- I'm down here in Atlanta, Georgia.
Take a look at this Blue Lewisi Iguana.
Absolutely amazing.
And our adventure actually started here this morning
at the Reptarium, kinda geared up, ready to go,
excited for the journey down south
to go to Croc Fest, but first we're actually going to go
visit a friend in Atlanta to go shoot some stuff.
It's going to be an epic trip,
we're going to spend, probably, I don't know,
the next 6, 7, 8 days doing a bunch of
cool animal adventures, get away from the shop a little bit.
I'll miss the place,
but it's going to be amazing to go adventure.
So what do you say we go talk to Laurie and hit the road.
All right, so we're hitting the road, Laurie.
You going to be okay?
I know you've got a lot to do while we're gone.
Laurie's got a lot of work,
so she's got the worst end of the deal.
So I'll call you every day, keep me posted okay?
- All right.
- Gemma may lay eggs when I'm gone.
- Oh, great.
So, so hopefully if she lays a couple, they'll be good.
I don't know what's going to happen.
So good luck. All right?
- Yeah, thanks.
- Okay, all right. I love you.
(chill electronic music)
- 'Bout 40 minutes out of, uh, the Reptarium and
it's entering this place called Zug Island.
It's pretty neat. It's right over there, you can see it.
But what's interesting, is you see that little tree?
It's like 200 feet in the air, and every year,
since I was a kid,
they always go up there and put that tree up there.
And I always think who has that job?
And I'm sure someone's retired since I was a kid.
So, someone actually ends up taking that job over
of going and walking out a little rail,
200 feet in the air and, and put that tree up there.
But it's just like a Christmas classic, you know,
it's pretty cool, and I always get excited to see it.
(chill electronic music)
Just drove about nine hours,
got a little bit of shut eye here at this hotel right here.
I think we're right about on the border of Georgia.
We're about to stop in two hours at my buddy's place to see
his amazing collection.
And then we'll be heading down to Florida, obviously,
to Croc Fest, but we have to stop somewhere, right?
And we have to see some cool animals.
I can't go a day without animals.
So let's get in the car,
drive this last two, two and a half hours
and go see some killer animals.
And back to this guy, and I'm actually with
Gary from GBL iguanas.
We're just visiting right now. - What's up, everybody?
So tell me a little bit about this monkey right here,
he's beautiful.
- Yeah, he is.
So this is Diego. He's our Grand Cayman Rock Iguana.
He's a hybrid. - [Brian] Right.
- [Gary] We're somehow his fourth owner, I believe.
- [Brian] Really?
- [Gary] Yeah, and he's just a total puppy dog.
Our buddy Jacob Crawford produced this guy
'bout seven years ago, I think.
- Wow.
- Absolute puppy dog.
- Gosh, I love him, I mean, just the attitude.
He's so beautiful, he's, I mean,
just look at these absolute beautiful spikes down his back.
Coloration is amazing.
Again, this is the exact same animal as Tiana at our place,
but of course the females aren't as pretty as the males and
this is a downright beautiful male as well.
So, we're going to look at some amazing animals.
We're going to spend some time with
Gary and his beautiful animals,
and then we're going to be heading down to Orlando.
So we have a lot to see, what do you say we get started?
Of course we have a little rhino iguana right here.
Not so little, but a pretty cool little male for sure.
And so what got you into iguanas?
And I mean, why- you know, what's the passion there?
- So actually I grew up in south Florida in west Palm,
and when I was 11, 12 years old,
my mother was not an animal person.
My godmother loves animals,
and she had a friend down there who had
all sorts of iguanas and other emus and tortoises.
- [Brian] Right.
- [Gary] And he just took a giant iguana,
it was either a Lewisi or Cuban, I don't quite remember.
Took it, and he just put it on my lap as a kid.
And it was just, it was just game over from there.
- [Brian] That was it, from then,
you were just like, I've got to do it!
- [Gary] Yeah, and then, - [Brian] Oh my God.
- [Brian] I became an adult.
I was like, holy crap, I can have these now!
And, you know-
- [Brian] Well, they're like little dinosaurs.
I mean, they're like little pet dinosaurs.
They're absolutely amazing. And it's pretty cool.
Definitely, you know, you don't see as many, like, you know,
even, even though Atlanta is a warmer area,
it's still cool enough where you don't want to keep these
guys outside year round, right?
So it's cool to see a place that is indoors that has a bunch
of cool stuff like this.
And have you bred anything yet?
Or you're just getting started?
- Not yet, so hopefully for 2022, we'll have our first,
hopefully we'll have a clutch and rhinos,
and we're hoping for a clutch of Lewisis eyes as well.
(both laughing)
- But in the next few years, as everybody matures,
we should hopefully start producing a whole lot more.
- Oh my goodness.
Ahhh! Help!
(both laughing)
The problems of having long hair guys,
that's the problem with that.
But listen, I'll do it any day,
'cause it's absolutely worth it.
You're such a good li'l monkey.
Take a look at these guys.
It's like little bowling balls walking around in here or
something like that.
Of course, these are the little Aldabra Tortoises.
How old are these, Gary?
- These guys are probably about two to two-and-a-half.
- Two to two-and-a-half.
I mean, they're born literally like this size,
you can see just in two, two-and-a-half years,
they can get this good. And you know,
they have beautiful shells right now, which is really good.
You want to keep that, that round shell as much as possible.
Obviously they get to spend the summers outside,
which is really good for these guys, no doubt about it.
But I look at them. I mean, they're, they're fast.
These guys move!
- They will boogie real quick for sure.
- Oh my gosh. That's the thing, you know, again,
one day these guys, you know,
are going to be hundreds of pounds and live a couple of
hundred years, absolutely amazing.
I mean, it's so cute.
I want a little baby Aldabra so bad.
It's so amazing. Obviously, when we got Matilda,
she was already 15 years old,
so we never went through the stage of seeing 'em
at this cute size,
but I just can't believe how quick they are, man.
They're so funny. Oh my God, I love them.
It's not all lizards here at GBL Iguanas.
There's actually some beautiful snakes.
This happens to be, of course,
a Suriname true red tail, a BCC.
Unbelievable. How old is this one?
- [Gary] Um, I believe she's about,
probably about 18 months or so.
We've had it for about a year.
- [Brian] Wow.
- So yeah, she's probably about 18 months.
- She is beautiful. I mean,
just look at the color of that tail,
and the thing that's amazing is,
all the true read tails are a little bit different,
but this one has such amazing patterning,
where all the little widow peaks are connected
all the way down.
It's just really a beautiful example of a Suriname Boa.
The thing that's cool, again, is the BCCs get pretty big,
you know, so Surinames are gonna eventually
get 9, 10 foot. - [Gary] Hopefully.
So that's, uh, it's going to be,
(Brian laughing)
you're going to have a big snake, but it is,
just look at that, that thing is gorgeous.
- [Gary] This is a lesser Antillean Iguana,
or uh, Iguana Delicatissima, for all those science nerds
that like their scientific names.
Super heavily endangered species
from the lesser Antillean Islands.
I'm thankful to have a trio of them here,
I got from Renata Carlseen,
and she's been one of the few captive breeding them
here for the last few years.
They're pretty cool. As, uh, as babies, you know,
they start off looking like green iguanas.
And as they age, they start to turn into like,
an olive color, but they get like this really nice,
like whitish pink head and they'll get like a little
crest up here.
Very social animals.
They actually live in harems where it'll be one male for
sometimes up to seven or eight iguanas.
In a, just in a tree.
Yeah. They're pretty cool.
I'm really, really happy to have these guys
and be working with them and, you know,
hopefully be able to captive breed more of them
and you know, help keep that population going.
- Here's some of the raise out, so, for the Lewisi stuff,
here, and these guys are beautiful, whoa, here we go.
These guys love to run around and stuff like that.
I mean, they're amazing.
So how many of you raising up in this room?
- Gosh, we've got, what? One pair here, two pairs.
So we've got five Lewisis in this room here,
and then we've got two more babies upstairs.
- Oh my God. That's good.
That's a lot of Lewisi. I love them.
I mean, you guys remember, we've been down to Iguana Land,
It's amazing to see all Cyclura here.
And again, they just get better with age.
That's the thing that's amazing about them is that
especially males, is that as they get older,
they get more and more blue and more incredible.
So these guys are amazing.
I'm so glad that we made the trip down and got a chance to
stop off here.
You know me, I need my animal fix no matter where I go.
So this has definitely been a good little
stop in the adventure down to Florida.
And of course your babies happen to be the bearded dragons,
which by the way, that matches your shirt, amazing.
This is beautiful. Tell me a little bit about this boy.
- He's a red trans. He's a little active.
(Brian laughing)
- [Brian] A little trans. That's it.
You can always tell a trans cause they actually,
you can see through, kind of, their belly a little bit,
and they often have that, just more interesting
kind of pattern to them.
And then that red color, he's just beautiful, isn't he?
- [Woman] He is beautiful, I love him.
Oh my gosh. So this is like your little project here.
You wanna work on breeding
a bunch of bearded dragons? - [Woman] Yeah.
- [Brian] Oh my God, well, you're doing amazing.
Like I said, isn't it crazy how much it matches her shirt?
(both laughing)
- [Brian] It literally looks like the same animal.
The only differences is that's not a leatherback and this,
this is a leather back. But other than that,
it looks like exactly the same animal.
She has a couple of really beautiful
bearded dragons as well.
And then there's actually peaches here.
What is the morph on this one?
- She's a citrus normal.
- [Brian] Citrus normal. What a gorgeous animal.
I mean, that thing is beautiful.
All the yellows, a little bit of black splashing on it.
That's going to be an amazing.
What's the pairing you're going to do,
are you going to do that one to this,
or what are you going to do?
- I don't think I'm doing anything with her,
but I'm going to get another super citrus,
and then I'll do Ozzy and Harley.
- [Brian] Gonna definitely have some cool, pretty babies.
Bearded dragons are so polymorphic. It's absolutely amazing.
So I kind of miss breeding them. I really do.
I don't know that ever will,
but it's always cool to be around them.
Cause they're amazing animals.
- He was our first.
- [Brian] That was your first one? Oh my goodness.
So this is what started your passion for em, or-?
- Oh, yeah.
- [Brian] Oh, that's awesome. Are you going to be like,
bearded dragon crazy woman? - Yeah.
- [Brian] And have like, a thousand of em?
- Pretty much.
(both laughing)
- [Gary] Lord help us all.
- [Woman] I know.
- [Brian] This is certainly one of my favorite snakes.
I say that way too often, but it's really true.
D'Albertis pythons are amazing,
they're white lipped pythons.
This is actually what they would really consider the
Northern version,
which is the more tan-slash-coppery looking one,
then the Southern version is typically more of the
black version.
Although I've been told by friends of mine in Indonesia,
that you can find black ones up north and you can find the
kind of bronze ones down in the south, believe it or not.
But typically that's kind of how the geographic range works.
And this has got to be what about a year, year and a half?
Something like that?
- Yeah, I believe she's probably about a year old or so.
We just got her from my buddy Jonathan at Reptile Passions
a few weeks ago.
- [Brian] Oh, so you just had her.
- Yeah. So we've had her for,
gosh, probably about three weeks?
Three weeks or so. - [Brian] Okay.
- Oh my god. Very well behaved by the way, you know,
- Shocking.
- D'Albert's pythons, white-lipped pythons,
are a little bit, you know, nippy.
They're a little defensive. There's no doubt about it,
but this one is absolutely beautiful and that's cool.
It's gotta be one of your dreams animals, right?
- [Gary] They are, they're just,
just that face and the iridescence.
I mean, they're just so much fun.
- [Brian] Oh my God, love em to death.
Next up, we actually have Bernie,
the Burmese Python. I love it, by the way.
Now, of course this is a wild-type Burmese python.
You said it's only like a year old, right?
- Yeah. He's maybe 14, 15 months by now.
- That has gotten big.
I mean, for a Berm to be this size in like 14 months,
that's got some size.
Now, I guess Jeffrey was maybe about this size
at that age too.
But I just love, you know,
the original snake that I got when I was 15 years old,
my first ever snake was exactly like this.
A wild-type Burmese python.
So, still every time I see them,
there's a nostalgia, you know what I mean?
There's something about a normal Burmese Python
that is just so absolutely incredible.
And look at just how Placid. I mean, they're,
they are the gentle giants of the big snake world for sure.
- And we did not power feed him to get to this size,
by the way. - [Brian] Yeah, no no.
- He is just a fast grower. - [Brian] Yeah, he looks good.
Totally slender. I mean, I always talk about,
you never want to overfeed, especially giant snakes.
So absolutely, you know, looks perfect as far as
his definition and stuff like that.
So just an absolutely beautiful animal.
And you can always tell, like that overfeed a little bit,
by the size of the head, too.
See how the head looks very proportionate to the body?
That's kind of the indication that it's being fed
the right way.
So we actually have a boa constrictor here that Gary just
got recently.
We're just kind of checking things out.
Now you can see right here,
these are what they call vestigial spurs,
and I can kind of pull it out right there.
It's right next to their vent, right?
And males basically will have longer vestigial spurs than
females, females have shorter spurs.
Now, all boas and pythons have those vestigial spurs,
which are basically like remnants of legs
to be honest with you,
but boas in particular, you can sex them that way.
This one has longer spurs, is definitely a boy.
The shorter spurs would be a girl.
So Kevin is a boy.
This is an adorable story guys.
This is actually a hypo Pearl green Burmese Python.
Hypo is incomplete dominant.
You've got, which obviously, the super version is
going to be a white type of snake.
You've got the albino and the green are actually recessive.
But the thing that I think is adorable about this is that-
- This is her engagement present, when we got engaged
back in August.
- Yeah, her engagement.
I mean, that's a marriage made in heaven, right?
I mean, come on. And you enjoyed that present?
- Oh, I love it. I love it. - And to think, a year ago?
She was terrified of snakes.
- [Brian] Really? - [Woman] Yep.
- [Brian] So you've come such a long way.
- [Gary] And now, look at her.
And that's what it's all about.
You know, if you ever want to get married
and you want your girl to get over it,
just get her a present, like a snake.
And it works out well. But nevertheless,
that is a really beautiful snake.
Genetically, it's really cool. Absolutely amazing.
As it gets older, it's going to get more yellowish,
really beautiful animals. So again, little tiny Berm
that's gonna one day be a really big Berm.
And of course we have a little baby
Asian water monitor here.
How old is this guy?
- [Gary] He's about three months old or so.
- [Brian] Three months old. What's his name?
- His name is Jimbo. Jimothy.
- [Gary] Jim. Whatever. - [Brian] Jimothy, Jimbo, Jim.
- All his names. Perfect name.
I mean, it definitely works out.
And it's just kinda cool again that they, they're so small.
They're so amazing.
It's super socialized.
And to think that this one day going to be a giant monitor,
it's, this is an urban dinosaur as Kappa would say,
I mean, it's just a little dinosaur.
It's so absolutely adorable.
And yourself, is great.
I mean, this has been such a great time
to see all these cool animals. - [Gary] Thank you.
Thank you guys for inviting us into your place,
and for showing us around. - [Gary] Of course.
I can't thank you enough.
I'll put a link in the description to his stuff.
So please go show him some love. Tell him I sent you.
But for now it's time to get back on the road
and head to Orlando.
(blues guitar instrumental)
Well, we made it to Florida.
We're a couple hours away from Orlando.
So it's been a long journey. Been an okay journey.
The sun is out. It's 80 degrees outside.
Definitely a big departure from Michigan.
There's no doubt about that.
So this is journey has been pretty good,
had a great time over at Gary's place,
which was really cool. So again,
couple hours to go and we reach our destination at least for
the next day or two.
(blues guitar instrumental)
And we made it to Florida. To be honest with you,
tomorrow is Croc Fest,
but we actually just got off the phone with Savannah.
We may head over to Gatorland tonight to do like a middle
of the night type of thing going on.
Will be absolutely incredible.
Not sure if we're going to do it yet, regardless,
this is going to be amazing.
So definitely make sure you hit that subscription button
over here and follow along cause there's going to be
a lot of amazing stuff.
Also, you can hit a playlist over here if you want to
see some other stuff.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I cannot wait to share the rest of this adventure.
Have an amazing day reptile army.
Remember, be kind to someone, and I promise,
I'll see you tomorrow.