeah. No, I did that. That's really cool that you think about that that's something that people have thought about and it makes a lot of sense when it comes to Morelia. So, that's awesome. Now, what are your thoughts of the carp pythons that are found? I guess in the, I guess it's pronounced Erie peninsula. They were attributed to Macafai, but due to DNA evidence, they're being shown that they're more closely related to Inbracata. Yeah. So, again, that's like a pocket thing. It's way over where Inbracata are not. So, yeah. And if this is the case, if they are Inbracata, then it's a disjunct population. You've got, you know, kind of that separation. So, as you move from South Australia across the bottom and you're moving west, you hit this big desert called the Noel Arbor Plain, where there's not a lot of life, especially python life, pythons don't occur in that area. And it's very arid and, you know, uninhabitable to some degree. And so, you know, and as you kind of get closer to, or within Western Australia, once you get past the Noel Arbor Plain, you start getting suitable habitat to support carpet python. Now, this probably in the past, then it's been shown, I believe, through the fossil record that this was a supportive habitat in the past. And it's just aridified and dried out. And now it's no longer supports them. So, you know, there probably was a population of carpet pythons that extended from South Australia across the Western Australia. And then they just kind of got separated by this Noel Arbor Plain. Now, the ranges of maralia spallota macafai, and incidentally, I think, macafai are probably pretty close to speciated as well. They might well be classified. And I think Nick was talking about this, and he gets really geeked out by taxonomy, for sure. So, and, you know, he's probably read more than I have on it. And he thinks that, you know, well, the analysis done by Taylor in his thesis showed that they were about 4.9. And he had the cut off of 5.0 to be a separate species. Oh, probably. Yeah. So, you know, it's somewhere like that, you know, some kind of silliness like that. So, you know, they're pretty distinct from the coastal, kind of those, the carpets that range up along the eastern coast. And they are separated physically in most of the range by, you know, that mountain range that's right along the coast there. And so, the great delighting range separates those populations. And so, I think they're kind of on their own evolutionary trajectory and probably would also warrant full species status to some degree. And so, but what's interesting is the ranges of the Metcalfi. You can find them down just about 50 miles south, you know, of the northernmost point where you find Metumbricata or the, you know, that gammon ranges. So, the gammon ranges, if you, you know, depending on how familiar you are with Australia, there's Adelaide, which is in South Australia. And if you had, you know, Adelaide is within or near Metcalfi habitat. And as you move north about Port Prairie or Laura, those areas over there is kind of the northern extent, you know, to that little offshoot of the range. And they kind of go down along this peninsula that's shaped like Italy in reverse. So, you know, this area is attributed to Metcalfi habitat and area. Now, if you go 50 miles north of, you know, Port Prairie, where you are supposed to find Metcalfi, you come to the area around Port Augusta, which is, you know, in South Australia as well. So, 50 miles north and you're in what's the kind of that gammon ranges, Embricata area. And so, you know, and there's also these, you know, the Werriba Forest Reserve and some other kind of mountainous forest reserves that move up all the way through to the gammon ranges. And so, you know, it's really hard to put a fine, you know, a definite line on where one population ends with one or another begins. And I just don't think there's, you know, been a ton of research in that area is to, you know, to really define the carpet python populations down there. So, it's really hard to say what's what and, you know, what's attributed to what. So, I could easily see genetic flow occurring between Metcalfi and these gammon ranges, carpet pythons, up in that area of South Australia. Now, the, you know, the Embricata population is supposed to wrap around and, you know, go down through South Australia, kind of a long part of South Australia and over, you know, until it hits the null arbor plane and stops. So, you know, it's just, this just hasn't, there just hasn't been enough information gathered, I think, at this point to make it concludes the statement. Now, if you look at a gammon ranges carpet python, it looks more similar to a Metcalfi, in my opinion, than the Nimbricata. But it shares that kind of nasal and nasal suture and nostril positioning, it shares that with Nimbricata. So, it's got the morphology of an Imbricata. But it, the patterning and, you know, head patterning and body patterning looks more similar, in my opinion, to a Metcalfi. So, it's kind of a difficult one. You know, if it looks like a Metcalfi, but it pans out like an Imbricata by genetic analysis, you know, I guess. What do you go with? You go with the morphology, you go with the DNA. I think there's probably enough to warn and say that these are Imbricata and it's just a disjunct population. So, that would be my personal opinion on that. But if there's genetic flow or genetic, you know, integration in that area, that's up for the bait at this point. Who knows? For sure. You'd have to go down there and do a lot of looking. And I think, so Simon Stone was kind of the one that discovered that population. I believe he lived down there in South Australia, so he would go up into these areas and look for carpet pythons. And he was the one that brought these gamma ranges carpet pythons into captivity. And I don't know that the samples that were used in Taylor's thesis, if those were from captive specimens that Simon Stone had obtained, or if Taylor went out and found some animals, I doubt that because, you know, these texts on this generally are working with test tube samples of scale clippings or whatnot. They don't go out and collect the specimens themselves. So they depend on the locality that the person that collected them provides. And so I think he probably threw those in just to try to see where they lie. Now, the ultimate objective of Taylor's work was to prosecute people in regards to python smuggling and to demonstrate that a python came from a certain area by genetic traits. That was kind of the goal of this was to try to identify people smuggling their pythons and kind of bring them to justice. And so, you know, that was the reason he was doing that research. And so, you know, to be able to say, oh, this is a nimbricata from this area. I don't think they got it to that point where they could definitely declare, but they, you know, I think he ended up kind of summarizing saying we got it to this point where you can say it is a carpet python from Australia. Or it was a carpet python from this general area, but that was kind of the goal that they had in doing that research. So, yeah, where those lines are drawn, you know, I always kind of laugh at range maps because a lot of times they're based on, you know, collection along roads, you know, because obviously there's a lot of places in Australia that don't have roads going through them. And also, you know, they kind of base it on suitable habitat within an area where an individual has been found. I really prefer the range maps that show individual data points where an animal was collected and then kind of make it a cloud based on that, you know. So, it's hard to do range maps. I understand the complications with that. Has anybody done that, Justin? Like, you know, individual, you know, spots with that? Yeah, there's quite a, you know, there's quite a few range maps, you know, with reptiles in general. I'm trying to think if that's been done with Australians, because I think on the AROD website, yeah, AROD website, AROD.com.au, for each species profile, they provide a range map and they include data points where animals have been collected. And, you know, in my mind, and then they kind of give an overall range. And so, in my mind, those are the data points you want. That's the kind of range map you want to see, is one with collection points. And when we made our range maps, we tried to base it off of range maps that had that. And so, when you look at the Carpa Python range map, there does appear to be kind of a gap between what you would consider the café and what you'd consider to be in Burkata. But, you know, whether anybody's found something in between there and just hasn't been reported or, you know, somebody doesn't know about it, that's, you know, again, it's likely, but who knows. And the chance for genetic spread between those areas is highly likely. And so, I think, you know, that makes it more difficult to classify those, either as the Embricata or Maccaffi. That kind of throws a wrench into that. Whereas, if you go past the normal replying, you can definitely say that those animals are Embricata and they're genetically and physically separate from the rest of the Carpa Python along the eastern, you know, east coast area. You know, go in and look at that arod.com.au website and look at the Carpa Python. And you'll see what I mean. You know, the dots all over Australia, almost you can kind of connect them into one flowing, you know, genetic exchange route, if you will. That's awesome. I'm going to have to check out that site for sure, no doubt. Yeah. And, you know, visiting Australia and seeing some of the population or, you know, the captives and hearing where they're getting. One of the surprising ones was from an area called Long Creek. I think it's a national park. And it's kind of down, you know, on the west side of Queensland, kind of in an area where we didn't anticipate Carpa Python's occurring. And they look almost identical to a Darwin Carpa Python. And so, that's kind of a long ways away from Darwin. And then, also, if you look over in the Iron Range, you can find Carpa Python to look exactly like a Carpa Python. You'd find in Darwin. And so, that kind of threw me a little bit, you know, because I've had this idea, okay, eastern coast coast goals, you know, just except for a little area in the jungle, and that's jungles, you know. But when you find an animal that looks identical to a Darwin Carpa on the eastern, you know, seaboard along Queensland, it kind of throws that wrench into that thinking. So, I think the same kind of logic can apply to the Nepcafai and Burkata debate as well. Right. I remember, I think it was on one of your trips. You posted up a picture of a Carpa Python that you had found. And you were asking everybody what they thought it was. And it clearly looked like, I can't even remember which one it was or what it wasn't. But it didn't look like what, you know, what was that? Oh, yeah. That was a coastal carpet found down around the Brisbane area on Mount glorious. And it looked an awful lot of like a jungle. I mean, it had that really cold, distinct pattern, black and yellow. I mean, if you were in cans and you found that, you'd go, oh, yeah, this is a jungle for sure. You know, so I think they share that, you know, kind of a basal genotype and those phenotypes, the pattern and color and those kind of things can pop up. And if they're needed, if they have a selective advantage, then that population kind of pushes it towards that, you know, is pushed towards that by their environment. That's the nice thing, I think, about selective pressures. You know, if something works and you're going to have that appearance regardless of, you know, what everybody thinks you should look like. If you take that, if you take that thought a little further and you apply it to captivity, is that why it would be easier to say selectively breed, like, you know, to where we could get our jungles looking like they are. And, you know, because they sort of have that built into them so that if they're in this environment, they sort of can, you know, adapt, I guess. Well, in the wild, I mean, what are your selective pressures? You know, you've got, if you stand out in an environment, you're probably going to be eaten by a bird or a, you know, some other predator in that area. If you blend in better, then you're going to survive. You know, what are our selective pressures in captivity? It's our eyes. We say, oh, I like that one. I'm going to keep it and breed it to another one that I really like. And so as we do that, we selectively bring out those traits in the animals just based on what we like and what appeals to our eye. And so we become the selective pressure. And, you know, a lot of times, I guess, technically, you could argue, once you take it out of the wild and you start choosing who it breeds with, and you start selecting which ones stay and breed and which ones get sent out to some kid who doesn't know what he's doing and, you know, promptly kills it, then you are the one who is making those selective pressures. And it almost ceases to become that species or subspecies or whatever you want to call it. You know, it's kind of ceases to become that type. If you really want to keep a locality type, you would probably just randomly select who it gets to breed with or introduce a monitor lizard into your cage, and whoever survives and breeds. That's a little difficult to do. So we selectively breed based on our preference and what we like to see. And so, you know, that we become the selective pressure and we change its evolutionary trajectory, right? Because we're making it into something different than maybe it would have become if it had stayed in its natural environment and things like that. Of course, we're not taking them out of the natural environment. We're getting them already kind of manipulated and bred from Europeans or wherever. But, you know, we get the point. Right, right, right. Okay. So, okay, so now that we got the taxonomy out of the way, let's talk about some natural history as far as imprecottagos. All right. We sort of talked about the range, I guess, of those guys already. And I'm not sure Justin where this falls for you, but for me, they're kind of like, you know, the pinnacle type of species for me. Can you tell us what was it like, you know, seeing them in the wild? And does that change your view of, you know, keeping snakes in a box, so to speak, once you've witnessed that? Well, I'll tell you what, it really gets me excited almost about keeping them in a box, to some extent. Because to see in some ways, I mean, you see them in the natural habitat, you get excited for what you have back home, you know, sitting there. Absolutely. You want to try to, you know, learn what you can from those animals. You want to try to say, what temperature are they out at? What are they doing, you know? Where are they going? What do they want to do? What kind of environment are they in? You know, and you want to try to incorporate some of those things into your care and keeping. And that's, I think, the real benefit of getting out into the natural environment, if you can learn so much, even with a brief interaction with a wild animal and kind of see how they behave, you know, oh, we're getting struck at by this jungle. It's not a big surprise that maybe one of my, you know, baby carpets is a little feisty because that's kind of ingrained in their system. You know, like, and you see these things and what they survive and you think, man, how do they do this? And you get thinking, like, oh, they must need to remain undercover. They must be associated with this kind of habitat or, you know, and what happens if I follow it around? You know, what's it going to do? Where's it going to go? Sometimes that's not always feasible, but my first interaction with a southwestern carpet was we were in Australia, my wife and I, and we were trying to make it down, so we were flying out the next day. And we were driving down in the day and we were planned to be in Perth around, you know, 5 p.m. And so we hit an area and we were driving along and I saw a dead snake on the road and, you know, herpers always stopped to try to see what it was before I got smushed and was a pancake. And so you get out and you try to identify it. And this one was pretty easy. It was a very nice-looking yimbracotta. And I'm like, oh, man, it's a heartbreak. You know, that's the worst thing about herping in Australia. You see all these magnificent animals smushed, you know, that's plastered on the road and you're like, come on. And so, you know, I'm thinking, no, bummer, you know, at least I got to see something and kind of see what habitat they're in and that kind of thing was this kind of coastal, low shrub habitat where I wouldn't have expected to see a carpet pipe on. And, you know, there was kind of surprise. And I thought, cool, you know, this is a neat, different observation that I probably wouldn't have made if I wasn't over here. I wouldn't have known about this because people don't really talk about it as much or show that much, you know, and especially in scientific publication. They just kind of get to the data and get to the needs. They don't say I was driving along in the coastal habitat and found a carpet pipe. You know, those kind of descriptions are left out a lot of times. And so, you don't get that experience. And so, we drove a little further. You know, kid, you're not about two miles down the road, there was another one. Followed, cry, maybe a hundred meters by another one. And I'm thinking, holy, you know, this is the place to be. This is the place where Inbricada is. You know, this is good habitat for Inbricada. And I said, honey, what do you say if we stay till dark? And she's like, well, you know, and I had a friend in Perth waiting for us. And he was going to put us up to the night and, you know, probably feed us dinner and stuff. And so, she's like, well, they're expecting us. And we probably had to get back. And I said, well, I really would like to say and look for these things. And she said, oh, of course, honey, anything for you because she's a very loving and caring wife. And so we had to be like, OK, I'll give you an hour. That's all I need. One hour after dark, and then we'll head down and get there. And so, you know, the sun starts going down and I'm just pumped. I'm excited. You know, we start driving. And we kind of marked where we found these DOR specimens of Inbricada. And we started driving, right? And, you know, about 20 minutes after the sun went down, I see this unmistakable shape. I mean, it's like, D, you know, what you're looking for and what you want to see when you're out road cruising. And it's a big python, you know, getting ready to cross the road. And luckily, you know, it was off the on the shoulder. The shoulder was nice and broad and easily to see. It was a perfect area for road cruising. And so, you know, I pulled over and picked up this animal. Oh, man, it's just indescribable. It was just a beautiful specimen. You know, I've got pictures on my website of this animal. It's just gorgeous animal. You know, probably the nicest one you could see. And, you know, over there. And so, I was, I was just totally geeked out, you know, taking wanker shots holding it. And, you know, just admiring it. You know, of course, you're not supposed to handle them. So, I'd never said that. But, happy. We did nothing other than that. But you guys have to edit that out, right? Yeah. Anyway, look at that. Oh, yeah. So, so, you know, we, we just sat there and I just sat there and stared at it. You know, my wife was excited for me. She didn't necessarily want to hold it or be too close to it. She was happy for me. And she took pictures of me and all that good stuff. But so, then I put it down on this, you know, on the natural habitat and tried to get pictures of it. And it's environment. And it sat still and never tried to hiss or strike or, I mean, it was just the most gentle calm pipe on you would have met. You know, you'd think it was a long-term captive. And so, I got to sit and watch it, you know, kind of make its way back into its habitat. And I tried to get some, you know, filming. But by that time, my wife was being worried because she couldn't see my light. I was off the road down a hill a little bit. She's freaking out thinking, "Where did he go?" And she starts going to be like, "Where are you?" And I'm trying to film the snake as it goes through. And I've got my wife in the background like, "Where did you go?" And I cut filming a little short. And I said, "I'm down here. I'm okay. It's all good." And then we, you know, I had to bid the snake farewell and move on and get back down to Perth. So, otherwise, I probably would have sat and followed that thing as far as I could. Now, the habitat's pretty dense. These low-lying shrubs, they're pretty thick. And so, it's kind of hard getting you around through those. And so, I could see that they could easily hide and blend right in in that environment. And, you know, kind of, DORs are a bummer. It's sad to find those animals on the road, but it can give you an idea that there's a healthy population there. And I think I've said that before. You show, you know, those kind of things are a bummer, but they're a good sign that there's a healthy population there. And for every DOR, there's probably, you know, 20 or 30 right there in that same area within the habitat. The classic example in that same area is the shingle pack skink. I mean, these ones only have, like, a one or two babies a year. And you find, like, 30 dead on the road, like, in one little strip. You're like, "Holy crap, you know, these things have that many, you know." And, yeah, we found, like, a dozen of them in the same area on the last trip we went on. Just walking around the area, you know, the habitat, you'd find a dozen of them, including, you know, breeding pairs following each other around. It was fantastic. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow. Good stuff. That's crazy. So, okay, so that's kind of, like, temperature-wise, can you tell us, like, what was, what was, what did it feel like? Is it dry or hot? What was the temperature going on there? So, I mean, it was springtime. So, it was somewhat cool. And I imagine they were out kind of on the lookout for mates or starting to warm up, you know, after the winter. And things were somewhat cool down in that area, especially at night. Now, during the day, they got fairly warm. And it was, you know, hot enough that you would see covered, you know, during the hottest part of the day. And so, my wife and I would generally kind of hang out, you know, somewhere. When we were waiting for it to get dark, it was hot enough that we just kind of hung out at a park, you know, under a, under a very, and I think we found a place to shower, which was nice, too, because being on the road and camping out in Australia, you get a little, right, I guess we'll say that. But, you know, it was, at night, it was fairly cool. And when we found the individuals, probably in, you know, the upper 70s, maybe low 80s, and it was probably coming out on the road to get a little of that warmth from the road. So, I imagine, you know, in the evenings and in the mornings, they're probably doing some basking. You know, probably with carpet pythons, they typically bask kind of in a semi-covered area, you know, with some shrubs over top, kind of dappled light, kind of basking. They're not, you might find them out in the springtime on a rock, you know, taking in full sun, and at least with diamond pythons that have been demonstrated, they'll bask out in the open, out on the rocks, and they're highly associated with rocks in kind of that fall winter springtime. And then in the summer, they kind of move into a different habitat. So, those rocks are important for their thermal biology. And I imagine it's fairly similar with the southwestern carpet pythons as well. They don't range up too far north. So, they probably, you know, get as far as maybe Geraldton. Well, maybe a little further, but definitely not up towards, you know, towards the Shark Bay or anything that, you know, I think Calberry, they get up that far for sure. So, a little bit north of Geraldton. So, that's kind of their upper reaches of their range. And so, and you know, they kind of change in appearance a little bit, you know, they have, their appearance somewhat matches their background. The ones that I found, and I'll tell you the next story, I don't think I've told that one yet, but they kind of match the habitat there. And the ones we found were in the habitat of kind of a, yeah, that coastal dune area where they have some white sand dunes. They have some yellow sand areas. And then they have this coastal shrub that's kind of a, you know, green, bright area. So, you know, the dappled, kind of lighter, darker, high contrasty pattern fit in nicely with that kind of habitat. I think they would fit in very well and be very hard to see if they're in their natural environment, you know, and you're looking for them in the daytime or something. Right. The one, the second one we found, so, my friend, friends, Steve Sharp, and my Frederickson and I did a kind of a similar tour of the trip that I took in 2013. We did about the same trip in 2014, about a month later. And, you know, kind of comparing, you know, what you find a month after, you know, a little bit hotter, a little bit, you know, further into spring towards summer. And so we were walking around. We were basically looking for shingleback skinks or blue tongue skinks or other lizards. You know, we saw a gold monitor and we were looking in the Pinnacle's National Park, which was, you know, this is fairly close to the area where we, where I saw the one on the road in the previous year. And actually, Steve and Mike and I were cruising during the night in that same area. We saw, I mean, hundreds of geckos. They were all over the place. You almost had to drive very slow just to miss them, you know. And these are like geckos. They go for $1,000 a pair in the U.S. and they're, you know, all over the road everywhere. So we were driving around, you know, photographing these geckos and checking them out and stuff. And we found another one or two DOR carpet bathons. And they were further south than the ones that I had found in the previous year that that was the same kind of general area. And so as we were searching, you know, we, unfortunately, we didn't find any alive on the road around that time. And one of the ones that got hit was pretty fresh. I mean, it was probably that night or the morning before that. So it wasn't on the road very long, you know. So we just missed seeing that one in its live form. But again, you know, you kind of take the data as it comes. And we tried to record, you know, all the information, the exact location, things. But again, it was, it's fairly cool at night, somewhat windy at times. And, you know, in the high 70s around there, even though it's fairly hard during the day. So day, we're in the pinnacles. And if you've ever, the pinnacles are a freaking cool place. If you're going to go to Western Australia, make sure you hit that area. It's called Nambung National Park. And it's just this area of yellow sand. And then there's these pillars of yellow rock just sticking up out of the ground. It's just really cool. And it's like out in the middle of an area you would not expect it. It's, you know, kind of this coastal-ish rub area. And all of a sudden there's just, you know, yellow sand. And it just, it's a little area. And there's rocks sticking up out of the ground, you know, bigger as tall as the house is, you know, knee-high, you know, they kind of range in size and shape. And it's kind of fun to see. And you've got, you know, the like the galaz or those pink parrots that are flying and landing on top of them and stuff. So you've got parrots flying around in the desert, which is very cool as well. And so, and then you've got emus walking around, you know, eating off the shrubs. So you're eating emus and all sorts of wildlife. We saw a really nice school V.I. sand monitor out at the visitor center, just kind of in the yard of the visitor center, you know, just beautiful yellow, black, really high contrast animal. So that was another cool find there. And then so we kind of made our way and did the little pinnacles drive. And we got out kind of at the end of the loop and did a little searching just walking around. And we noticed these weird trails. And so we followed them for a while and they kind of terminated. And there was a shingleback scheme. So you kind of learned to see what kind of tracks they make. And this was breeding season. So they were following each other and paired up. And we found, you know, pairs together at different areas. So I think we found three breeding pairs of these animals, which was kind of cool to see, you know, and see there. Because these are types of animal that pairs for extended periods of time and kind of knows their mate and seeks the same mate year after year, which is a pretty rare phenomenon in lizards. And so, you know, as we were looking around kind of among the pinnacles. And some of the areas were a little shrubby. And Steve is the lizard guy, right? He's looking for lizards. And me and Mike are more carpet python freaks. And he's like, "Hey guys, what if the lizard guy finds a carpet python? What do you do then?" You know, we're like, "No way." And then we walk over and he picks up this carpet python. You know, I kind of wish he would have, you know, I would have been able to photograph it as it was sitting, you know, but basically what was interesting at the base of one of these pinnacles was just curled up. Now this individual was in shed. And so it was a little bit onnery and kind of striking out and stuff. And I, you know, I held it for a while and it didn't bite me. But, you know, I had that shape and it's kind of trying to hone in on anything that moves or comes near it, you know. I'm sure you guys have seen that behavior when you're holding a captive or two that's a little bit of an attitude. But, you know, I think it was mainly because it was in shed, you know. And so we set it up on one of the pinnacles for some pitchers in the tree, you know, kind of right next to where it was found. And so got some good pitchers and then left it and went on our way. But that was a cool find to see, you know, that just out in this cool habitat and be able to find one, you know, walking around a habitat in a day. So it is possible to find them, you know, when you're out in the right areas and just luck or timing, you know, that's the way. And then, you know, right after that, well, we're photographing the carbon python sea blocks over and finds a species of dwarf bear to drag and, you know, just right around the corner that they go, also go on a miner. So that was pretty cool to see as well. So we got that photograph a few of those individuals in that area as well. So just so much cool things to find over there. I mean, I just looking for animals in their natural environment and being able to find and photograph and kind of take some notes and watch them for a while is one of the great things about herpeticulture. So, you know, I highly recommend if you're considering buying a, you know, $5,000 snake, you consider putting that money into a trip to Australia and getting over there and seeing them because it really furthers your understanding of these animals and what they need to thrive, you know. Yeah, I, that's, that's our goal this year. All right. Yeah. No reptiles. We're taking the trips. Right on. Cool. Right on. Only selling reptiles this year. No buying. No buying. No, I got my care of it. Yeah, it's definitely a sacrifice, but well worth the sacrifice. Okay. All right. That's cool. So, um, let's see. What else do we, so we talk about the, go ahead. So, um, localities and differences. I mean, we've got, that's, I think that's one of the strong points of our book is we've got a lot of different photographs of animals that were found in the wild. And so you can kind of get, and that was one of the, the cool things like I mentioned before in, in preparing for this book is you get to, get to see that there is, you know, just a wide variety of appearances in, you know, in the carpet pythons, even when they live in close association or very far away from each other, you might have individuals that look very similar, you know. Um, for example, on page 142, we've got a photo of a specimen from Geraldton that's kind of almost black and white, you know, almost let's, you know, just very monotone black and white and gray and things like that. And that's from kind of the northern part of the range in Geraldton. And then, you know, and you go down into the Perth area and you see animals that are very similar, you know, towards the, lower part of the, or I guess the mid part of the range along the, the west coast. And then, you know, you can also find animals in the Perth area that are very high contrast and have a little bit of yellows. And you can also find that in, you know, at the north part of the range, like in Calberry, on the, you know, the title picture on chapter eight on page 134, there's beautiful. And I think that was one of my favorite animals is this, this animal from Calberry. It's just really high contrast. It's got a little bit of reddish color in the, in the spots and how those really broad white lateral stripes, just a beautiful animal. And then the one I found it, you know, the two individuals that we found kind of in, in that area of Nambug National Park that are, have a lot of yellow and orange and red and, you know, kind of a lighter base color, just gorgeous animals. And there's, you know, there's, there's different appearances. And so you can get a wide variety of looks in this Southwestern carpet python in Western Australia. And then, you know, you get over into the gammon ranges and you have a parent that almost looks very similar to them at Kaffi. And, you know, kind of has that same arrowhead shape on the head and has a lot of reds in the pattern and, and blacks and creams and, you know, just beautiful animals. So again, it's, it's, I think environment and habitat are a strong selective pressure for different appearances. And so you're going to get animals that blend in well with where they're found. So if they're found in, you know, and so it's hard to define and predict what you're going to find. So you just go off what you find and try to find patterns. And, you know, unfortunately, I don't know that we have enough information in regard to that to, to make it clear distinction to say, you know, if they're found in this habitat, they look like this or, you know, whatever. But, you know, there's a, a wide variety of appearances of these animals. Okay. And that's another, another benefit of the website, the arod.com.au, is that, that they have a little tab. Once you click on a species, you can click, click on the tab that says more photos. Now it's not as helpful with the moralized below because it shows photos of all, you know, animals that are classified as below it. And for some reason, they include Bredalai in that, even though Bredalai has never really been a subspecies below that, although some authors include Bredalai as a subspecies. So technically, I guess some have included that in publications. But, you know, I think it's kind of silly to include them as a below to subspecies because they're definitely range restricted and isolated from other carpet python populations. And they're, you know, very morphologically distinct and kinetically isolated. So in my mind, they're obvious species. So anyway. Very cool. I went to your, in the, we have a chat room going on during the show and I went over to your site and I put the picture of the pinnacles and I put the picture of that Inbracotta from your, I think it's your 2013 Western Australia. Yeah. Yeah. Man, you have some all that. If anybody's listening, go over to Australiadiction.com and then just go to Justin's spot that he has that's called visits and then you can click on there. Man, you've been around. Yeah. I've been fortunate. I've been very fortunate to be able to go over and, you know, see some cool stuff. So yeah, I like to share that experience and be able to show you what I found and kind of the habitat in some cases where I found it. And some of the earlier visits I had more stamina and put it, you know, kind of a travel log associated with it. And then later, I just got lazy and put a picture with her small captions. So yeah. Any questions of, you know, trips I've been on or stuff I found and what kind of, you know, feel free to message me or give me a call sometime and we can chat about it. Okay. All right. So let's, yeah. I'm, for man, that it just looks like, I don't know, it looks like something out of Star Wars or something when I'm looking at the pinnacle. It's just great. Yeah. Yeah. It's so foreign. It just, it's almost like out of, you know, just out of the blue, all of a sudden there's this weird, you know, alien habitat right in the middle of, you know, stuff that kind of goes on for miles and miles. It's pretty consistent. And you just got this section of weird stuff. It's cool. Wow. What are, what are, what are they eating in the, in the wild? What, what's their prey choice when it comes to the Morelian imprecata? Yeah. I think that, you know, similar to other carpet pythons, they initially, as juvenile, they'll seek out reptiles. So mostly skinks or, or, you know, other, other lizards. And as they get larger, they switch over to warm-blooded prey. Now, you know, especially with some populations of Southwest carpet pythons, they'll take fairly large prey. They'll, they'll go after, you know, some larger marsupials, including even some small species of wallaby. So they have a fairly diverse prey range. There's been a couple studies that have, that have looked at their diet and identified some prey specimen. There's one that was, what was the year was that 2008 or something? No, 2012, that looked at kind of trying to make a, make a correlation between sides and thermal parameters with prey size and the species that were taken. And they actually found that their hypothesis was refuted. So they, their, their hypothesis didn't hold up. So their, their prey species that they select does not correspond with large sizing regards to thermal stability. So the hypothesis was the bigger animals can hold more heat for a longer period of time. So therefore they can hunt longer after dark and have a better chance of getting more food and, and larger food and, and be able to digest it well and things like that, where they found that wasn't the case. It was mainly limited to buy how big they could open their mouth. So this makes sense, yeah? You can open your mouth big, you can't eat bigger food. So yeah. And so that was kind of refuted in regards to bigger animals can be warmer for a longer period of time. And they found smaller animals out cruising, you know, necessarily chilly and looking for food and things like that. So, you know, there's some bent, some neat studies involving the Ibracata. And like you said earlier, you know, Google Scholar is a great tool. You can do a search and a lot of times off to the right-hand side, if you see hyperlink, you know, like, usually it's like a university or some kind of site that got the full length article that you can click on and read for free. That's not always the case, unfortunately. And sometimes it's hard to find these publications and get a full, you know, copy. And a lot of times it doesn't help you a lot if you do get a full copy because, you know, technical jargon and hard to understand anyway, so it's hard to get much out of it. But, you know, there's that opportunity to read about these things and see some of the studies that have been done with wild populations of Ibracata. Cool stuff. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. I was wondering if there's any, I think it was Sean Christian that said way back in the day. And I can't remember exactly how he put this, but basically he would feed his carpets larger meals as, like, I guess at about a year old and he found that this kind of kicked them into gear, so to speak, for breeding. I mean, is that sound like, is that similar to what we would be seeing here or something along those lines? Yeah. What are your thoughts? I think you could say that to some extent. I mean, obviously, you know, these are capital breeders, so they amount of calories and, you know, energy that they've received over a given time and they say, you know, some mechanism or switch says, do I have enough to reproduce later on, you know, in the breeding season? Do I have enough energy to go off feed while I, you know, have eggs in my belly and, you know, do I have enough energy to survive that process and live for another year? And so, you know, they kind of reach that, including, so I imagine whether you're feeding a lot of small animals or you're eating a few big animals, as long as you're getting that necessary energy requirement, then you're probably going to be successful at breeding. Now, in captivity, that's fairly easy. And a lot of times, we go the opposite direction to get them too fat and obese and that causes problems as well, as we know, you know, from years of people feeding them way too much and they don't have very good reproductive success. I think green pythons, green tree pythons are a prime example of that. You know, they're getting 60 eggs out of a female but only four or five hatch and, you know, they're not sure why. Well, you've got a big fat, large snake that's not doing well. And, you know, Daniel Latouche comes in and says, yeah, we only found, you know, 10 that have been above 1000 grams out of 1000. You know, so you get 1% that's getting less, getting that big that we think we need to have them in captivity. So I think our idea of what, you know, makes healthy. Now, on the other hand, I think there's something that something really important and some of my friends in Australia eat into this is, you know, cycling by feeding. Now, in the wild, a lot of times, they're eating kind of boomer bust, right? During the spring, their prey species are just multiplying and they're plentiful and they're out eating as much as they can gorge themselves with and they're eating a lot more frequently. And then all of a sudden, you know, that kind of goes away and things swim down and it's a lot harder to catch prey and they're older prey and smarter prey. And so they're not going to be dumb enough to walk in front of a weighty carpet python. You know, so things change and they start eating less and less. And then, you know, so, but I think that, that rapid, you know, in captivity, we think, okay, I'm going to feed them once a week and we feed them once a week, you know, and then they either do their thing or they don't. But I think we might be missing, missing part of the, part of the puzzle here if we could reproduce that. Now, what's hard is it, you know, there's not a lot of publications that show how often they feed and when and what months. And so we kind of have to infer a little bit based on other, maybe other papers written, you know, on their prey species. Like when are these things abundant? When are these things getting kicked out of the nest? When are these animals going to have an easy prey item? And when are they probably going to eat them more food? And so then we can say, okay, you know, it's around this time and I'm going to adjust that to North American, you know, cycling and try to add that into my cycling. So I'll do a little bit of temperature cycling and I'll do some food cycling. And then I only have to feed them, you know, very heavily, maybe two or three times a week, but only for, you know, a couple months and then the rest of the year they don't really eat. Maybe a meal here or there just to keep them happy or something. I don't know. So they don't bite you all the time. But yeah, that was nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, again. That's, that's music to my ears because that's pretty much the what I have just stumbled upon, just paying attention to my snakes. Right now they're like in full feed mode. You can't go. Oh, yeah. And so when I saw that, I just started feeding. I actually think it was, I listened to Vin Russo and he talked about Boas and that's what he basically did. And he applied the same thing to Condro. So I just said, okay, well, I'm not having six, you know, is the success that I would like. Let me try and see what this works. And I'll tell you what, it's worked for the best three years. It's, it's great. Like right right now from like August till about now, I just feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, you know, uh, flow down the girls and then, you know, once it's time for them to cool down, then I stop. And then when they come up again, I give them like a couple meals and they ovulate right away. Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah. And I don't know if you've, you guys, I'm sure you've seen the cave brothers. They're the Python and black headed Python breeders out of Troy and Denver, Koologowski. And those guys have a key. They have it down to a key as well. And they're very successful with black headed pythons and all of the pythons, which, you know, some people have struggled to breed. And so, you know, including myself. So I think there's some keys there and they, they go through and kind of list when they feed and how much they feed and then when they stop. And, you know, there gives a, gives a good idea of, you know, same kind of thing you're experiencing. You know, that information is very helpful and useful, like keeping these animals healthy and in her particular. Now, Denver's blackheads are huge. Like when I first saw them, like, I'm a very, very, very giant, you know, they're like really, really big. And he said, yeah, every year. They breed every year. And, you know, and most people in the U.S. would tell you, no, they're too fat. They're not going to breed. But he followed a food cycling schedule rather than, you know, a weekly thing. And I think that really has some keys to success. And I think those, you know, people like you and those guys and, you know, that's bringing some really good information to the table. And, you know, to quantify that is very helpful for others trying to have success with some of these species, I think. And, you know, a lot of people say, oh, you can't feed your snakes, just rats. You can't feed blackheaded pythons, just rats, or you won't have success. Well, that's all Denver feed is rats, you know, and they're doing just fine. Again, they breed every year, you know, and he individually wants to breed, he'll breed it, you know. Even as early as a couple of years old, you know, they know what they're doing and they get it done. So, you know, a lot of these, I think a lot of theories that come out in herpeticulture, you know, when we have issues, you know, you might have a good year and say, oh, what did I do different? Oh, I fed a fish a couple of times. Oh, yeah, we need to feed a very diet. That's the secret to success. Well, maybe not, you know, maybe it was a flu. And that speaks again to, you know, keeping good notes. And, you know, I'm kind of guilty of not doing this. I don't keep the best notes. I've tried in the past, and I had all these awesome notes, and then, like, I upgraded to a different system, and I lost them all in the switch. And so, I go, crap, they're going my notes, you know, what's the point of this? But I need to start doing better and take better notes. But, you know, as you get experience, it kind of engrains within you, and you kind of know how to do it. But, you know, it's helpful to kind of quantify it, and also to take to do some controlled studies. You know, a lot of times, I think we have things like that in herpeticulture, where somebody did it, and it worked for them. And so, all of a sudden, that's the only way you can do it. And that's the way it has to be done. You know, everybody has to feed their blackheads and fish, or they won't reproduce. Well, you know, maybe not. You know, has anybody tried to prove that scientifically? Have you taken, you know, 10 blackheads and fed them only rodents and 10 blackheads and fed them? Very diet. And compared to your results in the end, you know, very few people can actually do that. And so, you know, that's a hard thing to do. I started out doing a little study, and unfortunately, things changed a little bit. My rodent colony gave me issues, and so I had to kind of stop the study, and a few factors weren't controlled for. And so, I'm going to do it again. But I was taking a group of pygmy pythons, and Trigi presents us. And separating them into two groups, and I was feeding one some, you know, mouse legs, and the other group, just the tails, trying to see if there's a difference in feeding a mouse legs versus tails, to see if they start eating earlier or, you know, more reliably. And I didn't get my tanks right. I think we're a little cool. And so, I need to redo the study, you know, again, next year. But, you know, I, you know, kind of failed the experiment this year. So, but I, you know, mainly my main goal is to get them all eating regardless of how I do. So, right. Yeah, so, and, you know, maybe what you feed them isn't as important as how they're being kept, you know, potentially. So, and I imagine if you fed them, you know, skinks, they might take rodents more readily, you know, once they have a little size on them, but I don't have a plentiful supply of skiing. So, I need to find an alternative way to get them to where I want them to be, kind of thing. And so, you know, research is kind of the way we can do that. And I think we can provide information that can benefit herpetology as well. You know, if you can identify certain things like when the switch turns on, you know, when, what weight do, you know, pygmy pythons start eating rodents? You know, we could do that. We could say, oh, they probably eat reptiles until they're about this weight, and then they kind of key into rodents, maybe. And, you know, we can kind of test that hypothesis. Somebody can test that hypothesis using, you know, wild specimens or museum specimens or something like that. So, that's one way we can contribute in some way to the body of knowledge around regarding these animals. I think that's a little bit of a lost, they are there. I say art when it comes to herpeticulture, because I think that, you know, with the focus on, you know, producing morphs and all this stuff, it's sort of lost a little track. I see it maybe going on track again a little bit, but sort of lost, like, trying to figure out. It's like, I guess as soon as you figure out how it breeds, it's like, okay, that's all I need to know. I'm out, you know. I don't need to know any more. The work is done. We don't need to worry about anything else. We can not let you make money. Yes, all right. You know, no more learning. And it's kind of like you might have a bad clutch. And just like you said, you kind of chalk it up to whatever, you know, it's like whatever happened, and you chalk it up to that, when you could really be optimizing, you know, your production by really knowing what is really going on. I don't know. I find that stuff interesting. Yeah. And then also trying to, you know, identify the keys to success with other species, you know, that are less actively worked with. I find that, you know, exciting. And that's kind of driven some of the latest ventures that I'm going into, you know, keeping different lizards and things like that. But, you know, it's a trick and it takes work and it takes time and it takes energy. And sometimes it takes failure to help you learn. And so I think a lot of people are just unwilling to do that with animals they've spent good money on and, you know, have maybe saved for a long time to get, you know, it's hard to say, hey, go experiment on that animal. So I don't really fault anybody for not doing that, you know. And so, you know, but I think if they do take that risk and they discover something important and helpful, you know, that's a great thing. And whether or not they share that, you know, I guess if they're going to do the work, they can keep that secret to themselves. But it's always nice when they share it with others and allow us to kind of benefit from their hard work. And, you know, a lot of times we don't really think about who did the work to get us where we are. And I think that, you know, some of these pioneers of herpeticulture, you know, you guys mentioned Casey Lazick, he's a great example of, you know, that dedication and hard work and trying to figure out some of these things that nobody had bred before. And, you know, he was able to get some of these, you know, like the Centrillion Pythons, you know, that's a what a great work and what an amazing feat that was, you know, in the early days to get that worked out and to discover, you know, some of the things they needed. And, you know, he was very free to share that information and help others to have success like he did. Right. Yeah, you're right. Okay. Let's see. I know in the, in the book, the Complete Carpet Python, like I said earlier, if you don't have it, you should definitely go out and get it. Yeah. Yeah. What a really simple. You make, you make mention of a unique population of southwestern Carpet Python's on the aisle of St. Francis. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, so St. Francis, you know, obviously, and island off the coast down by South Australia. So it's kind of this different area and population of of Imbracata. And the, we touched a little bit on this topic earlier and, you know, of partitioning and males versus females and larger animals versus small animals. And this is kind of a unique feature to Carpet Python's, you know, especially Imbracata. And so the aisle of St. Francis is kind of, where is it by? It's by Seduna or Smokey Bay, kind of more on the west side of South Australia, just down along that south coast. And so these, these animals have been found to have a very large difference in male size versus female size. And this has also been seen in other populations, especially island populations of Morelli and Imbracata. So basically, you know, the theory is that these animals are separating and males from females to put them in, you know, I guess, different niches where females can take larger prey and males take smaller prey. The females get larger and the males stay fairly small, actually. And so they don't compete with each other for resources. And this becomes especially important when you're on an island. You know, there's not a lot to go around necessarily. These guys actually, I think they feed just fairly exclusively on a type of mutton bird, I believe the females do. And the males tend to eat smaller prey, small rodents or lizards or whatnot. But so there's that kind of natural or niche partitioning between the genders, which is, which is pretty cool. And so in that, that happens on, on other island populations as well. And so you see this large disparity between male and female size. And I think that's somewhat unique to the Imbracata. This also kind of speaks for, you know, towards their, the, some of the behavioral differences in the Imbracata compared to some of the others. And in general, of southern south, more south-arranging carpet pythons, like potentially diamond pythons. And while definitely diamond pythons is potentially metcalfi, where they don't have male to male combat. You know, you got a little wimpy male, they're not going to fight each other. Well, why waste their energy, especially when you're living on an island, living on a scant diet. Whereas, so, and they won't fight for, for females. So they just kind of follow the female around, take turns with their breeding. They don't have to fight and show each other's who's boss to be able to win favor, you know, breeding favor with the female. So I think this is a fairly unique strategy and is found more frequent, frequently with these island specimens. And it was very interesting as far as carpet pythons, because it, you know, defies the norm of big males that fight with each other to win the favor, you know, to be able to breed with the females in the area. So, kind of unique and adaptation, similar, you know, to the diamond pythons, where they're adapted to the cooler climates and, and the, you know, less, a shorter feeding window and shorter, you know, breeding window and things like that because they have periods of inactivity when it's too cold. And so, you know, same kind of thing. They live on a small island. They don't have a lot of resources. So, why waste time fighting? Might as well just get along and take turns, you know, pretty love, whatever. So, that's kind of the idea behind that. And so it's a unique population and it's kind of weird, you know, it's out, out off the coast by ways. And, and you've got a population of carpet pythons. We, we tried to secure a photo of these guys for the book and, and we didn't get permission in time by the time the book was printed. And I think we had to pay for the picture, you know, it's just too hard. There's just too small of a profit margin on these books to be paying people for pictures. And so we had to say, well, oh, well, I guess we won't have a aisle of St. Francis picture. But I think Nick may have secured a picture for maybe the next revision of the complete carpet python. So, we'll see how that goes and see if we end up doing a revision down the road. But that's something that we'd like to include in that, if possible. Just because it's something unique and different and not, not a lot of people know about them or talk about them. So, we thought we'd at least make mention of that. Right. That would be cool, but the more complete carpet python or whatever. That's awesome. Now, you know, you were talking about the size difference, but I just want to, so people know in the book, you talked about mature males weighing in and about 305 grams. That's pretty small. That is, that is, that is fine. That's an entire measure right there. Yeah, that's very small. So, yeah, 300 grams and the females are, you know, magnitudes greater than that. I mean, they're up in the normal carpet python range. You know, some of these populations, I think it's Garden Island over on the west coast of Western Australia. Those females are quite a bit larger than the males. And, you know, those other populations show some of that disparity. Now, the mainland populations are not quite as dramatic as the island populations, but there are also some documented populations on the mainland that have larger females and males. And so, it's fairly consistent across the range to some extent, but it's more exaggerated on the more resource for islands, I think is the more likely scenario there. Right. Now, you know, there was also, there was a paper that talked about that females were more arboreal than males. Do you have any thoughts on, on that, why that would be? That's a good question. You know, typically, as carpet pythons get larger, they tend to be more terrestrial than arboreal. So, I'm not quite sure on that one. It could be because the prey they're chasing lives up in trees, but again, I'm not sure. Maybe it's just a matter of good, you know, habitat is available in the trees. Perhaps they use tree hollows to hide out during the day, and they're big, so they can kind of be the boss and take those good hiding spots, or they're seeking nesting birds. I know with centrolyne carpets, mirelli abrettolite, they will oftentimes utilize tree hollows, especially during, you know, high during the bird reproductive seed. And so, they're up looking for prey in the tree hollows and finding these nesting birds. And they'll eat a large percentage of birds during a certain time. Now, as things dry out, and the grasses kind of go away, and the nesting birds, you know, fludge, and they get out of the nest, then they're down more on the ground looking for rodents. So, depending on what time of year you're looking for brettolite, you're either going to be trying to spotlight in a tree, or you're going to be looking more down on the ground, you know, based on the conditions, the environment. And so, you know, another thing that you might learn if you're out looking and saying, "Okay, now during this part of the year, I'm seeing them up in trees, and this part of the year, they're down on the ground." And so, that information helps somebody like you and I in America, where it talks a lot to get over to Australia, and we want to maximize our chances of finding these things. So, we're going to want to grow, and it's, you know, maybe a little easier to find them, or they're more frequently found and cited, you know. So, we appreciate that information. And so, we can observe and experience these animals in their natural habitat. Yeah, that would be amazing. What is known about these guys as far as reproduction in a while? They're probably a typical spring breeder. They, you know, they'll have, you know, a little bit colder winters and a period of inactivity, especially, I know they did some research on this garden island population, and they kind of watched them over the seasons and found that they did have a period of dormancy during the cooler areas, or cooler times of the year, and would see shelter and kind of wait it out and tell things to walk up a bit. And then they'd do some feeding, and they'd actually breed, you know, later on in the year. And I think in captivity that's been the case as well, given the cooling period and breed them after they come out of the cooling. And again, you know, I don't have any first-hand experience, so I could be way off. And that's going to be a question for your next guest that talks about in Bracotta. They can maybe correct me and tell me how wrong I am, and what an idiot I am. So, I'm fully welcome. I fully welcome that, and that's just fine if, you know, they have better information than I do. So, but I would anticipate their spring breeders, and they come out and do their thing. Now, maybe more of the northern reaches of their population, maybe they breed earlier, you know, during the winter when it's not quite as cold, and, you know, the day's heat up a little hotter, especially, you know, as you get into the summertime, and, you know, so it's hotter maybe during the winter as well, through, you know, the daytime temperature so they can be out, be active, and be seeking mates. But, again, I don't know if that's, if there's any kind of regional variation in their reproductive strategies, or if it's, you know, kind of a general spring breeding system throughout their range. I mean, I would almost certainly expect the South Australian populations to be spring breeders that cafe our spring breeders, and, you know, they're similar in that area. And, again, I mean, that cafe range all the way up into Queensland, so, you know, that's another question. Do the northern populations differ in their reproductive strategies than the southern populations? And I don't think anybody really knows that. There's done much work on that. And maybe if we try that out with our, you know, captive populations, we'd get some insight into that. Do we really need to give them such a low temperature during the breeding season? I think with Bredoai, you know, we've asked that question, and some people have, and with diamonds as well, I mean, Terry Phillips spread them without much of a temperature drop, and, you know, no real difference in his keeping regimen, and he got viable babies without much of a winter time drop. So, you know, we just not done the experiments again. You know, are we not, are we being lazy and just going off of what people have done before? Or do they really need that? Is it necessary? I like that example that Terry gives of, you know, well, you find rattlesnakes in areas where it snows, but we're not shoveling snow into our cages. You know, do they need that? Or do they just endure it, you know, because that's where they're at, and that's what they have to do. Maybe different conditions. If you have a mild winter, maybe they're out earlier, and they're breeding earlier, and they're capitalizing on a longer feeding season, or getting prepared for a potential drought, who knows what these animals are tuned in to, or if they just kind of go off, oh, it's warm enough, I'm getting out there and breeding, you know, or do they really need that drop? And I think with some animals, they've shown that the lower temperatures promote, you know, development of spermatozoan, and so they need that lower temperature to be able to produce viable offspring. So, again, you know, we're not sure, but that's kind of what I would anticipate. Cool, with the, yeah. So, we'd say these things are safe species that's threatened in the wild. I think it depends where you go. I mean, I think up in the northern reach of their habitats, it's a little more less populated, more a little more protected, or certainly within areas of national parks, like Nambong, their populations are probably stable, and that, you know, that bears out when I find a bunch of, you know, DORs in that same area, and yeah, there's probably a healthy population there, and it probably is helped by, you know, protecting that environment and making it a national park. I think that's, you know, increasingly becoming a problem as the people move in, and things start getting developed for planting of crops, or for putting in housing, or mining, or different things like that, it pushes, you know, the wildlife out to some extent. And so, you know, it's a good thing we have some of these areas, and it's, you know, hopefully they'll keep those intact, or expand them, and introduce more areas that they can conserve the wildlife, and hopefully we don't end up with a situation like the inland carpets, where they're just a fragmented population, kind of trying to weaken an existence on the edge of, you know, these fields of human interruption. You know, in the western Australia, you know, they talked about the wheat belt, you know, you've probably heard about the wheat belt, and the wheat belt is a ginormous expanse of wheat fields. I mean, it's as far as the eye can see, and it goes on for miles and miles and miles, and you're just like, okay, why am I going to get out of the wheat belt? Like, I'm sick of being in the wheat belt, and so, you know, we talked about wheat belt Simpsons pythons, so they're kind of an island, you know, refuse. They find a, some intact habitat within that area, and that's about the only place they can survive. You're not finding a wheat field, you know, maybe on the edges to try to catch rodents or something, but, so, you know, human interruption does have an effect on, on the wildlife, and so, hopefully they have enough, you know, state forests or national parks that they can kind of preserve their habitat, you know, be, be healthy in their, in their populations. Did I get off topic? What would be original question? Are they safe or threatened? You know, kind of, kind of, didn't, you're good. I think right now they're fairly, fairly stable, fairly safe. Yeah, they're not too threatened, but, but, you know, again, they, you know, that progressive human encroachment is threatening then to some extent, especially in some areas and some habitat. Yeah, that, that would, that would make some sense if that would happen. Yeah, unfortunately, but now with Australian addiction, how was your 2015 season and have you given any thought to your 16 season? Well, yeah, I mean, I was always thinking about the next season. That's, uh, important. This year was good in some areas and, and not so good in other areas. I, I had a great year of entry to production and I'm sitting on a lot of entry to babies and I'm trying to get feeding reliably and, and hopefully have them ready to go within the next month or two. So if you're looking for, for census or stem soni or children, I have got, you know, bucket load to those and should have some really nice stuff. So contact me if you're interested. The carpet python front, not so great this year. All the carpet aches that I got ended up crashing during incubation and I'm not quite sure. A couple of those were from first time breeders and another, another was, uh, who knows what I may not have gotten cool enough, you know, maybe some of my experimentation gone awry. So hopefully this next year will be a little better with the carpets and we'll get a more varied production rather than just a bunch of entry. How was able to get a, get some blue tongue skinks produced this year and those have been very popular and done very well and very nice individuals. And so I've actually picked up a couple more females and another male. So we'll have a couple more litters of the blue tongue skinks. They're the northern blue tongue skinks. So I'm not having fun working with those. They're pretty cool. So, you know, next, I did produce a clutch of walnuts but didn't have the best luck with the eggs and I lost several of the eggs. I thought they were too dry and so I added water to half of them and yeah, I split them up into two different. I was trying some experimentation with egg incubation medium. I was trying that, the little clay pellet thing that looked really dry. So I added more water and then like a couple of days later the eggs were all moly and going downhill whereas the other ones that I kept on vermiculite perlite mixture has just fine. And so I have a nice little pair of walnuts that is doing well and progressing well and they look fantastic. So they're a fun species to work with. Hoping to add a couple new species to the list. I'd like to produce some olive pythons this year. That would be great. I just got a pair of two that could go this year. And dar ones, I need to produce dar ones still. I've got a couple prime pairs that should produce this year and so that'll be nice to have some dar ones and some nice inlands, magline and the kind of the price line mixture with an unrelated male. So those are some of the whole backs that I've kept from those both those lines that just turned out phenomenal. So I'm hoping to intensify some blues in those and get some cool looking stuff. Very cool. Very, very cool. It's really even like waiting to pair up, like dying to pair up. A few things. I mean, I guess I like to pair up just about anything I have. I need to produce a freaking super zebra. I can't believe I haven't produced one. Well, I produced one but I'm sure they have a yellow before hatching. But I'd really like to produce a nice super zebra that's a pure jungle and from some nice refined zebras that are high yellow and looking good. So hopefully that'll happen this year. But that would be nice to do. But I need to produce more jungles. Jungles are always fun to watch grow up and make everybody look jungles. They're fun. I enjoy working. If I was nailed down and had to admit to my favorite, I'd probably pick a jungle carpet python. Just historical reasons as well. Just visually they're so cool and appealing. I like the jungles. Yes, it's hard to beat yellow and black. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, that's cool. So the other thing that we wanted to talk about was the I personally love your podcast, Aeropological Discussions. Thank you. Are we going to be seeing a new episode anytime soon? Yes, I know. I just spent so just crazy busy. Like every weekend I'm gone somewhere else. So, you know, this next weekend I'll be home again. I've got one that I've read a good paper on the journey of skinks and I'm planning on, you know, it's kind of a longer paper, more of a review article. So it covers like all the species of a journey and all these different aspects of their natural history and some really cool stuff. So I'll have that out. I don't know when I'm going to get out, but hopefully very soon. That may be relatively very soon. It might be an evolutionary very soon, like in the next thousand years. But I definitely need to contribute to that. Yeah, I'm still on my mind and I'm still feeling guilty that I have gotten a new one out. Yeah. And, you know, if anybody's out there that wants to do one and wants to record their summary of an article, if it fits and it sounds good, I'll throw it on there for you. So we'll see. Maybe have some tryouts, I don't know. But you could get somebody else's input. I mean, yeah, again, if anybody thinks that, you know, way off base in my analysis of a paper, they're welcome to tell me I'm full of crap. So that's always welcome as well. Maybe be nice about it, but nothing wrong with a little bit of a debate, right? Yeah. And, you know, hopefully things will settle down where I can have them coming out a little more regularly. And, you know, I'm working on a new book with Steve Sharp on the Knoptail Gecko. So maybe some of them will have to revolve around Knoptails for a while while I do research for the book and focus on Knoptail papers. But, you know, kind of ebbs and flows with my interests or my projects or whatever, you know, like if I want to read about a yearniest keens, or actually somebody recommended that, you know, ask, hey, can you do one on a yearniest? So I sure I'll do that. And then it's just kind of drug on for a while because it was a really long paper and had a lot of information. So I'm trying to figure out how to digest that into a, you know, 15, 20-minute show. So that can be a challenge, but going long-winded here, you know, it's almost two hours in. So I can just tend to ramble on. So yeah, that's, I definitely need to get more out. So yeah, do a great job, though. I appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks for the input. Yeah. And last but not least, we have, we have a couple questions from Rob Stone. He wanted to know, let's talk about this one first. I noticed that you were doing some wood burning. And, you know, what you got, you started in it. Do you sell those things? And, you know, how do you, are you like taking commission for it? I mean, can somebody come to you and say, I want, you know, I don't know, inland carpet, you'll do it up or what, how to park? Well, no, yeah, that's, I really enjoyed doing it. I just kind of, I think I was in a craft store with my wife. She was lying something. She's always doing some crafty stuff. And I saw this old, you know, wood burning tool on one of the aisles. And I'm like, oh, that was kind of cool. And I, you know, looked at the little books they had there. And so I said, oh, try it. So I bought one of the wood burning tools and a piece of wood. I think I grabbed a scrap piece of wood out of my garage or something and, and just started doing it. I'm like, this is kind of cool. You know, I like this. And so I got a real piece of wood and did one and it looked pretty good. You know, I was happy with it. And so, you know, I've always been somewhat artistic. I drew quite a bit, you know, when I was younger and entered contests and stuff when I was a kid and just had drawn. And I hadn't been able, you know, I hadn't drawn for a long time or painted. I really like watercolors and, you know, kind of pen on, you can, on paper and stuff like that. So I thought this was something to try. And it worked out well. And so I started doing a few and I was just kind of doing the ones I liked. And whoa, are you selling that? How much you want for that? So I'm like, yeah, I guess I am. I guess I know. Yeah. And so then I got kind of excited and I bought like a ton of wood. And so I've got all these chunks of wood hanging around my room and stuff. My wife's like tripping over stuff. And I are sorry, but, you know, I started taking, you know, requests for commissions. And I, I guess I've kind of changed my method a little bit because a lot of times, you know, it's hard to get the money out of her culturalist. So, you know, like, bleeding from a stone. And so I think from now, and I might have to ask her stuff up for, you know, money up front, if I'm going to do a commission piece, but a lot of people do this for me. And then I do it. And then like, oh, yeah, let me, we're kind of getting a lot of money. So, you know, I kind of, I don't know, I priced them starting around 150 bucks and kind of depends on the size and the complexity of the picture. But, you know, I'm working on one right now. It's a thorny devil, a mollock. So, we'll see how that works out. But, you know, I almost have to switch up my tactics and say, you know, I'll have to do my up front if we're going to do a commission piece or at least half or something, you know. And if you don't like it, say, never mind, or I don't know, right, I'll tell it elsewhere. But, you know, guess that's what you do with the artwork. So, I don't know, I'm just still trying to learn how to best do this or figure it out. But it's, I really enjoy it. It's kind of a nice way to, my wife's going back and finishing up her bachelor's degree. And so, she's doing homework at night. So, I just sit in Woodburn while I watch TV or, you know, whatever, listen to your guys' podcast. So, nice way to, nice way to spend the time. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I'm going to keep suggesting to do one of my face to give the you erics. It's like a wood burning with me. You've been hanging your house all the time. Lovely. There you go. Yeah, I don't know if I can let that one go. I might have to keep that one. Put it up. Exactly. And then the, the other thing that he noticed is that you had posted up some horned lizards. Can you, can you tell us about that? Yeah. Yeah. So, this, this kind of goes back to my past when I was a kid. I went to a scout camp and I was, you know, I got up on morning and I was just kind of hiking around exploring the camp. I think I climbed the fence or some of those outside of the boundaries. And all of a sudden, I'm walking along this hillside and I see this fat little tank running around. I'm like, "Holy crap. It's a horned toe, you know, horny toe." So, I pick it up and I'm just checking this thing out. And then I look over and there's another one running around. There's like 20 of them on this hillside. I'm like, "This is awesome," you know? And, you know, they went very fast. They were easy to catch and they were kind of weird and cool looking. So, I'm like, "Oh, yeah." And, you know, I was already into lizards and snakes and stuff. And so, it was already a big passion of mine. So, I brought them home and, you know, kept them, kept them in a tank. And I thought, you know, they need some natural sunlight. So, I put them outside in their tank and I was watching them and they seemed to be enjoying the sun. And then I think I got distracted and went to the house and did something. And I'm like, "Oh, crap. I, the lizards." And I run outside and they all cook. So, I felt like a cool tool. You know, I just cooked all these lizards. And then, so, I kind of, in the back of my mind, I was always thinking, someday, I'm going to try those again and do it right, you know, and do it well. So, this last year, I was able to go to, you know, go back to this area. And I tried to find the place where I found these things and it was a miserable failure. So, luckily, I had a friend that told me where I could find a healthy population. And we found, like, eight of them in an hour, you know, right at dusk. And so, they're, you know, very healthy, clinical population. So, I think it's legal in our state to collect three of them. And so, I collected the legal amount and brought them home and kept them, you know. And so, I've just been trying to keep them happy and healthy. And so, far, I was doing a pretty good job. Two of the females, incidentally, were gravid. And so, they had babies. And so, I was in my life, eyeballs and baby horned lizards. So, it was really fun, because they're about the cuticle reptile you can find. They're tiny. And they can take down a harvester ant for crying out loud, you know. Like, I was just on a camping trip down in the desert. And I was walking around, you know, I was looking at these Indian, you know, pectographs on the walls of the canyon. And I'm sitting there just, you know, marveling at this cool pictograph. And also in an ant, you know, a harvester ant bit me on the toe. See, while I was standing there in my, you know, sandals. And it, it felt like my painful, you know. And my little, you know, inch-long babies are eating these things. You know, that's a pretty dangerous prey item. Wow. Yeah, they're, they're impressive little animals. Like, and, you know, the nice thing about the montane species is they have a fairly diverse diet. And the other nice thing about, you know, keeping horned lizards in captivity is now there's a commercial supply of ants. So, you can mail order ants and buy them just like you would crickets or anything else. And so, you know, it's fairly easy to feed them their proper food items. Yeah, they, incidentally the, the ant supplier is from Utah. So, you know, like, well, I used to be in, just, yeah, order the, order the ants and they come, you know, a couple of days later and it works out well. So, I've been keeping the, this species that's local to Utah. They're the Phrynisoma Hernandez eye or the greater short horned lizard. And, and so I was, I was talking with this guy on campus because I said it down the south or to, you know, Southern Utah to St. George to go herping down there. So, I was asking him for, you know, some advice on any, you know, spots that are good to go check or herp or whatever. And, or if you wanted to come along, you know, and he's like, well, I can't come this time. And then, when I got back, he's like, hey, do you know anybody who has experience with horned lizards? No, it's funny you should ask. I do. And so, he's like, well, we, this kid went on vacation and he caught these desert horned lizards, Phrynisoma Playa rhinos and brought him home and, and didn't know what to do with him. So, you know, he gave him to his teacher and his teacher didn't know what to do with him. So, she gave him to us and we don't really know what to do with him. So, why don't you take them? They say we, we contacted the Fish and Wildlife Department and they never call us back. So, you know, we can't really keep them. So, we'd rather have them in capable hands than have them sit here and languish. And so, you want them. And I said, sure. And so, now I've got two species of horned lizard. So, it's been an adventure. And I, I hope I'm doing them justice. And I hope to be able to reproduce them and make those available to people. Most of the babies that I produced, I sent down to Steve Sharp in Arizona and, and he works for the Phoenix Zoo and they were going to put a few on display there. So, and then, you know, who knows what, what will happen next year. Hopefully, I can repeat, you know, lightning will strike twice and I get to get some more baby, baby horned lizards. They're, they're a blast to work with. But I feel like I'm kind of redeeming myself from that failure when I was a kid and trying to deal with, allow other people to have the experience to work with captive bred animals instead of taking them for a while. Right. That's awesome. That is awesome. I love that kind of stuff because then you're, you're taking it for a purpose and you're not just going to like, you know, have it sit in a cage and kill it. Anyway. Yeah. And that's always, again, it's always kind of bugging, you know, this idea of, you know, kind of just taking animals and selling them. You know, I don't, I don't really like that. I, I think it, you know, more sustainable approach is to take, you know, what you need to breed and, and set up a viable colony and then breed those animals and make those available. So, you know, you end wild collection with your efforts, you know, that's kind of the goal that I have when I, when I take on projects like this, is to be able to provide them to people, you know, so they can have the experience without having to take them from the wild. So that's kind of a, and this is more of a, how, what do you call it, maybe a, a project that's not really financially based. I mean, it's going to cost me a lot more than, you know, I don't, I don't think I'm allowed to even sell the ones, you know, the, the short horn lizards, I'd probably have to give those away. So as long as somebody pays shipping and is going to work with them responsibly and provide for them, I'm happy to, you know, provide them with some, some of these greater short horn lizards. And they're probably the, the best introductory species to work with anyway, because they're pretty, you know, they eat a variety of insects. So you can feed them some crickets and some beetles, along with, you know, kind of that staple, yeah, ant diet. So I would recommend at least half their diet be ants. And then the others can be, you know, do be an ants or crickets or being beetles or whatever, you know, you like to fill in the rest. That's awesome. That's it. Yeah. That is very cool. I mean, you find, you would find too, I mean, I think my thought would be that if you introduce somebody to a species and they really like it, typically they usually care about the environment that that species is from as well, you know, I mean, you know, listen to us talk about Australia, you know, it's just like exactly, that's like the Mecca, you know, we wouldn't want anything to happen to that place. So yeah, you want it to be there for when you, you know, make it over and go over there. Yeah. I mean, that was, that was the heartbreaking thing was to go over, you know, kind of hit Darwin and not see any of these, uh, Penakk, these monitors, you know, the big Argus monitors that tripod and look over the grass. You may see all these iconic photos of these big monitor lizards in the Darwin area and you go up there now and they're very scarce. They're very hard to find because the stupid king codes move through, you know, I just, I recommend getting over to Western Australia before the king codes make it over there or some other thing occurs, you know, that kind of reduces the number of animals that you can find. I remember we moved through one area of Western Australia and it was like, Mad Max, like post-apocalyptic wasteland because there were goats, feral goats everywhere and they were eating all the vegetation and it looked horrible, you know. I'm thinking, yeah, and this is just sad to see all these invasive creatures, you know, kind of ruining things for the natives. Yeah. It's a sad state when that occurs. So, you know, get over, see it before it's, you know, before it's ruined by people. Unfortunately, you know, the way things tend to go, we kind of screw stuff up. Yeah. 2016. That's when it's happening. Yeah, that's the time. There you go. All right, Justin, why don't you talk about your contact information. Somebody wants to get in touch with you to talk about papers or interested in animals or they want to commission a wood burning of my face or something like that. How would they get in contact with you? You know, my contact information can be found on my website, australianattiction.com or connect with me on Facebook at Australian Addiction Reptiles Facebook page or my personal webpage or Facebook page under Justin Jewender. I'm happy to connect with anybody in chat reptiles or whatnot. So, if you've got a really burning question, you can find my contact information on my website and give me a call. But, um, yeah, happy to, happy to talk with just about anybody. Awesome. Even up. Yeah. I mean, pushing it a little bit, but, you know, I don't address it guys in a few hours and then there's. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Justin. I'm proud and in some time. That was pleasure. Pleasure as always, guys. Thank you. All right. Have a good night. Good night, Justin. We'll see you later. Bye. Hold on. Okay. Well, there we go. I'm going to have to listen back to this one because of information there that, you know, I always like listening to Justin. What an awesome guy. Such a positive dude too. You know, I mean, you find that it was funny. Rob sent me a, he sent me this picture of something earlier and he was kind of a little frustrated at what, you know, what it was about and it was just so negative, you know, and the stupid thing on the website that would just stupid in the selling. No, no, it's not that. No, it had something to do with rhino rat snakes and, you know, it gets fresh, but it's just, you know, it's such a breath of fresh air to have, you know, positive. It inspires me to be positive and stay positive and pump down pump, you know what I mean? I'm excited and enjoy the goddamn hobby. I mean, I love a bit like we're talking to Justin and he's he's wandering in the outback after his wife is giving him permission to stay until darkness. You find this one snake as he follows his filming and I'm like, that is amazing. And yet on the other hand, I'm looking over at Facebook and people are bitching because a bunch of freaking wholesalers and dealers and flippers and inexperienced people are dropping prices or misrepresenting carpet vitals to get to the freaking point of the hobby. And it is the love of your animals, the breed your animals and the have goddamn fun. And I'm going to have a freaking ball with my animals and I don't give a rat to ask what I sell them for or what other people are selling some shit that looks like my animal. They aren't my animals. It's not my business. And I'm going to have goddamn fun with it. And if I and I want to be Justin in the middle of a freaking outback, just wondering nice. I'm gonna get that fairly and I'm going to be like, I have nothing left now. There's there's no point. You guys are going to be like, new people over here sniveling over 20 bucks. I don't prayer. I've been in the wild with shut up. Yeah, I think that's kind of been, you know, that's what I was trying to say during the show. It's like, it's that whole thing of like trying to figure out how a species works and like taking it to the next level and like really trying to hone in on what's going on. And like, yeah, it seems like, you know, he talked about Casey Laysick and how, you know, he like did all this work to get us to this far. And I think it's kind of up to us to take it even farther, you know, for the next generation of herpers that are coming into the into the into the hobby, you know, because I think it is true. I mean, you know, people can say what they want about whether or not you should keep animals in captivity or not. But I think in the long term, you you you appreciate these animals, which then makes you take a step back and maybe appreciate the environment that they're from. And I think, I don't know, I think that's just an all all around good thing, you know, it is it is a completely good thing. I mean, in the bare bones of it, we're all naturalists. I mean, we all care about the environment, we all care about the animals are hanging out with you. Imagine like what he just said about the canes. He imagined having been there before and then going back after the cane goes. I mean, how hard broken would you be if, you know, you went there, you saw everything is all great. And then you saw it all destroyed. I mean, I would be sick. But I mean, and that's the honest part of it. And and going back to what you said about Casey, ladies at Casey, like saw these animals, we take for granted so much, the animals that we have currently in their herpet culture. At one point, somebody had to be a pioneer with a species. And Casey has a numerous animals to his repertoire. So does Tom Jogin. I mean, we're looking at one of our guys, I think, one of the up and comers who's really going to be one of those staple guys, Chad Greg, I mean, he's breeding everything and doing it right. And I mean, I love that guy. He's freaking hilarious. But I mean, and he's got some gorgeous animals. So it's just, it's, it's what you want to be in the hobby. If you want to be one of these guys who really want to focus on these things on the next level and figure out what makes them tick, figure out what we can do to do to breed different species, harder species. I mean, I, I love my morale. I love my carpet buttons. I love trying to lock in that next new more for take my projects to the next level. But I also love the off the cup stuff. I mean, my savoos are psychopaths, but I can't wait to breed them. Same thing with the water pipes on the olives. I'm, I'm just gearing back up with the whitelifts. Again, you know, whitelifts are so close to my heart. It's ridiculous. And I want, I want to do these weird stuff because I don't see that many of them out there. And that's what originally drew me to carbon by those. You don't see that many out there. So it's almost like, if this is something that makes you tick this whole naturalistic stuff like with Justin, I would recommend finding a species that you're passionate about that maybe isn't bred that often in captivity and then go full bore, go out there, see what happens. If you can travel to where they're from, we can do it. Have some fun. Yeah, I mean, I just, I have to, I have to make it to, I have to make the pilgrimage. I mean, and you know what's so hard? What's so hard is that Australia is so big, and there's so many different things to see. It's hard to fight on some tiny little island really perfect. Let's go do the whole friggin island. But no, there's so much giant-ass cotton and all different parts. And I think it's not like Australia is like the size of Pennsylvania. It is massive. So it's like multiple trips would be needed to see all the different species. And you know what, you might have a trip where you don't see me. What was Justin said he went and you see any carpet by then at one time. But what's, I think what's cool though is the fact that can I lose your own? Yeah. Okay. There's a fact that you, I mean, yeah, my goal would be to see carpet pythons, but I think of going up to like the Cape York peninsula. You know what I mean? Not only are you going to see carpet pythons, but you can find green tree pythons and you can find scrub pythons. And you know, I want to be salt water crocodiles just so I can feel very inferior. I would be a body of water that's same. Yeah, I would be a scooby snack too. If it's salt water crocodile. That is an animal size of an SUV. Let us now go away from it. I mean, that you're God. You know, when I was down, when I was down in Florida at the, what was it saying that that's being crocodile farm? Yes. I never really understood how big those, I mean, I've seen Steve Irwin jump on the back of those things forever. You know, like when you see it in person, it took it to a whole new level. And that's, that's kind of like what my thing is with wanting to go to Australia so bad. It's like to go into that environment to feel what it's like, you know, it's just, it's just, you get, I think you just get a whole better understanding of what's going on. And that's going to happen this year with or without you, my friend. I know you. 2016 2016. Yeah, we're one three months away. Come on. You know, so, yeah, like I said, you know, make, go over and I was, I was sharing it during the show over on our chat, chat group. But go over to Justin's website and you can go click on that visit spot. And I must have, I must have missed something or maybe I missed an update or whatever, but I seemed like down at the bottom there was, he went to next place and there was a couple other cool things that I saw on there. Plenty of photographs of, from his Australia trips, you know, where you can see, if you're in the geckos, there's tons of geckos on there. If you're in the, you know what I mean? It's just everything you could possibly imagine reptile related is, is on there. So that's cool. Um, let's see. Like I said, we are what two weeks, not this weekend, but the following weekend will be at Tinley Park, which again, I'm pretty pumped about. So I'm glad that we got to do this show. Um, Justin, we have to have Justin on like maybe twice a year to keep us focused and focused. Yeah, we have to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do, I get to get a picture of talk, you know, I told you, man, you guys missed out on, um, when he gave that talk at the, uh, Tinley Park. Anyone that went that one, right? Because I didn't go with you till the following October. So yeah, I shared a table, I shared a table with Julie. Yeah. Yeah. And that me, Julie, Jason Howard, Luke. That was the show you guys are burning my business card. Yeah. I remember this show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was it. That was fun. Yeah. No, you know, failing loves that picture. He shows it a lot. So yeah, that was such a, that was such an exciting year for a multitude of reasons. But you know, the podcast that just come out, uh, the complete call, the Python had just come out, uh, the, uh, being able to, uh, to go there and, you know, uh, even not, uh, I cast was in 2013 as well. No, I think that was the following year. The following year? Okay. I apologize. So, but yeah, it was pretty good for Morelia. So. Yeah, that, that was, uh, 2012 into 2013. Yeah. That was a good time. So it was 2012 that October of 2012 is when that Tinley Park was, but that's in my day. Yeah. Yeah. And that was it. Anyway. Yeah. So, uh, good stuff for sure. So, uh, I guess if you're, I don't know, again, uh, we've been preaching in it and preaching it, but you know, you can't let these opportunities, uh, that present themselves in life to, uh, pass you by. So, I mean, you can be the guy or, or the girl that says, uh, you know, uh, yeah, I guess I would love to go to that and you never do it, uh, or you can just do it, you know, just do it. It doesn't cost that much to head out to Tinley Park. And you know, it seems that Tinley has become, uh, the reptile show of the year, I would dare say. I would, I would go ahead and just pretty much say that. I mean, from what I've heard of other shows that used to be, uh, on the higher end of the two go to shows, they are kind of no longer. So I would say that Tinley Park in October is, uh, probably the biggest and best show in the country. And you know, what's cool is is that people come, I mean, you know, there's a, there's, uh, I think it's the Sacramento show, maybe that is actually bigger than Tinley Park, but I mean, meaning size wise, but, um, you know, Tinley Park is you get everybody, you get the East Coasters, you get the West Coasters, you get the Southern, you know, I mean, it's just everybody. People from overseas. I mean, it's, uh, I mean, uh, we're, we're going to see Peter Birch again, probably because, uh, he was there the last two Tinley's and it's always cool to catch up with him and get the Australian perspective. Yeah, we got to get him on the show. I know. At the last time I saw him because the rules that they have to adhere to keeping Morelia is insanity. I mean, you've thrown over everything with me and I think that would be an awesome show and also feel, make everyone here who keeps the carb plates on as a bin feel like an idiot. So, including the host, including you and me because that's what it did to me the last time. But anyway, we'll get that later, but I would love that Peter Beck on. He was a great guy to talk to and he was like, oh, you know, this, you know, living in my snake room, all of a sudden a diamond python from outside comes walking in and he hangs out ever once in a while. I check him out, let him lose. So I'm like, wait, you say a diamond python comes in from outside? Yeah, like, oh, great. Yeah, okay. You know, I just bought these babies for this much and you got random ones breaking into your house. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, the, uh, you know, what's cool is that, like, again, I always say, like these guys, like Justin and, and Peter Birch and Nick and, and, and, you know, Paul and all these guys that have like rock star status, at least to me, you know, it's like, oh, I got, I can't believe I'm talking to the, to these guys like, you know, and like when, when, when you meet them and then you're talking to them and it's just, you know, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. So it, so it was, it was like a couple of weeks. I think it was maybe last week that your birch must have been over at, um, prehistoric pets, right? And he's at prehistoric pets. And I guess he's filming, uh, an episode of critic cam or whatever. And he has on the carpet fest shirt. You know, it's just like, I'm like, oh, that's so cool. You know, like, wow, that's so badass. That's what made such a little single life that made me happy, but you love the little things. Like I love that I was sitting at last in Lee Farber Jason Bailey and Carrie King. We're all going through carpet fights on pictures on our damn phone. And it was like, I'm like, yeah, this is the most fun I've had. So it's like, this is, I love it that it's like that stuff. And I also love that, you know, I, I sent some, uh, rogue t-shirts to Australia, um, to, uh, down there. And they, they're popping up every once in a while too. So you got to love this stuff. You got to enjoy the fricking hobby. And on that note, yeah. So again, I'm glad, uh, yeah, we had, uh, we had such a positive show. I, I, I really like this show. So I'm going to have to go back. Let's do it. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Well, so next week, Owen is our four year anniversary. Oh, Jesus Christ. You've been in this for four years. Four years. How time has flown by? So, um, yeah, I think, uh, that episode will just be uh, will be awesome. We'll probably take calls and, you know, I don't trust the world. Did you want to call in and share with us your favorite moments or what have you or just call and rag on us? Um, I'm hoping that we get a call from a, a man named Jim and, uh, you know, way back in the day. Well, they're just the wheeling. He had dreams of one, co-hosting up on gas and I'm afraid of what he may say. So I'm not telling him, um, you know, it'd be crazy if both of our dads called in that, no, that would be nice. That would be exactly what we'd go on right here. You do what your dad has all the hurt the collar, not hurt the culture knowledge. And, you know, my father would just be here for the comic early. There'd be no change in the show at all. Yeah, it'd just be like the older virgin. Yeah. It's like, I am going to be in the next 10 years. Yeah. To the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the old dudes that were on the muppets that used to hang up in the balcony. Property dude. Get off my lawn. It's not that far. Yeah. So far. Yeah, it's pretty good. Oh my god. So yeah, I think, uh, I think we were talking about maybe going back and talking about, uh, obviously again, for, for newer people, you know, how, how it all came about and the history of it and some of our highlights and maybe get, I know we were talking about doing something like putting something up on the pick of the week where people can, uh, weigh in on their, uh, favorite moments throughout our past four years. And of course, we'll bring them up and talk about them on air. Um, we said also phones will be open so you can call. I mean, my favorite, if we're going to go into that is when Eugene Bissette called me an unproven breeder or unproven male. Yeah. That was pretty bad. I didn't have a kid. Yeah, it was great. Anyway. Again, with the whole being star truck, star truck by hurt the culture people. Eugene Bissette just made fun of me. That's fantastic. So, you know, I'd love that. So, um, but yeah, we'll get in all that stuff. Uh, next week, I always look forward to the show and it feels like a whirlwind because we have this show. We have the review of Kinley, then we're getting into calendar time, then we're getting into holiday show time, then we're getting into our winter break where you and I go crazy for two weeks and then we're back again. So it's like, guys, this is, uh, in the year from like, from Finley on goes like fast. So, yeah, we'll get into breeding, breeding season. Oh my God. Oh my God. It all over again. It's just a few days, few days when we start, dude. Yeah. Do you find? I know, I know we're kind of rambling here, but do you find that? I don't know what, anyway. You got it. Now everybody's tuned out at this point. Do you find that, like, I feel that since I've been breeding snakes, that my time goes faster. You know, it's just like, oh man, it's like, boom, you know, because you're already sort of geared for the next season. I mean, it's one of those things that what it does is it, you have this constant, like, clock that's kind of like moving you forward. It's like, so now we're in this month, but in this month, this is what I have to do. It's like, I imagine somebody who, you know, it's almost like keeping track of things. It's almost like school teachers knowing what the next step is for the next month and the next month leads to this, leads to this, leads to this, leads to this with having snakes. You do have a schedule of what to do and your time does slide because now you're like, all right, I'm in breeding mode. Then you click into breeding mode and you're there for a couple months before, you know it, now it's time to warm up. So it's, it definitely moves faster. Or I can just say that the Herpiculture Society has just aged me horribly and moved time so quickly. Yeah, that too. Yeah, I kind of go through that with my job, with my day job, you know, it's like when you're working in, in retail, it's kind of like, you know, like, I'm already doing orders and putting together things for Christmas. Yeah, you know, with you, it's got to move quicker because like, you guys get the holiday shit in before we all see it like, what, months in advance? Yeah, like next week, we'll be doing the Valentine's Day, you know what I mean? So it's like, you're already, I'm already past Christmas, you know, I'm already into like, February, you know, you act right so far in the future. That's, that's the thing is, because you're, because we look forward so many months, um, or we're always looking forward, it time does fly. Cause I remember my first clutch of eggs, it took forever for those damn things to hatch. Now, I'm like, holy crap, these things are pipping, you said, so it's like, already? So it's like, now it's like, cause summer flu, because I was already getting ready for what I was going to be putting together, what I was going to be breathing in October. Now we're in October, and now October is going to fly into the winter, because I'm going to be cooling down, getting everybody geared up, putting animals here, putting animals there. And before I know it, we're going to be bringing everybody up in springtime. And then after that, there'll be eggs, it'll be carpet fest before you freaking know it. Yeah, I know, right? Crazy. But, okay. So yeah, so that's next week's, next week's episode. So be tuned for that. Stay tuned for that. And, uh, should be, should be, should be a fun, fun, fun episode. So, if you want to learn more about the show, or more about the Morelia in general, check MoreliaPythonradio.com. I sort of, I say this multiple times, but I sort of look at that as like, kind of the hub of Morelia. You kind of go there, and it kind of points you in the direction of people, and papers, and books, and all kinds of stuff that link out to show you, uh, sort of the who's who of, uh, carpet pythons and, and Morelia. So, uh, MoreliaPythonradio.com. You can listen to the show on iTunes. You can also, or whatever your podcast, app of choice is, uh, you know, we really don't, we really never really pushed for people to go and write reviews. There are some over there, but, uh, apparently that, that helps when it comes to that. I think you were afraid of what the public would say about us. Sorry. Yeah, I don't care anymore. You know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna keep it, keep it positive. You know, I, I don't know. That's kind of, it is what it is. You know, you don't like it. Don't listen. I don't know what to say. Um, yeah, I'm just trying to learn like you guys are trying to learn, you know. So, the only way to do that is to bring on, uh, you know, the, the people that, uh, you know, are, are, are really top notch when it comes to working with these animals. So, um, that's kind of that. Uh, if you, uh, uh, you know, we're always looking for show ideas. So, uh, you know, every once in a while, we sort of, uh, gear off, uh, gear off of Moralia and talk about other things. And so if there's something that, uh, you would like to hear, uh, you know, maybe we can, uh, work that in. We sort of always sort of stay with the Python vein, but, uh, every once in a while, we ventured off, off of that. And, uh, you know, it seems that, uh, yeah, it seems that we might have to do, uh, uh, a Blue Tongue Skink Show at some point, because it seems that that niche is sort of taken over, uh, people with Moralia seem to have, uh, really jumped onto those guys. Of course, we haven't yet. No, no, no, no, no, no, nor, nor will I, but, you know, it's for that episode, if you want, uh, I think we should just have Zach come on and be a cohort just on with that position. Yeah, I had him tag out and, you know, I have nothing to offer when it comes to that. Not as do I. I do not. I mean, I took care of one at the zoo. It lived. So, I'm pretty sure I was doing all right, but I don't know. I could have been slowly killing it. So, well, yeah. So, yeah, like I said, yeah, definitely have. Um, and I could say, you know, I was watching Zach's stuff, while I was over there, uh, with the sweet, um, with trouble. Yeah, it's the word, trolicking through Germany. Um, anyway, uh, they were cool, man. I have to admit, you know, they were pretty cool. But, uh, anyway, uh, so yeah, send that to info@mareleeplaytimeradio.com. Um, I'd love to talk to, uh, to people that, you know, if you're from Australia and you do field-herping, I think that would make for an interesting show. Um, I think that, uh, if you're from Australia and you approach breeding in a different way, I know, I don't know if I should say it out loud, but one of the things that we're, you know, how we had, I think the first Australian guest that we had on was, was it Wayne Larks or was it Damien Hyde? I can't remember. I think it was Larks and then Hyde came on after. Yeah. I thought we had, like, Australia, I think we did, like, some Australian shows, like back to back to back or something like that or something weird. Yeah, it was like a month of Australian, uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he's, he's breeding some phenomenal stuff, uh, Wayne. Yeah. Morelion. Yeah. But, uh, I, I know it's going to be coming out at some point, but, uh, you know, he mentioned to, uh, Troy Kiligowski, um, but, uh, he's the guy that was doing the carpets and his brother was doing the black bits and the olives and, you know, that kind of thing. But, uh, anyway, they were both together and I had made mention that, uh, that would be a pretty cool show to have both those guys, you know, come on and talk, uh, carpet pythons because that would be cool. Yeah. That would be real cool. So if you, uh, if you're listening to the show and, you know, you think you would be, uh, you know, want to come on, a lot of people getting nervous about coming on, you know, they get, they get kind of afraid of just people hanging out talking reptiles, you know, we're not, you know, we want to be nice people. Eric is. Yeah. So send that to info@merrelipythonray.com. Let's see what else. Don't forget this weekend is the Northwest Carpet Fest. Uh, if you, uh, are going to be in that area, if you're on the fence and you're in that area, I definitely would recommend heading out, hanging out with those guys and, and girls, uh, it will be a great time, no doubt. Um, and you'll get to, uh, hang out with some, like I said, some of the coolest people in the, uh, in this whole reptile shindig. Um, so, uh, it's, it's in Seattle. Um, and there's going to be, as soon as they send the links, I'm, like I said, it'll be posted all over Facebook. I'll put it up on really pythonray.com and carpetfest.com and all that stuff. Um, the auction that they're doing for U.S. Arc, um, you know, should be, uh, some, some cool prizes. They're not doing any live animals. They're only doing, uh, um, you know, vouchers. So that way you get the animal you want. You know what I mean? You don't have to, uh, settle for, uh, what they, what somebody has to offer. You can pick, pick the animal that you want and fits into your, uh, to your breeding plans. Although, I'm not, uh, the animal that I got from a carpetfest was one of, uh, the inlands from, uh, Australian addiction. Uh, yeah, remember that one. I had to have that, man. That was, uh, I need, I need inlands, dude. I do. It's stopping. I'm not buying snakes from Australia. Damn it. Yeah. Don't worry. I'll be breeding inlands the same year that you'll be breeding ruffie. So we got, we got the other cover. You already talked about that for the Blackface Whitwood trade. Yeah, you're going to get water pythons for the inlands. Okay. Goddamn it. It's all focused. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so let's see. What else do we got? Uh, so we got the carpetfest northwest. Um, and then, uh, but, but we talked about Tinley Park. Um, and just so everybody knows the date that is October. What is it? 10th and 11th? Yes. 10th and 11th. Uh, Tinley Park, Chicago, Illinois. You can check out, uh, the N-A-R-B-C dot com, uh, website, and that'll tell you more information. Um, don't forget, U-S-R, we have the booster going, uh, the Maralea, you know, T-shirt, booster, all proceeds going to U-S-R. Uh, so you're going to donate to that? You get a cool T-shirt. Right now we've raised 60 cents. 60 cents? Oh, wow. Come on. Come on. We finally hit, we finally hit the, finally hit the threshold where the order will be fulfilled, but all that money and all those shirts have made for paid for the order, but now it's when we start making money for U-S-R. So we have raised 60 cents. So now, if you go over, get a shirt, we're going to start building up the money to U-S-R. Now you probably only have about 10 days, maybe less. So no more dawdling, go get the T-shirt. Do it. Yeah, you gotta, yeah, get a cool shirt and you know, you're donating to a good cause. So, uh, it's a good thing. Uh, it's gonna be the last time we offer this shirt. So no more of these shirts after this. So. Yeah. Um, let's see. And I guess last for me would be, uh, ebmorellia.com. Uh, we're gonna, I took a whole bunch of pictures the past two days. Uh, oh my god. I'm going to be putting up what, uh, what I have available. I got some nice tigers available. So that should be, they're not had oh by no Owens. So don't worry. I didn't, I didn't know I was going to ask that. Yeah. Uh, these are from my, uh, citrus tiger line. Um, uh, so they're, they're going to be, they should be stellar as, uh, as adults. Um, and, uh, what else do I got? I got caramel stuff, caramel jags. I got, uh, you know, caramel and jungle. Like I have car, I have a caramel jungle jag. That's, uh, I know that's kind of blasphemy, but it's, it's, uh, it's a pretty cool looking snake, man. I mean, that's going to be, uh, I don't know. That might be an avenue that people might want to go down. Um, but, uh, you know, so definitely cool stuff. Um, uh, yeah, super caramel stuff. And I got, uh, they're both pure and crosses and, uh, uh, man, uh, coastal stuff. And I have had albino stuff, uh, jags and zebra jags and car molds and, uh, all that kind of stuff. So, I was trying to get, uh, get it together before Tinley so that, uh, you know, there's something that you're interested in and you want to pick it up to Tinley, save on shipping. Uh, that would be, that would be cool. Uh, so look for that in the next couple of days, Ebimirally.com. I took a picture of my ivory jungle, uh, and then that snake is cool. That snake is a cool snake. It is, I actually got it from Mike Curtain. And if he finds out that he let that go, he's probably gonna- No, no, he knows. Trust me. He knows that he hates it. So, yes. That's why I don't sell anything. So it's growing up. It means because I, uh, man, but, uh, yeah, some, some, some cool stuff. So look out for that. Ebimirally.com. If you're interested in anything, uh, check out my Facebook page, uh, Ebimirally. Yeah. I'm on Twitter, Instagram. If you want to send me an email, send it to eric@ebimirally.com. And, uh, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Um, and hopefully, uh, we'll see you at Tinley. That's all I got, Owen. All right. Uh, what I got, you can go through rogue-reptout.com. You can check out everything we get going on at Rogue. Uh, there's a new page. Right when you open it up, it's called, uh, lineage information. You click on that and it will actually take you to a page where I have prepared all the family trees for all the babies that are available. You've just got to look up their clutch ID number and it'll point you in the right direction of what family tree and all the information that I have currently. Shut up. You shut up your mouth. Ooh, Mr. Fancy Pants. Oh, no. I, I saw Nick do it and I love the idea. It's, if you want the lineage information, this is the lineage information that I know of currently. So, and some of the family trees, to be honest, are kind of bare. It's just like, here's mom, here's dad and there's a list of the guy I got it from. I tried getting pictures or tried getting lineage at one point and either never got it. So if you want to continue further, like say you bought one of the babies and you want to hunt down some more, please do. And if you do find some more information, please send it on over. I'd be happy to update the family trees. Well, then this way, now they're up and they're up forever. So if somebody gets an animal from me and doesn't get the lineage information and a few years go by and then they start getting really seriously into that stuff, they can now go back and look up the baby and pull up the lineage number. Right now, I only put up the animal that we currently have for sale. If you have a baby or if you want a family tree done for a pairing, please let me know and I'll be happy to provide that for you on the website. So it also cuts back on the people emailing me, asking me for lineage. Anyway, with that, that's the second that info should. Yeah, you can go check that out also. We have up to date on all the snakes for sale on the website as well as on the Facebook that's rogerepthiles@facebook.com. You will get up there. All the latest stuff going on rogue are there. We're going to be putting up our 2016 pairings once I finalize the pairings. It will not be all the pairings because I'm keeping a few secret for me people. Yeah, that's going to happen anyway. So we'll see about that. If you want to sit in a pairing, let us know. We'll get you on the list. We'll talk to you about it and we'll see how it goes. Other than that, the next show I have cooking for us is Tinley Park Chicago with my good friend Eric Burke and then the weekend right after Tinley, I have the Hamburg reptile show in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. So we got like back-to-back shows and if Tinley goes well, I might just be head Hamburg laughing. So if you're sitting there going, I'll get it in Hamburg. Don't. I suggest you talk to me very soon. It's one of those things where I was talking to you. It's like I don't want to sell babies because I want to bring them all to Tinley and this is when things are flying off the shelves. So if you want a baby, make sure you contact me prior to. That's all I got and that's all we got. So what I will say is thank you all for listening and we're going to catch everybody next week with some more Moralea Python radio. Good night. Hey Chad Brown here. You may remember me as a linebacker in NFL where as a reptile breeder and their owner of Projekt. I've been hurt since I was a boy and I've dedicated my life to advancing the industry and educating the community about the importance of reptiles. I also love to encourage the joy of breeding and keeping reptiles as a hobbyist, which is why my partner Robin and Markland and I created the reptile report. The reptile report is our online news aggregation site bringing the most up to date discussions from the reptile world. Visit the reptilereport.com every day to stay on top of latest reptile news and information. We encourage you to visit the site and submit your exciting reptile news. So does the link so we can feature outstanding breeders and hobbyists just like you. 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