- Guess what, we are going on an adventure today!
- I'm not intentionally trying to do this.
He's holding on to me,
and I don't want to pull my hand without, like,
scratching it so hard.
- It's kind of a new mutation.
I've never really seen one before.
- [Steven] And this is not fun right here.
- [Brian] How's that?
- Don't let her roll that, okay,
- Yeah, I got it.
- This man is working his butt off
on a daily bases harder-- - You better believe it.
- Harder than anybody I've ever seen in my entire life.
- Well listen I appreciate it.
Really the most rare room in all of herpetoculture
if you ask me.
Hey good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
It's the start of an absolutely amazing day
and guess what, we are going on an adventure today.
And that adventure is actually including
Andrea, Bruce, Jessica and Jay back there.
We are actually heading down to Indianapolis
to my buddy Forrest.
Gonna go check out some really cool animals.
Should be a fun time.
It's a beautiful day to travel.
Let's just have a good time.
I think we have about four and a half hours.
(heavy bass music)
And we made it down to Forrest here Indianapolis
what basically is going on
is Tinley Park the big reptile expo is this weekend,
and Forrest, every year has a barbecue
where he invites a bunch of people over,
so this is the first time we've come down here for this.
So a bunch of people are gonna be rolling through,
we're gonna be having a bunch of animals.
Got Steve over here, what's going on?
Forrest over here.
What's going on? - What's up man.
- What's going on Desiree?
Little Lars is sleeping over here.
So we're gonna have a great time here looking
at a bunch of cool animals and see who else shows up.
It's definitely gonna be a fun day.
(splashes)
Super excited we're actually taking out a croc monitor.
One of your guys'
dream animals right? - Oh my God
It has been the one since day one I've
been wanting one of these.
- That's awesome.
Steven, actually, has a little baby croc monitor here.
Of course we won't get the big one
and the baby one too close together,
but look at how absolutely adorable these are.
I'm telling you what, these are like next level,
next level intelligence so, super cool.
We're gonna get out a two year old?
- Yeah, about two, yeah. - About two years old.
So gonna get out,
Her name is Hilo? - Kilo.
Kilo. So her name is Kilo, so let's
go ahead and let Forrest work his magic.
- [Forrest] All right so let's get Kilo out.
I always like to
get under there and--
- [Brian] It's literally like a raptor from Jurassic Park.
- Yeah that's how I feel every time.
It took a long time to get enough trust,
to be able to touch her back
and do those things that make her nervous.
I've been really excited to show this to Bruce,
'cause I think Bruce is like the new
- Monitor guy - The new monitor whisperer.
Him and Jessica do incredible work.
- [Brian] So Forrest tell me a bit about Kilo.
- Kilo was the first, baby crocodile monitor that I got.
Active hatched.
Absolutely out of the egg within the past month.
That's something that outside of zoo hatched animals,
which there has only been a few zoo's that have done it.
Being able to get animals that small
is a rarity, especially, you know,
from this beautiful locality.
I got these from my friend Joe Sitouski.
This was the first one, it was his personal
animal that he was gonna keep.
And it was just incredible, I mean,
right off the bat, I was able to socialize it,
interact with it everyday.
For me they're the ultimate reptile.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, I mean - They really are.
- [Brian] It literally is--
Is like a raptor that's what I thought when I'd seen it
in the bag the first time.
I was like, this is a dinosaur, like.
- [Brian] I mean, Bruce,
the way it looks at you is crazy right?
- [Forrest] Yeah.
- [Brian] I mean it's like trying to figure everything out.
What an absolutely stunning--
- [Bruce] Oh wow, he does have some crazy claws,
that's insane.
He like, like, I'm not intentionally trying to do this,
he's holding onto me,
and I don't want to pull my hand without, like,
scratching it so hard.
- Just the way those animal's eyes look at you,
it's a completely different thing. It's crazy.
- It does get nervous and she'll--
- But she's okay around the head, and stomach area?
- Yeah, yeah, I've,
You know, that's how I work with them as babies,
is I try to do those things that make 'em
a little nervous.
- When you were doing this like initially,
how many times have you had to deal with bites
and like really bad, like those really bad situations
where you just didn't expect anything to happen?
- So I told Joe to only give me one
if it had never bitten him
and some of the tests to do was,
let the thing run away and grab its tail.
- Yeah, yeah, okay. - pick it up by it's tail.
And also like bump the side of
it's face and stuff like that.
So he did that and he's like this one's as tame as it gets.
- Oh my gosh, so it went through a selective process?
- Yeah, yeah. To me like those behaviors I've noticed,
like with the new baby, that Jessica's holding,
you came here for the unboxing of the second.
And then this is the third.
- [Brian] This is the third. It's going forward.
- It's so adorable.
And it's so much softer than you would
expect it to be, too, yeah.
- You can literally see it in his eyes,
like it's just a curiosity, it's not even scared,
there's no anxiety there. It's insane.
- [Jessica] It's just working things out.
- [Bruce] Yeah! It's like, just figuring out,
like how do I get up higher?
- You know the research I've done
on reptile intelligence and the different factors
they take into account in judging that.
Crocodile monitors are the smartest reptile.
- I know you want now, right? - I do.
(laughs)
- [Bruce] You're making it worse.
- We should just get one at the shop though,
so I don't have to like deal with him at my house.
(laughs)
- Okay maybe we'll have to get one for the Reptarium.
We'll have to see how it goes, but wow.
- So Steven,
- Yeah, what's up?
- I was gonna film some stuff with the scrub pythons
but Forrest said that it wasn't a good idea,
so maybe later without them knowing,
me and you can check them out?
- Yeah, I got it.
- Okay cool, cool. - Don't tell anyone.
- There's different philosophies in monitor handling.
Some people are against handling
adult monitors in captivity
and I don't really understand that,
'cause I want to be able to safely work with them,
like you guys do.
I like to get them used to those things
that would cause them to have a bite response
or flee and things like that.
Touching them on the side of the face on accident.
- [Brian] You're basically wanting to desensitize
them from everything, - Yeah.
- so that there's no accidents down the road.
- Exactly 'cause it's just so scary to think
about if somebody bumps Kilo on the side
of her face and she has a bite response with that.
I wanted actual babies, you know.
People will mark a animal that's wild caught
that's a few months old, as something like this.
You couldn't give me one of those.
And these are worth just whatever somebody wants.
Yeah, because they're totally different.
Not that somebody skilled, like this guy right here,
can't take an animal that's super aggressive
and dangerous, you know, I mean,
what he did, with the black 'dile, I think
is the most impressive turn around I've seen, so.
That's why it's cool to be able
to hang out and show him the crocodile.
- [Brian] Oh he's loving it.
- I couldn't be in a better place right now, man.
- And just to give you guys an idea,
I mean Kilo is just hanging on,
just kind of running around,
and look at Bruce's arms and of course
Forrest always has a perpetual cut up arm.
I mean, that's just part of it.
Are you okay Jessica?
- Yeah, it's the hair.
- So it's so important to keep these guys
desensitized to people handling,
because even with them being super tame,
they're still gonna give you a good scratch
and everything like that,
but oh my gosh what an amazing animal,
but look at Bruce's arms.
Not for the faint of heart that's for sure.
You guys know I love alligators and, actually,
Forrest has 10 species of crocodilian
and there aren't a lot of private places
that have 10 species that's for sure,
but this is a little hypo American alligator,
it's kind of a new mutation.
I've never really seen one before.
Don't know what it's gonna look like as an adult,
but when this thing is eight or 10 foot
it's gonna be an absolute ripper.
- [Steven] And this is not fun right here.
- [Brian] How's that?
- [Jessica] This is bite number two today?
- No, it's, this is not very fun.
It's actually my first tree monitor bite, so I'm,
- [Brian] That's your first tree monitor bite?
- Yeah, I've been working him for a while now, but,
have not gotten a chance to experience this yet.
- [Forrest] Yeah, you want to get that off your finger
don't let her roll up, okay.
- Yeah! I got it.
- That made my day right there.
(laughs)
- That's awesome it's - Oh my gosh.
- They're truly one of the more painful bites, I've taken.
- Really? - Yeah.
- [Steven] Yeah, that wasn't fun, wasn't cool.
- [Brian] You're leaking dude.
- [Steven] Little bit, yeah. It's not the first time today.
- [Brian] There's a little DNA on the floor.
(laughs)
- Yeah! That's, the thing is,
is when you don't have time.
And that's what happened last time.
I was getting it to take it to a show,
for display and the same thing happened.
So these are Varanus prasinus,
the green tree monitor or emerald tree monitor.
They're the most widespread, most common,
species of tree monitor.
The reason I wanted to pull both these
out though, was to show this difference in color.
You can see this one right here
has a turquoise blue color, versus this one,
that has more what you would expect to see.
When I got it, I started labeling them as
turquoise phase green tree monitors.
After that I'd seen some people starting
to sell them for more money than these.
One of my friends who, they know a lot
about nutrition and supplements and all that stuff.
What I learned was it's the same thing
as abronia graminea, so in captivity,
there's something about the diet
can cause them to look more blueish
like that and it's the same thing with yellow tree monitors,
the captive ones don't have high yellow.
They almost look green, so,
I just thought it was a cool fact to show.
- All right guys I'm with Steven.
He is of course Forrest's right hand man.
And you brought your amazing python collection,
when he came down here to work with Forrest.
And you really, I mean you do a lot
of really great python stuff,
but the straubies are kinda your thing right?
- Yeah, I love them so much.
I've always been fascinated by pythons
in particular, you know, just learning about all
the new species, keeping new ones.
I started off working with olive pythons
when I was 13 years old, and,
fascinated me learning about white lips,
timors, and scrubs are kind of like,
the highest level you can get, with rare pythons
as far, like difficulty to work with,
and their breeding is very challenging.
There's still very little known about it.
And once I got my first one, I was just hooked.
- [Brian] What you got here dude 'cause this thing
is ridiculous, man.
- Yeah, this is kind of the grand finale.
This is a Moluccan scrub python, or Moluccan scrub python,
however you want to pronounce it.
This is the third species that I have here.
This snake every time I look at it just blows my mind.
That insane gold coloration, the purple on the tail.
I don't know, in my opinion this is the nicest
looking naturally occurring snake in the world.
- [Brian] It really is one of--
legitimately one of the most beautiful snakes
I've ever seen.
I hope that you'll be able to raise
these up and breed them some time,
- That's the hope.
- Wishing you luck with everything.
- Thank you.
- [Brian] Absolutely, keep at it brother.
- Yep, thank you very much.
- All right, thanks man.
(heavy bass music)
Again I always talk to you guys when I come
down to Forrests' place its just amazing
how many animals are here so I can't
really show you everything,
but look at this amazing emerald tree boa right here,
he's got the craziest emerald tree boas,
green tree pythons, monitor lizards,
a bunch of crocodilians.
I mean, it's amazing.
I've always loved emerald tree boas,
and this one's a ripper.
And speaking of emerald tree boas,
this up here is a gorgeous animal.
This is actually what they call Miss Willy Line.
It's unbelievable, I mean,
just the white and the color in this animal,
absolutely incredible.
I love emerald tree boas.
They're one of my favorite snakes of all time.
And again, it's cool to see an animal as awesome and
kind of iconic as this particular bloodline is.
- Hey where did you get that lens at?
- I know, you like that?
You like this lens?
- Weren't you in Canada?
- Yeah,
okay, let's change the topic.
(laughs)
All right, so guys, the thing I love about this event,
is I get to see all my really good friends, of course.
Brian, my boy here, it's been a long time.
- All I want is snakes!
- It's been a long time.
I'm gonna put a link in the description to his channel,
and then I was super surprised to see Brian Gundy,
who I'm gonna also going to put a link in the description,
you guys wanna check these guys out,
dear, dear friends of mine.
- I just wanna thank you guys real quick for giving this man
all the support he deserves, because this man works harder
than you guys could ever imagine.
I mean, on the cam you see how much fun he's having,
he's showing off the animals,
but behind the camera, this man is working his butt off
on a daily basis.
Harder than anybody I've ever seen in my entire life.
- Well listen, I appreciate you man, I appreciate you,
and it's not work if you love it.
And I absolutely love it.
So I appreciate you guys, hanging out with these guys,
Brian, Brian, Brian, I love it man!
I tell you what, this is
(laughs)
this made my day, this event, I needed this.
You don't, I can't even express to you how much
I need this event, so this is awesome.
I absolutely love this room, of course,
this is Forrest's abronia room,
probably one of the,
really the most rare room in all of Herpetoculture
if you ask me.
- Yeah I mean, it's up there, I mean,
these are some of the rarest lizards in the world.
And we've managed to, you know, get anything we could from
anybody here in the USA to grab every species we can
and try to preserve and have a place
where we can learn about these animals and
establish captive breeding colonies.
- [Brian] And you've done really well with production.
- Yeah this year was really good.
We've produced several species this year,
they're not easy to breed,
babies are really difficult to take care of,
they're very sensitive to volatility in temperatures.
Very difficult to give them the right size cage
where they can find their food, that's another problem.
And then, hydration is a problem, because they're so small,
you want the sphagnum to get damp, but if it's too damp,
then it's too cold, so you're just fighting
all these factors that make it very challenging.
- And this room is much cooler than your other reptile room.
About what temperature do you keep this?
'Cause these are from the cloud forest right?
- Yeah they're from the cloud forest so I prefer to keep
it at the hottest time of the year, low 70's.
And then the coldest we let it get in the winter, is 40.
- [Brian] Wow.
- Yeah, so we've taken them down to 40 degrees.
Holy cow, yeah, you don't think of reptiles
living at 40 to 70 degrees.
That's pretty insane but what do we have here?
- [Forrest] So this is a calico faced abronia lythrochila,
and this is a really extreme version.
This is definitely like, people's, you know,
the ones that are the most eye catching.
So that's why I'm showing them first.
They're not particularly rare, but,
still a really cool species that kinda
catch peoples' interest and make them
wanna learn more about abronia.
- This is actually an Amazon basin emerald tree boa,
just a different locality of animal that is unbelievable.
They have this really wide white stripe
down them like this,
absolutely incredible, that's the thing that's amazing
about emerald tree boas, is again,
northern animals and southern animals
look radically different, unbelievable.
And then of course there's green tree pythons.
Take a look at this one right here.
Whoo doggie.
Again, Forrest works with all kinds,
he's got blues, yellows, again,
all kinds of crazy stuff.
So I could do an entire vlog just on that.
I just don't even know where to start.
This thing is ridiculous.
And it seems like every habitat I look in,
it's just mind blowing.
And then this one right here is actually
a Cophial Island green tree python.
Of course it's not a green tree python,
it's a yellow tree, the Cophial Islands
are typically the ones that stay yellow like that.
And what happens is, green tree pythons when they're born,
are either born yellow or red,
but then they typically turn green,
with the Cophial Islands, often times they stay that
unbelievable canary yellow, unbelievable animal.
- These are actually a adult pair,
proven pair of black tree monitors,
and they are from the island of Aru.
It's, you know, funny,
a lot of these are from the same islands
as a lot of the green tree localities that we're used to.
- [Brian] And you said these are proven, then?
- Yeah, these are proven.
- [Brian] Oh my God, that's awesome.
- Yeah, so hopefully we'll see some eggs soon.
They're an awesome species that seems to be getting
rarer and rarer.
- Yep, I don't see them around much, that's awesome.
And just for you guys know, take a look at your hands.
All my arm, this is what tree monitors are about, right now.
Wow.
That's dedication, that's putting your body at risk there,
so, wow.
I tell you, what an amazing time here at Forrest's,
if you actually enjoyed this video,
here's another video I did at Forrest's a while back,
he's an awesome guy.
Here's a playlist I think you guys will really enjoy.
Over here you can smash that subscribe button.
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Remember to be kind to someone today,
and I promise, I'll see you guys tomorrow.