- Hey, good morning, everybody.
And welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start to your day is incredible
or whenever you happen to be watching.
I appreciate you guys so much.
You know, I've been all over the world, thankfully
and there's just one place in particular
that I find has some pretty incredible animals.
And it's kind of weird that there would be this one country
that has some iconic, not only amazing animals,
but giant animals.
(keys jingling)
And what's crazy is that Indonesia is home
to the longest snake in the world.
That's right, the reticulated python
like my girl, Lucy here.
I mean, can you imagine that there are snakes this size
in the wild roaming around?
I tell you what, Lucy is a giant snake
and she's starting to pee all over the place.
Oh, I gotta get her off me before I get all wet!
Oh my gosh.
That's the problem with Lucy
is that sometimes she just gets to a point where
when you're holding there, she just starts
unloading on you, peeing.
But I tell you, Indonesia is amazing.
And reticulated pythons are incredible.
As you guys know, I have a bunch of 'em
and I'll never forget the time I was in a place called
Laban Basu, we went to a cave in the middle of nowhere
called the Sano Alar
and I actually saw and caught
my very first reticulated python.
Just so you guys know, I am absolutely terrified
of small planes.
And so the fact that I'm getting on a propellor plane,
this is just absolutely crazy.
(upbeat music)
(plane roaring) Okay,
off the plane.
Absolutely gorgeous island, I mean my gosh!
This is much more remote, I am absolutely loving this.
(upbeat music)
We're about an hour and a half into a roughly
three hour drive to our destination.
Certainly one of the gnarliest rides in the mountains
I've ever had.
(upbeat music)
The deeper we get the worst the road is.
The more narrow, the more tore up.
Just getting more difficult, but they assure us
that we will be able to get there.
Created quite the buzz.
And the whole village has come up to see us.
(people chattering)
Okay, so we are wandering to try to meet the elders.
We have a lot of people following us.
It's been a pretty interesting experience.
I take it they don't get a lot of visitors in this village.
So it's been, this is all the
interesting (indistinct) for today, so.
But let's hope the elders like us
and we get along well with 'em
and give us the go ahead.
'Cause it's been a long journey to get here,
it'd be a disappointment if we weren't able to do it.
Hi. Brian.
(speaking foreign language)
The elder did strap on a big knife but
it leads you for a little bit of concern but
I think everyone is, seems to be excited about this.
It's definitely a first for me.
I've never been through this.
I'll be honest with you,
if these guys who aren't with us,
I don't know how we would get out of here.
So this worked out really well.
(tribal music)
(water rushing)
Yes, this is great.
(loud chirping)
Oh, there's a reticulated right there, guys.
Can I get it?
We were only probably 10 feet in the cave
when we came across our first reticulated python.
You know, so often times I go to places where
the lore is much bigger than the actual event.
The fact that you think, oh, there are just loads
of reticulated pythons and then you get there
and you don't see anything whatsoever.
But in this case, we were literally 10 feet into the cave
we came across this little bugger here.
And he was a little feisty at first but
you can see he's totally calmed now.
I can't imagine what else is in this cave
if 10 feet in we come across our first reticulated python.
Oh my gosh.
This was definitely worth the trip.
The first ever reticulated python I've ever seen
in the wild. (man sighs)
That's awesome.
You guys know that I love catching snakes
but I love releasing them even more.
Let this little bugger go, see what he does.
There you go, little guy.
There you go.
What's interesting is there's over 17,000
islands that comprise Indonesia.
Which means that the mainland stuff is really large
like Lucy, right?
But there are other islands that actually have
very small reticulated pythons,
including super dwarfs.
Even animals like cal reticulated pythons here
like my girl, Perdita, actually are a smaller animal.
It's kind of from an insular island.
And they typically don't get more than 12 or 14 foot.
So although the mainland is got giants
that could be up to 25 foot.
Most of the islands actually have much smaller species.
The reason for that is of course on the mainland,
there's tons of prey for them to eat.
When you get into a more harsh, small insular Island
obviously there's not as much opportunity to feed.
So over thousands or hundreds of thousands
or millions of years, they've evolved to a point
where they don't need to be as big
because they don't have the availability to large prey.
Certainly it's crazy to think of Indonesia
and just the amazing kind of reptiles,
I mean, isn't it cool how like,
Australia and Indonesia have such a diversity
and crazy reptiles?
I mean, obviously they have water monitors like Elvis here,
which is the third largest monitor species in the world.
I mean, heavy bodied animals can get, you know,
50, 70 pounds.
This guy's only about 30 pounds right now
but he is such a puppy dog tame.
I mean, I always say he's like,
my little dinosaur pet, right?
Because look at him, he'll just hang out,
hangs out with dad.
And he just kind of chills with me, right.
But the fact is that these guys can be lightning quick,
you know, there is no doubt that if you see these
in the wild, they're almost impossible to catch.
As a matter of fact, when I was in Indonesia,
I actually had the opportunity to try to catch animals
that were about the size of Elvis here.
And I'll be honest, I spent like three or four hours
chasing these guys around and never even gotten
one finger on 'em.
That's how quick they are.
We're heading to the golf course
to go look for reptiles.
Sounds reasonable.
(chimes lightly ringing)
We're chasing a big ass water monitor right now
at the golf course.
But he's been hard to find.
We're going down this way.
Hopefully we can get there before he gets away.
Right here.
(man muttering) Okay.
Oh, there it is.
You see it, guys?
Watch out, watch out.
There's two, there's two, there's two.
He's going to your right.
Ope, he's going back to the water.
There's a big water monitor right there.
I think it was at least five or six foot.
(leaves brushing)
(man panting)
He got away.
But we had a chance to get
a good vision of 'em.
That was my first ever water monitor the wild.
So many spiders in my face.
That's the thing I hate about
getting in the bush.
Spiders like crazy. Trying to find 'em.
Did you find 'em?
For some reason when were coming to this golf course,
I was envisioning these little tiny water monitors,
maybe babies or something.
But I was never expecting these full grown,
six footers.
And it was such an epic battle to try to get 'em
but they won this battle, guys.
This is their terrain, man.
And of course, it's amazing now that there's all these
colored mutations, although believe it or not,
the black dragons are actually from an Island in Indonesia
that is there.
Now there's melanistic, they're recessive,
there's no doubt about it.
But there is actually one Island that the majority
of the animals are melanistic.
And that just comes from a fact that when there's a mutation
that's successful, it can actually reproduce, right?
When an albino is born in the wild
it doesn't have any camouflage.
So oftentimes it's picked off by predators.
Something like a black dragon really fits in well, right?
It can still camouflage.
It can absorb the sun.
It's really amazing.
Of course there are albinos and all kinds of other ones too.
And these guys are being propagated
really well in captivity
which makes them amazing little urban dinosaurs.
There's absolutely no doubt about that.
And you know, isn't it weird that
Indonesia is not only home to the largest snake
in the world like I told you before, the reticulated python,
but also the largest lizard in the world,
the Komodo Dragon.
You guys know I have been obsessed with Komodo Dragons
my whole life.
As matter of fact, the last time I was in Indonesia,
which by the way, I absolutely will be back
in Indonesia this year, as soon as this COVID is over.
Because I cannot wait to go back and visit Komodo
and all those other places.
And I had the opportunity to muck with a couple
really amazing Komodos the last time I was there.
(people chattering) (hollow thud)
- [Man] Yep, you're good.
Just stand there again, Mike.
(man hoots)
(light R&B music)
(bird chirping)
(light slashing)
(man laughing)
(loud drum banging)
- So what's really neat now is literally
we are sitting here with a Komodo Dragon all by ourselves.
And it's just amazing to be able to be this close
to a Komodo Dragon and be able to pet 'em
and what an amazing animal, huh?
You may not know this but most green tree pythons
are actually from Indonesia, right?
There are some that are from Australia
but the ones here in the States are pretty much
primarily Indonesian.
Weirdly enough, you're not allowed to keep them
in Indonesia.
And it's actually a penalty that could cause you
jail time, believe it or not.
So all the places I went in Indonesia,
we didn't see any green tree python.
Now there are some farms that are permanent,
I believe there's two of them over there.
Other than that, no one can keep privately
Indonesian green tree pythons, which is crazy.
This happens to be Biak, which of course is Pickles.
And you may notice she's in a different enclosure.
The reason we did this is because
she's about to get a little partner in her cage.
That's right, we have a male Biak that is gonna go in here
and we're gonna try to breed pickles.
And that male is right here
and we're gonna go ahead and just take a little peek at him.
Look at how beautiful he is.
Oh, man, I tell you what, that is amazing.
And one of the things that you see with Biaks
is they typically have a lot of yellow kind of dotting
and stuff like that.
And this is a perfect sized male for this female.
I'm just gonna go ahead and introduce him
over on the other side here
and just let him crawl around
and figure out what's going on.
Now, hopefully they'll get along just fine.
Doesn't seem like Pickles is too happy at the moment
but she's gonna be fine.
She's just tucking her head a little bit like,
what's going on here?
She's lived her whole life alone so this our very first time
that we've ever had any two together.
It's gonna be amazing.
Hopefully what will happen is they'll curl together
and you'll see their tails kind of drooping and intertwined.
And that's how they actually copulate.
So, hopefully within the next maybe couple weeks,
we'll see that, 'cause this is the breeding season
and then the egg laying season is typically anywhere
from February til May.
Right in that range.
And she's gonna go down into a nest box
that we'll put down there and she'll lay her eggs
actually in the nest box.
So, oftentimes these animals can go through a little
hormonal color change too
where they'll get a little bit blue looking
when they're gravid.
So, that's gonna be pretty amazing.
So there you have it, we finally have Pickles in
with another male Biak, which is really exciting.
So, fingers crossed, maybe we'll get some
baby green tree pythons later this year.
Of course, Nova the frill dragon
is an Indonesian animal as well.
Now frillies can actually come from Indonesia
and New Guinea and even there's Australian frill dragons.
But they're actually being farmed down in Indonesia.
So, sometimes you get the import babies that come from
Indonesia and that's originally what Nova was.
Of course now we have babies like our little ones
that we produced last year and the year before
that are captive bred here at the Reptarium
which is pretty awesome.
And I really do prefer captives 'cause I tell you what,
the ones that are farmed oftentimes don't do that well
and they also are a little bit aggressive often.
Not always, you can still do well with 'em,
but the captive bred ones are so much better
and you could see, Nova, even though he was a farmed animal
we worked with them enough so you can tame 'em out.
But I tell you what, when you get the babies
and start working right from the beginning,
much like the water monitors, they become so socialized.
They are absolutely incredible animals.
And here's actually one of those babies that's just
a couple months old here over at the offices of BHB
and just getting big, doing really well, obviously
super socialized.
They are such cute little monkeys.
And they use those frills obviously as a defense mechanism.
So, only when they feel threatened, they flare up.
So, we really rarely ever see that happen
'cause they're so used to being around people.
And again, there are so many amazing reptiles in Indonesia.
I cannot wait to get back there
when all this garbage has over, definitely high on my list.
And one of those animals I absolutely love are of course
savu pythons.
Unbelievable little animals.
This is a full grown adult, we produced 'em last year.
Remember, they hatch out kind of this
reddish-orang color
and then ultimately change into this animal here.
Unbelievable. I mean super cool animals.
We had 11 eggs last year and all 11 hatched so
gosh, I hope that she produces again this year.
That will be pretty amazing and just look at those kind of
silver eyes, I mean, just such a cool little python.
And again, Indonesia's crazy how many cool animals
they have there.
A species that I've always loved, of course,
are these viper boas
or a candoia aspera.
And I've never actually bred these.
We got a group last year, and we had a female that had
a couple babies but it wasn't from my breeding
it was from my buddy Miguel over at Always Evolving Pythons.
So this year, we're gonna try to breed 'em.
And this is actually a little hypo male
that's absolutely wonderful.
Now these guys sometimes have a little bit of an attitude
but they're very polymorphic, I mean,
you can have 'em really light, you can have reds,
you can have almost black animals.
Very different, again, a real stout, almost look like a
blood python type of a body.
Cool little stout bodies.
Chubby little things and these are livebearers.
They can have up to 20 little babies.
I mean, just such a cool animal
with such an unusual shaped head.
I love these guys for sure.
Of course another animal that I'm definitely obsessed with
are King Cobras and they do come from Indonesia.
There's some other areas that they come from as well
but Indonesian ones are pretty cool
'cause they get really large.
And when I was in Indonesia last time,
I had the opportunity to meet a couple
and see a crazy cobra show as well.
(Indonesian music)
Much like the short, stubby viper boas,
actually, blood pythons are also from Indonesia
and that's pretty cool, I mean, look at this beautiful
T-negative albino blood python.
Of course this guy's named Champ
and he can sometimes be a little bit of a feisty monkey.
But they are pretty cool as well.
Again, short, stout, stubby, little pythons
that are just absolutely wonderful.
So again, Indonesia,
gosh, how did they get so many cool animals?
Of course, then there's baby Kush.
The second largest lizard species in the world.
Also comes from Indonesia, the crocodile monitor.
What an absolutely breathtaking animal.
I've told you, very smart animals.
And again, they're very closely related to the Komodo.
You can almost see like, that front jaw
almost looks like a Komodo Dragon.
And in Indonesia they actually call these tree dragons
because again, that prehensile, long tail.
Really, they spend all their time up in trees
and they can hang on with that tail and stuff like that.
Unbelievably cool animal.
I love baby Kush. Coming a long way.
Still not ready to be handled, but we're getting there.
I'm telling you, within the next six or eight months,
we're gonna be taking baby Kush out
and just playing with it like we do Elvis.
So, as you can see, Indonesia has a bunch
of amazing animals.
I'd like to know down in the comments
where you would like to go.
Where is that dream place that you wanna go?
Is it Indonesia? Is it Africa?
Is it Australia?
Where is it that you wanna see this
amazing animal adventure?
I wanna go to all those places but I guarantee you
I'll be back in Indonesia because it's pretty awesome.
If you enjoyed that, here's a playlist
of a bunch of travel stuff that I've done in the past.
You can actually subscribe right up here
to my podcast channel.
I talk about this type of stuff all the time on the podcast.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to somebody and I promise,
I'll see you tomorrow.