- It's seven o'clock in the morning
and absolutely beautiful morning, clear sky.
The pond is great and we are going on an adventure
and that adventure is gonna take Jay
and myself to Indianapolis
to go visit a really cool, little reptile place,
see a bunch of really cool animals and pick up a pretty
special animal.
Only a five and a half hour drive to go.
(upbeat music)
And I'm down here in Columbus, Indiana
at WY? Reptiles and Exotics.
And guess what I have right now,
this of course is a Citron Tiger,
but not just any Citron Tiger.
This is actually one a Lucy's babies.
That's right.
It's one a Lucy's babies.
So we're gonna see a bunch of really cool animals here.
I definitely suggest if you're in the Indianapolis area,
Columbus area, come pay these guys a visit.
There's some cool animals here.
So let's just go ahead, dig in and find out what else
they have.
I love seeing things that I don't have,
and I've never kept, right.
And I've been seeing these guys for, ya know,
25 years at shows and stuff like this,
but this is a Sudan plated lizard.
They're just such unique animals.
I mean, with the way that they're kind of keeled scales,
they're very interesting, a relatively large lizard
and they can be pretty brazen,
meaning that they can make for a good display animal.
There's no doubt about it.
So as we expand The Reptarium,
I could see maybe actually adding Sudan plated lizards
'cause I mean look how absolutely incredible
that animal is.
I've got a new friend named Rio,
of course the blue and golden macaw.
Macaws are really amazing.
Again, you know, birds and reptiles are so similar,
right?
They're related as related as you can possibly get
and macaws are just amazing.
You know, I've always said, I love big birds,
but I really love big birds in other people's possession
more than I love my own because I don't know that I could
ever own a big bird.
I mean, they're like, you know,
they basically have the intelligence of
about a three or four year old
and they stay that way for a hundred plus years, right?
So you got really baby 'em a lot.
You gotta spend a lot of time with 'em.
They can be loud and a little bit messy,
but they are absolutely incredible.
I mean look at the beauty of this animal,
look at the intelligence of this animal
and they can make amazing pets.
If you want something that you're gonna spend your whole
life with, macaws and birds can be really,
truly amazing.
For me personally, I know that's not what I'm gonna do.
So, I just like to admire them at places like this.
And it's pretty cool to see this little monkey.
I think that somebody wants a little bit of attention
and of course, these are little lewisi hybrids.
How you doing, buddy?
What are ya doing?
What are ya doin' silly.
You wanna come up on my shoulder.
Nope, he just wants some pets.
But just like Tiana,
these guys are, of course, a little Cuban Cayman Island
hybrid lewisis and they are absolutely incredible.
All cyclura are amazing and it's pretty cool,
'cause these have finally gotten to that size where they
really are chill.
When they're babies, they can be a little bit of pistols,
but I tell you what, this is absolutely incredible.
And look at this guy, he is such a little monkey.
He loves, he's like a little tiny Bella
or something like that.
He loves attention.
Of course his girlfriend's right down here.
She probably likes attention too.
Of course, these guys are gonna get much bigger
than this, but probably about a year old,
something on that size.
And as this gets bigger, a lot of the blue color
is gonna start to come into this animal.
It's gonna be absolutely incredible.
And it's so cool to see one this size that's so docile.
As I've said, I'm having the time of my life here,
but you guys know I came down here
to actually get a new animal ambassador.
And I'm about to show you which one this is.
I am so stoked on this.
Take a look at that monkey right there.
Yeah, he is pretty incredible.
Let's get him out.
And of course this is a big black throat monitor.
Now you guys know that we have Flapjack
and we absolutely love Flapjack,
but it's kind of small and it's a little bit feisty.
Look at this little monkey right here.
Look at him.
He's got such an attitude.
See how he's grabbing onto my hand
so I can't get away from him.
And then if he turns around now I'm gonna be in big trouble.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's gonna take a couple years for Flapjack
to get this size.
So I wanted to have a actual black throat monitor that we
could take out to educational shows.
These guys are typically very, very docile animals,
really easy to work with.
And they're not as crazy as the water monitors.
And what I mean by that is that the water monitors are
always kinda on the go.
These guys, oftentimes, will just kind of chill out.
You set 'em on the floor, you can actually pet 'em.
And they typically don't move around nearly as much
and look at how impressive that animal is right there.
Hoo doggy!
This is gonna get literally up to seven foot in length.
So literally bigger than Elvis get.
And then they have that kind of mellow,
almost Savannah monitor attitude.
So, it is amazing.
This was a big reason why we came down to Indiana.
We wanted to get this guy.
I am so excited to get him back to the Reptarium
and start working with him
and start interacting with him
and making him an amazing animal ambassador.
So what do you guys think, again, this guy needs a name,
just like Flapjack did.
So down in the comments, let me know what you think
an adult black throated monitor that smells a little bit
like waffles should actually be named.
So how long have you guys actually been open?
This is a pretty cool place.
- Well we've been building the place since last April,
right at the beginning of the pandemic.
- [Brian] Okay.
- [Andy] We had some time on our hands.
- [Brian] Yeah.
- [Andy] So we started building this place,
but we've been open officially since June 11th.
- [Brian] Okay, so it's pretty fresh.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] Wow, you guys are just open.
So again, really cool stuff.
I mean, you know, what's the future.
I mean, you wanna just keep building out from here?
- [Andy] Right now we're mainly focused on reptiles.
We do have a few mammals,
a Siberian Lynx, we have kinkajou.
We have some kudamundis.
Jeff's actually been able to produce kudamundis this year,
for the first time.
We wanna expand and showcase more mammals.
- Aw, that'd be dope.
That's awesome.
Well, definitely some cool stuff here.
I can't wait to see what the future holds.
You know there's really four giant snakes in the world
and of course, we have green anacondas.
We have articulated pythons and we have Burmese pythons.
Well, this is the fourth one.
This is actually an African rock Python.
And as you can see, they're a little bit less friendly
than the Burmese pythons,
but I tell you, I still love him to death.
This was kind of one of my first loves when it came
to big snakes, was this.
And I actually had one for 20 something years named Baby.
And she was just like this little monkey here,
a little pistol for sure.
And when she gets 18 plus,
boy she was absolutely ridiculous.
You could hear her hissing
from literally the next room over.
Hoo doggy, this little monkey is upset.
I know little buddy, it's okay.
You're gonna be okay.
Can you imagine this snake when it's 18 or 20 foot,
it's gonna be unbelievable.
But the truth is,
I think I do want to add one of these into the Reptarium.
That way I can have representation
of all of the giant snakes.
I tell you what that thing is absolutely incredible.
Of course, we have a cow reticulated python.
The thing that's interesting about this girl is that it
actually looks a lot like MooMoo, right?
Again, pretty, this really white and black,
where this one has that brown and yellow
that is similar to the MooMoo thing.
So, I think it's really cool.
I love cows and they continually change.
So, it's awesome to see them in another exhibit like this.
This place is absolutely incredible, by the way.
I'm having the time of my life.
This is a pet shop.
It's a zoo.
Do you sell animals?
What exactly do you classify yourself as?
- When we first started thinking of this idea,
it was mainly just exotic pet store.
So as we started going,
we started building these big enclosures
and we realized it was becoming more of a zoo than anything.
- [Brian] Right.
- That would allow us to educate the people on what we have.
- [Brian] Right.
And then if you wanted to purchase an animal,
at least you knew what you were getting into.
- That's a great idea, because so many people buy animals
that are cute and cuddly when they're little babies.
And then when they get bigger, like, oh my gosh,
what am I gonna do with this animal?
This is a great opportunity for people to see,
kind of kick the tires, right?
And I love the whole theory.
I mean, it's absolutely incredible.
Take for instance, this red tegu.
We all know tamale, the giant tegu that we have.
When they're this size, they look so cute
and so cuddly, right?
If they stay this size, it would be absolutely amazing,
but not everyone has an opportunity to have an enclosure
that's gonna be big enough for a full grown tegu, right?
So places like this not only show this size,
but maybe a giant one and that way you realize, wow,
this is what I'm getting into.
Can I handle an animal this size the whole time?
'Cause listen impulse buying with reptiles can oftentimes
mean that it has to be rescued down the road, right?
And I gotta be honest with you, these little red tegus,
they are absolutely cute.
But once again, Tamale is a big, big animal.
This is an absolutely gorgeous uromastyx.
These guys are the ones from Niger and there actually
yellow ones and there's red ones.
Obviously these are the yellow ones and it's amazing.
I mean, they like it really hot.
I mean sometimes up to 140 degrees,
but interesting enough, they really don't drink water,
which is kind of weird, right?
Because these are desert dwelling animals.
They get all of their hydration from what they eat
and they eat lots of different types of vegetation.
They'll also eat, believe it or not like bird seed,
which is really weird for a lizard, right?
So I just love him to death.
And with all the different localities from the Niger's to
the Mali's to the Egyptian's, I mean,
there's just so many different ones
and each ones are different size, different colors.
And I absolutely think they're amazing,
but these guys are absolutely beautiful.
This is actually what they call a Louisiana pine snake.
It's a pituophis genus.
And the interesting thing about these guys,
as well as the black pine snakes, is that they actually
put 'em on the endangered species list.
Basically, meaning that you can no longer transport
'em across state lines.
Now, in state, if you're in Indiana, and you breed 'em,
you can sell 'em to other people in Indiana,
but you can't sell 'em out of Indiana.
And that's just because of their threatened status, right?
So again, a couple of pine snakes,
just in the last year went on the endangered species act
and the Louisiana pine is one of 'em.
So it's kinda cool to see 'em
because don't see 'em around hardly ever.
And I don't know anyone in Michigan that has Louisiana pine.
So it's pretty cool to be down here
and actually be able to interact with one.
So you work with a lot of mammals too.
You just produce some kudamundi, which is awesome,
but you've worked with other mammals as well, right?
- That is correct.
At our house, we've had mountain lions.
We have Siberian lynx that we still have.
That's actually on loan to another zoo,
but we do have kudamundi that we've actually bred this
year for the first time.
And we do happen to have a lemur that we have a rescued that
we're trying to
- What kind of lemur, ringed or?
- We have a Ringtail lemur that we've actually got in,
and the gentlemen who actually purchased it,
for some reason has a second one now
that he wants to get rid of.
So we will probably have to rescue it too,
but we're trying to build something offsite,
out of the city now that's gonna actually be a much larger,
I've got 20 acres now down south.
So that's what we're working on next is to actually go into
a lot larger exhibits and to make it more lifelike.
- Oh my gosh, take a look at this Guyana red tail boa.
This is a really big one.
'Cause the Guyanas typically don't get really super large,
but look at just the color of that tail right there
and it's you know, the first true red tail that I ever had,
actually was a Guyana red tail boa.
So I always have a little bit of a soft spot
when it comes to that.
Of course we work with Surinames, we work with Peruvians.
We work with the Guyanas, but for some reason,
the Guyanas to me just are really super special.
Absolutely love 'em to death and that tail is amazing.
And again, so many people that have boa constrictors
think that they have red tail boas.
Of course, those are boa constrictors imperators
or common boa constrictors.
These are the BCCs, which are constrictor constrictor
that actually have the true red tail boas.
And I tell you what,
this is a big mama right here and absolutely wonderful.
All right guys, thank you so much for having me out,
first of all.
Thank you for the new animal ambassador that I absolutely
am gonna love.
This place is absolutely dope.
I'm gonna put a link in the description.
If you're in the Indianapolis area, Columbus area,
anywhere around this area,
please come pay these guys some love
because it's absolutely incredible.
Thank you guys, seriously.
All right?
I appreciate you guys.
All right, headin' home.
Had an absolutely amazing time.
Got my little monkey in the back there.
Can't wait to show the rest of the crew.
So let's just get this five-hour drive behind
and get back to the shop.
(upbeat music)
- [Brian] All right guys, you ready?
- [Male Crew Member] Oh my God.
- Meet our newest ambassador.
Hoo doggy!
- Holy moly dude!
- [Brian] Look at this guy
versus our black girl.
It does need a name.
Like I mentioned down in the comments,
let me know what your name is.
What you guys think about name.
You smell that maple smell.
- [Male Crew Member] Like it's strong.
- [Brian] Yeah it's like...
- You can smell it with Flapjack,
but dude oh my God.
- What if we name him Kodiak?
- [Brian] Kodiak?
- That's the name of like a waffle brand.
- Oh, that's a good idea.
Let me know if you guys like Kodiak and if you have another
idea, let me know for sure.
- [Male Crew Member] I actually like the muffins.
- [Brian] You can take him out.
He's super, super tame.
So he needs a little bit of a soak.
- [Male Crew Member] Oh yeah.
- [Brian] But other than that, he looks really good.
Look at that animal right there.
He'll rip you up.
He's got some claws.
- Oh boy, he's got some strength.
He's grabbing me.
- [Brian] Oh yeah.
He's got some.
But the thing, that's the thing that that's so great
about black throated monitors when they're this size,
it's like, I thought Flapjack would eventually
get like this too.
They're just so mellow.
They're like puppy dogs.
Is that thing cool Laurie or what?
- Just like a big baby.
- Pretty cool.
- But we definitely need to trim these claws
- [Brian] Yeah those claws are gonna get ya.
- I'm feelin' 'em.
- [Brian] Oh, you already got yeah.
- Yeah, I mean just a little..
- [Brian] Oh my gosh.
Holy cow.
Look it 'em.
He's giving you little kisses.
- You're so cute dude.
- He is awesome.
- [Brian] You gotta admit Laurie,
that is pretty cool, isn't it?
- He's pretty neat, yeah.
- I didn't realize they got so big.
Like compared to Flapjack.
- [Brian] Yeah and they'll get bigger.
This isn't even full grown.
So yeah, so there we go, guys.
That was absolutely amazing.
I loved today.
I hope that you enjoyed today.
If you did enjoy today, do me a favor.
Hit right over here.
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do me a favor and hit the subscription button as well.
Have an absolutely wonderful day, Reptile Army.
Remember be kind to someone and I promise,
I'll see you in the next one.