- You wait all these months,
and then the last five minutes just seems
like it takes forever to get the bag open.
So okay, you guys ready?
Here we go.
Oh my gosh!
When I had the vision of The Reptarium from the real start,
one of the first animals I really thought about
was, of course, a big Asian water monitor like Elvis
that would be just an ambassador.
Like a little dinosaur, right?
They are so incredible.
And again, Kevin McCurley at NERD,
and so many other people, I saw these images of them
playing with them, just like Elvis is doing
with me right now.
And I thought, this is what I need, right?
And so of course we got Elvis just before we opened
at The Reptarium, and he was a little shy.
I'm not going to lie.
He wasn't the outgoing animal that he is now, but
over the last few years of working with him,
he obviously has turned into this amazing
urban dinosaur that is just such a puppy dog.
And there's something really special about it.
When we're open to the public, and literally
Elvis is walking around, kids are going crazy.
Oh my gosh, look at this giant lizard.
I mean, look at this thing.
He's just climbing on me.
He's not afraid of me, he's just completely amazing.
So he was the first vision, right?
He was like, man, I need a giant water monitor
that's going to be super docile.
And I couldn't be happier with Elvis, right?
He was absolutely wonderful.
But then once we got him, I thought, you know, hey,
there's a bunch of color mutations
that are coming around that would be cool to add to.
Why, if we have one water monitor, why not have more?
But let's get different colors.
And then there was the black dragons.
And of course, we ended up picking up Toothless
literally when he was seven days old.
And these were all the rage back then,
and they were pretty rare.
They're still relatively rare,
but they've become more common now.
And Toothless is next level.
Elvis is amazing, obviously,
but there is something insane about Toothless.
There is not a nervous bone in this guy's body,
because he's been around people literally since day one.
He literally doesn't care at all about people.
You could do anything to him,
and he is just absolutely wonderful.
He loves to climb around.
Where are you going, Toothless?
Come on, baby boy.
And again, he's going to get the same size as Elvis, right?
He's going to get six foot long or something like that,
and it's going to be absolutely incredible to have
even a tamer animal, and amazing, right?
But then there was always that one animal that I wanted.
I wanted an albino water monitor
to round out the group, right?
Again, not to breed or anything like that,
but just to get it, right?
And there are several people that are breeding T negatives
and T positive albinos in the country,
but I happen to be following this Instagram account
from Indonesia, and they actually had a wild caught albino
called a snow-blind.
And they raised up, produced hets,
and this year they produced the very first
albino snow-blinds.
So I reached out to him and said, hey,
would you be interested in selling one?
And guess what?
Well, it happened, and let's go unbox it.
And that's right, in this box right here
is that animal I was talking about.
Now, again, I worked out a deal with my buddy Evan
over in Indonesia to get one of these guys.
And it's the first ones that they have ever sold, right?
So this is the very first one of this particular strain
that's in the US, and a friend of mine
over in South Florida actually imported him for me,
because we don't import anymore.
So he imported him to me, and they arrived yesterday,
and then got shipped here today, so here we go.
I am so excited.
I've been thinking about this.
This has been four months of working on this.
When you're buying animals from Indonesia, it takes a while.
And by the way, there's another animal that's coming in
from Indonesia that's not quite as spectacular in a way,
but still really, really amazing.
That's going to be in the next couple of days,
and that's actually coming in, too.
So we've got two surprises for you guys,
but the first one is this box right here.
Oh my gosh.
Like I said, four months of dreaming about this animal,
and it's finally here.
Lots of papers, lots of papers,
lots of papers, lots of paper.
And here is the bag right here.
And just by the size of it,
it's a little bit bigger than I thought.
So let's go ahead and open it up.
Oh my gosh.
You guys have no clue how excited I am right now.
Again, the first ones
that have ever been sold of this strain,
and they are so beautiful.
And also the first ones, obviously, in the country.
I tell you what, what an amazing thing.
It's going to be a great addition.
It rounds out my thought process
when it comes to the water monitors.
And I'm trying to get this, I'm so nervous
I can't even untie the bag.
All right, so here we go.
Oh, and the bag is, boy oh boy.
This definitely is not getting out.
There's no doubt about that.
You wait all these months,
and then the last five minutes just seems like it
takes forever to get the bag open.
So okay, you guys ready?
Here we go.
Oh my gosh!
Look at this thing.
Here it is, guys.
A snow-blind albino water monitor.
This is a boy, and it's pretty big.
I thought it was going to be a little smaller than it is,
but it's super docile.
It's super socialized, just like Toothless and Elvis is.
Look at how chunky this little monkey is.
It's crazy to think that just 48 hours ago,
this was in Indonesia.
And now it's here at The Reptarium.
We have an enclosure already picked out,
we're setting it up now, and this guy
is going to go in there, and it's going to be amazing.
Again, I love the albino monitors
that are here in the country, no doubt about it.
But this one is just a little bit more
albino looking, right?
Some of the other albinos tan out just a little bit.
Not that they're not unbelievably amazing,
because they all are.
This one's just a little bit more albino
in my eyes, I think.
So it's a really cool strain to be working with.
Will I ever breed them?
Probably not, to be totally honest with you.
I just wanted a display animal,
an animal we could bring out.
So now we have Elvis, we have Toothless.
Now we have this guy, which by the way, needs a name,
a snow-blind albino from Evan Sitka in Indonesia.
So I can't wait to hear what you guys
think about this animal, and I can't wait to hear
the name suggestions that you guys have for this monkey.
Oh my gosh, this thing is so absolutely gorgeous.
Again, four months dreaming about this animal,
and now it's sitting here in my hand.
Oh my, I'm about to faint!
I can't believe that we're actually holding this animal.
Going back to that first Instagram post that I've seen
months and months ago, and said, wow,
that's the albino monitor
that I want to add to The Reptarium.
And to think that now I'm sitting here with it in my hands,
un-fricking believable.
Dreams do come true, people.
It's getting harder and harder to get new animals,
and figure out where to put them here at The Reptarium
because we're running out of room.
We need that expansion so bad,
but we moved some animals around.
We freed up this enclosure,
which I think is going to be great,
because he can get up right up on that ledge
close to the hotspot for basking, lots of areas to climb.
Jessica is going to do just a sprucing up,
cleaning up, and add a few things and stuff like that.
And then we'll be able to release him
and see how he likes his new enclosure.
I think it's going to be absolutely amazing.
I am over the moon excited about this animal.
It's going to be a longtime animal ambassador
here at the Reptarium.
(funky music)
- Da na, da na, da na!
(box lid rumbling)
- Wait a minute.
- What was it? - Is that Chicken Strip?
- [Noah] Let's see.
- That's not Chicken Strip?
Well, now I'm scared to open it,
because if that's Chicken Strip,
you guys are definitely setting me up for failure.
Noah, will you stay here in case it runs out?
- Yeah. - [Man] You can catch it.
- [Noah] Oh yeah, look it.
It's an Asian water monitor.
- Wow.
- [Noah] Yeah, she's chill. - Oh my God.
So good.
What's its name?
- We haven't named it yet.
I don't think I've ever seen an albino.
- Albino Asian water monitor?
Why doesn't my Asian water monitor act like this?
- And now my favorite part of getting a new animal,
letting it go into a new enclosure.
And I'm assuming, I don't know how it was being kept,
but I'm assuming it wasn't being kept
in a real naturalistic type of enclosure.
And I just think it's going to absolutely love that.
Come on, buddy.
Look at how docile it is,
and it doesn't even want to leave my arm.
It'd rather be on my arm than in the enclosure.
Buddy, this is your new home, buddy.
Come on.
It's got some sharp nails.
There's no doubt we're going to have
to give a little bit of a nail trim.
Because these guys aren't really tree climbers,
the nail trim isn't bad.
So I'm just going to, again.
Here you go, bud.
There you go.
It's okay.
It's all right.
There it goes.
And these guys are so intelligent,
that, of course, that tongue is going,
those long tongue flicks.
That's telling me he's thinking, right?
Its brain is moving, it's moving, it's moving.
And it's just thinking, what is all of this stuff?
I'm sure it's, again, smells that it's never smelled,
an environment that he's never been in, obviously.
And this is going to be its enclosure for a while.
Of course, going to outgrow.
It's going to get six foot, five and a half,
six foot, something like that.
But this will be good for probably the next
six to eight months.
And then again, that expansion's got to happen,
because we got some big animals that need big cages.
But you could see again just the way it's thinking.
It's smelling everything.
It's amazing, I love this part of my job
is when we get something new.
And to be able to put an animal into an environment
that I know it's going to be so happy
and so enriching, right?
Because it's just amazing, right?
So, wow.
I tell ya, I'm on cloud nine, guys.
This is an animal that I'm going to be staring at
a lot today, there's no doubt.
And a lot for the next 10 years or 20 years,
or whatever it might be,
because it's exactly what I've been dreaming for.
So let me know what you guys think down in the comments.
(funky music)
All right guys, you can keep sending this cool stuff
to the PO box, we appreciate you.
Every Christmas you spoil us.
PO box is in the description.
Noah's still eating Tim Tams from yesterday.
- So good. - So let's see,
this one says to Laurie and Brian.
So why don't you open that up, Laurie?
- Hi guys.
These are Christmas ornaments I make
that I think you might like.
- Hey, remember we wanted your Christmas ornaments
for our Christmas tree right behind you, by the way.
It's very bare right now.
- Send your own Christmas ornaments,
and we'll put it on the tree in the zoo.
- [Laurie] Desert Dragon Works.
- [Brian] Desert Dragon Works, I like that.
- [Noah] That's my favorite brand.
- [Laurie] It says, pretty, ooh, there you go.
- [Brian] These are pretty, look at this.
- [Noah] Wow, do you see why I like them so much?
- [Laurie] That's a spider. - Beautiful.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, it is a spider.
This is dope.
- [Noah] This is a scorpion.
- [Brian] Look at this, look at this.
- [Laurie] Is it? - Yeah, look it.
It's got its clampers.
Look at that, this is going to be the first ones
that go on our tree.
Absolutely amazing, and a scorpion.
Love it.
You want to put them on the tree?
- Yeah.
- All right, let's go.
All right, first tree ornament.
I'm the very bare Charlie Brown Reptarium tree.
But thank you so much.
- It'll look better shortly.
- [Brian] It'll look better shortly.
- [Laurie] Once I get it plugged in.
- Beautiful.
I love that scorpion, it's cool.
Thank you so much.
Let's open the rest.
Last thing is from another Australian.
- [Noah] Really? - [Brian] From South Wales.
Looks like, I would say shirt.
If I'd like to do it.
- [Noah] Ohh, my favorite!
- [Brian] What, get out of here!
- Socks!
- I like to watch you cut your snake eggs.
Thank you so much.
The name is a Parsa, age six.
- [Noah] Let's see what we have on the back there.
- Oh, this is an echidna.
- An echidna?
I've never even heard of that.
- So this is from Joe and Leonard,
and their nephews, niece, and nephews did that for you.
- Oh my gosh, that is so cool.
So what do we got here shirt wise?
- [Noah] This kid's got a future.
- I know, actually, that's a really good drawing.
I agree with you.
What do we have?
Bum, bum, bum.
Ah, it's another sloth thing.
- Oh so look, they match.
Yeah, matchy matchy.
- I love it.
Thank you guys again
for always making our holiday so amazing.
Again, PO box is always in the description.
- Over at my dad's Tik Tok, Brian Barczyk,
we just fed this pineapple to RJ,
but we have a whole pineapple left.
So let's go feed some animals.
Oh yeah, she's crushing it now.
Oh, we got a little friend coming.
Wow, look at her get into it.
Ooh, she's loving it.
If we feed animals like this,
we usually chop it up or something,
but I was feeling a little lazy,
but it's actually working out pretty well.
- Like I said, I'm over the moon happy about this guy.
Definitely in the comments, continue those name suggestions.
I love him so much.
If you enjoyed this video and you like unboxing type stuff,
here's a playlist right over here.
Yep, right over here, that's all unboxing reptiles.
On this side, can you do me a favor?
Hit that subscription button, it would mean the world to me.
Have an absolutely wonderful day, Reptile Army.
Remember, be kind to someone.
And I promise I'll see you in the next one.