- There it is, oh my gosh.
Oh, doggie.
This one is even more gorgeous.
(dramatic digital music)
Eh, good morning, everybody.
Welcome to the vlog.
It is an absolutely exciting day today.
And you may be asking yourself,
Brian, why is it such an exciting day?
Well, let me go ahead
and explain why it's an exciting day.
So basically, the Reptarium has kinda
not only been a great place for me
to kinda educate people and kind of enjoy,
but it's really given me the opportunity
to get some animals,
like Toothless the Black Dragon,
that I normally wouldn't have
really had an ability to get.
And what I mean by that is
I really couldn't get them
and put them over at BHB,
because BHB is a breeding center.
We're kinda out of room.
We had a bunch of pets,
like Bella, and Savvy, and Speedy,
and it was kinda at that point
where you really couldn't add more pets.
So, a Reptarium has given me
the ability to get a bunch of really cool stuff,
because it's cool for people to come
and actually interact with them.
Or even my guys like Ben and Jerry,
the two headed snake,
is something that I probably could've
never really justified.
Sure, I had bought some two headed snakes before,
but it was always with the intention of
eventually opening up the Reptarium.
So the Reptarium has given me that chance
to go ahead and work with animals
that I've always dreamt about.
Why am I telling you this?
Because today I'm about to get
a shipment of a couple more animals
that I always dreamt about.
As a matter of fact,
when I started the Reptarium,
I had a list of animals
I really wanted to have on display
for a number of reasons.
I thought they'd be good to handle,
they'd be really cool to look at.
Whatever the case might be,
today, I am super excited that
we're gonna go ahead
and get a chance to open up these guys
and get them into their new enclosure.
By the way, I've not told anyone,
Laurie or anyone,
I've been teasing Jessica all morning
with these animals, so,
are you excited to find out what it is?
- Yes, you've been so mean.
(both laugh)
- I hope that she's gonna be excited,
but I'm gonna go ahead,
go next door,
and open up this box,
and see these cute little monkeys.
You guys know that I am always excited
to get new animals for the Reptarium,
or BHB, or whatever the case is.
I do wanna say something.
There's been a little bit of internet drama,
and you guys know I like to stay out of drama,
I like to stay out of negativity,
all that stuff about like,
animal hoarding, getting too many animals.
You guys see me get animals all the time.
But the definition of animal hoarding
is really when you're not able to
take care of what you have.
Fortunately, we have a great crew,
we're professionals.
Obviously, I have a zoo,
we have BHB, we have great people here.
Not to say that anyone
isn't taking care of their animals,
because again, I don't wanna get involved
in that whatsoever.
I will say, we should always keep
the animals' best interest in mind,
whether we're getting an animal or not,
and I would never wanna get animals
if I couldn't take care of them.
I think that I can take care of what I have,
I do my best.
It doesn't mean that we don't make mistakes.
It happens to everyone,
and that's all I'm gonna say about that.
Regardless, let's go ahead and open up this box.
I tell you what,
this is definitely an animal, again,
that I targeted when I first opened the zoo,
saying that when I find
some really good captive animals,
I'm gonna try to add these to the zoo,
so I am super excited about it.
Cool little heat pack holders.
I like the idea.
They're very cool.
Oh, and we got two little bags here.
Oh my god, I cannot be more excited.
I have never owned these my entire life,
but I have been researching them for
at least 15 or 20 years,
so I know a pretty good amount about them
as far as their care,
and husbandry, and everything else,
and I've certainly seen a ton of them,
but again, this is my first time.
So we're gonna have to learn together,
but I think I'm ready for it,
and I've been working on this for
probably at least a couple of months,
so this isn't like,
something that comes out of nowhere.
Oh my gosh, they are so incredible.
This one is so incredible.
Oh, gotta be careful,
'cause these guys will put
a pretty nasty bite on ya.
And here we go.
Oh my gosh.
And here we go, everybody.
There it is.
Oh my gosh, am I freaking out.
These are so absolutely adorable.
Of course, these are Corucia zebrata
the Solomon Island prehensile tail skinks.
Oh my gosh,
this thing is so absolutely incredible.
Now, I actually got a pair.
This is the male right here,
and these guys are actually from
the Solomon Island,
which are a bunch of islands off
of Papua New Guinea.
Oh my god, these guys are so incredible.
But they are extremely territorial,
so you have to be careful
putting two males together, for sure,
'cause they will fight,
and in captivity,
these guys can be pretty brutal
and actually really hurt each other.
So, number one,
you wanna have a big enclosure,
with lots of places for them to go
kind of in separate areas,
and the fact that these are a pair,
hopefully they'll get along,
but we'll definitely keep an eye out.
They were being kept together,
but again, we have a different environment,
so hopefully, they'll do well.
So this right here is the little boy,
and I'll tell you what,
they have such sharp little teeth,
because again, they're really arboreal
and climb high.
So they'll have lots of branches.
These guys are vegetarian,
but they will eat a little bit of meat,
so we're gonna probably introduce like,
iguana diet, or a tortoise diet to them
to give them a little bit of protein,
but mainly, they're gonna eat like,
mixed vegetables,
they love fruits.
They will literally eat like,
pothos plants, and stuff like that.
So these guys are really cool.
I'm excited to start working with them.
Let's go ahead and look at the female.
And here's the female.
That male was a stunner.
He was so good and in such good shape.
I am super excited.
Again, it's really important to get
really good established animals,
so that they look good.
Oh, doggie, this one is even more gorgeous.
Look at that little dude right there.
Oh my god, she is absolutely a ripper.
And I cannot believe the pattern on this thing.
Oh my gosh, that is absolutely adorable.
And these guys are so unusual.
One of the problems is, of course,
in the Solomon Islands,
these guys are getting harder and harder to find,
and they're becoming a major problem
when it comes to their kind of population.
You've got to remember that
the Solomon Islands now are heavily agricultural,
as well as timber
that's getting sent over to China,
so what's happening is the deforestation
is really causing these guys to
decline in population tremendously.
And these used to be imported
into the country years ago,
in pretty good numbers.
Now you hardly ever see them.
So really, there's hardly any animals
imported these days,
and not many produced,
because these guys will typically have one baby,
sometimes two,
but mainly one baby every three to four years,
'cause they literally have like
a six plus month gestation on the babies.
They're actually born live.
So these guys are definitely something that
we're gonna wanna try to work with in captivity,
and I'm hoping that
when these guys get to adulthood,
that they'll actually produce one or two babies,
even if it's only every few years.
These guys aren't quite full grown yet.
They're kinda sub-adult,
but they are absolutely incredible.
I mean, take a look at that
beautiful little face right there.
Oh my gosh.
I am so excited.
I'm gonna show the crew,
and then we're gonna get started on
setting these guys up.
So Eric, what do you think, man?
Are they crazy? - Dude, these are incredible.
These are really cool animals,
man. - I know, bizarre, right?
Look at the female,
how pretty she is.
- They are so bizarre-looking.
It's like a blue monkey lizard.
It's really what I think about,
that little flat face,
and the prehensile tail. - Yeah, they call them
monkey-tail skinks.
- Oh, no kidding, there you go.
- Though they're Solomon Islands skinks,
people call them monkey tail skinks,
because yeah, they almost look like
little monkeys, right?
- Very cool, man,
and this is a pair?
- This is a pair.
This is the female here. - Aw, no way.
- She's a little bit smaller,
and that's the male.
Is that cool, or what? - So freakin' awesome, man.
- Don't they have
sharp little claws? - Look at those green eyes.
I mean, this, wow.
- I know, right? - It's an incredible animal.
- I know, I can't wait to get them set up.
And again, this is an animal that
you're gonna necessarily handle a ton,
but they can be habituated to handling a bit,
so once these guys get settled in,
kinda get through their quarantine period,
all that type of stuff,
we can definitely probably take these out
and let people handle them.
They are absolutely amazing.
But oh my gosh,
I wanted these things for so long.
I can't believe we've finally got them.
Jessica.
- Oh my god.
Hey, I guessed.
- Oh, you guessed it?
You had it right. - You were right?
Yes, we did, yeah. - You guys guessed it?
Yeah, exactly, monkey tail skink.
- Awesome. - She totally guessed it.
She got it right on. - How big do they get?
I've never seen a full grown one.
- So this is about half grown right now.
This is the girl,
and the way you can tell
a boy from a girl, really,
is the size of their head.
You can see how narrow her head is
compared to how thick his head is.
That's basically how you tell
the dimorphism between the two.
But she's about half grown right now.
- Can we talk-- - He's getting closer to
being full-grown.
- Can we talk about the tortoise real quick?
- What's he dragging? - Hey, Sabby,
he's got something on the bottom there.
- Oh, got a little paper.
It's the loudest thing in the shop.
(all chuckle)
- They have such cute faces.
They're so round.
- And basically, to give you an idea,
this is the cage that
I have set up for it right here.
I put this branch in this morning.
I'm gonna go ahead and secure this branch
that goes across.
I'm gonna put some more plants.
That way, they can get up close to the heat
if they wanted to,
or they can go over here,
get a little bit cold.
Believe it or not,
these guys will spend some time on the ground.
They will also drink from a water dish,
believe it or not,
but they also do need to be misted as well.
They're acro-to-real,
so basically, they get 12 hours of light,
12 hours of dark,
but there's kind of a wet and dry season,
but that's about it.
You're looking at maybe 82 to 84 degrees,
with a hot spot of maybe upper 80s.
You want it to drop down to
maybe 76, 78 at night,
and that's basically it, but again,
we wanna have a lot of options for
both of them to get away from each other,
so we'll put some more plants in here,
and stuff like that,
just kind of foliage this out a little bit.
But I think that this will be great,
where the female and the male
can get away from each other if they want to,
but also can spend time together.
We'll probably put a little bit of cork bark,
maybe, in here,
as a little bit more of a hiding spot,
but all in all,
I think this is gonna be
a great enclosure for these guys.
It's absolutely perfect for what they need.
So let's go ahead,
just do our finishing touches.
I'll give you the update
when we're 100% done,
and then we'll go ahead
and release them into the cage
and see how they like it.
All right, I just finished up
all the kinda decorating of the cage,
putting everything else in.
Again, I secured this in.
We'll go back and touch up a few little things,
but for the most part,
we've got a lot of foliage, plants,
there is climbing here, climbing there,
climbing in the back over there,
lots of room over here.
So I think it's gonna be really good for them.
I think that they have plenty of room
to kinda hide.
They can hide behind these big leaves,
they can hide up there,
they can hide back there in the corner over here,
and again, just giving them
all kinds of options for heat,
to cool, to everything else.
Now, they do need a higher humidity,
about 70% or so,
and like I mentioned before,
they will definitely drink from
the water right here,
but we also wanna mist them down
a couple times a day.
What we'll probably do
within the next short while
is I'll probably install a misting system in here
to mist down two or three times a day as well.
So I think we are set,
and we are ready to let them go in the cage
and see what happens.
And what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna literally let the male go first,
let him get settled in for
maybe a half hour or so,
and then I'll put the female in.
I don't know really where to put him,
to be honest with ya.
I think I'll just go ahead
and put him down right here,
and let him kind of explore all he wants,
see where he wants to go.
Look at how insanely cool that is.
Oh my gosh, that's so awesome.
Oh my god, he seems to absolutely love the cage,
and again, he's gonna have
all kinds of different options to go,
but for now, he seems to just wanna go
way over here in the corner on the heat spot.
Again, he's starting to look at these plants.
It's amazing how these things can climb.
They are truly an arboreal lizard.
Oh my gosh, look at how cool that is.
All right, I'll go and let him
kinda get settled in for a good half hour,
45 minutes, or so,
let him kinda stake out his claim,
and then I'll go ahead
and release the female after that,
and that way they can hopefully get along.
Again, they've been together,
but they were in
a completely different environment,
so I don't want them to fight
over the territory here.
So we'll come back in like a half hour,
45 minutes, and release the female.
And just in case you're wondering,
this is the female's holding cage right now.
So she is completely fine.
I had the male in another cage
that was really similar.
This is actually gonna be a gecko cage here,
that I'm getting some geckos next week.
I can't wait to share that with you guys.
But in the meantime,
she's doing fine.
She's gonna be okay for the next little bit.
Let's head over to BHB
and see what's going on over there.
Back here at BHB,
Eric, you are going to be feeding
a lot of snakes today,
but you don't have to feed the adult clover
so that's a lot easier for you, right?
- Way easier, way easier.
- So, tell me what you're doing.
- So today, we just kinda go through
all of our razors,
all of our stuff that's too small to hibernate.
We just go through, feed them up,
give them a little courtesy check,
I like to call it,
and work our way down the line.
I'm gonna let you guys join Eric
on his adventure today,
feeding how many snakes do you think?
Maybe several hundred. - Roughly,
yeah, seven or 800, I would say.
Yeah, yeah, over 700.
- So if you ever wonder what it's like
to feed seven or 800 snakes,
you're about to find out.
(relaxing music)
- So we got all this stuff done here.
We're gonna move over to the baby corns,
and the little take longs,
and a little tedious,
but it's gotta get done.
(relaxing music)
Okay, that's how you feed 700 snakes.
Now, you think, oh, that's it, right?
Well, tomorrow, I gotta come back through,
gotta check every snake again,
but this time,
you gotta mark it with a little marker,
and mark the paper,
and do this and that.
It's a lot of work, totally worth it.
- Next up, we have the female.
The male is way in the back
by those plants over there, hiding.
That's the only concern I have about this,
is that these guys are kinda small.
I don't wanna put them in here
and then never see them again.
But I think they're gonna really love it,
and hey, listen,
I just want them to be awesome.
I think people are gonna still love
trying to find these little monkeys for sure,
and literally, they are little monkeys,
'cause they're monkey tail skinks,
but regardless,
let's go ahead and get the female in here
and see where she ends up going.
I think I'm gonna put her right here
so that she doesn't go in the same direction
as the male goes,
and we'll just see where she goes.
Look at how these things climb.
I mean, they are just such adept climbers.
Oh dog it, that is awesome.
She is gonna love it in here,
and again, she can climb that wall,
she can go wherever she wants to go right now.
Oh my gosh, what a beautiful animal.
Okay, guys, so there you have it,
the Corucia zebrata,
Solomon Islands skinks.
I hope that they like this.
I'll keep you guys updated.
And of course, we're gonna need some names
for my male and female Solomon Island
monkey tail skinks.
If you have any ideas,
go down the description,
let me know some ideas for names
for both of those guys,
'cause they are absolutely fantastic,
and let me know what you think
of my new addition.
I am so excited about these, guys,
you have no idea.
I'll keep you updated how they do,
and I'll just really keep a close eye on them
for the next 24 or 48 hours
to make sure that they're happy and healthy,
and then we'll try to feed them here
in the next day or two
and hopefully, they'll eat something.
There it is, guys.
I got some more of my dream animals.
I wasn't sure if I was gonna address this,
but I figured I would.
So for those of you that don't like to
hear me ramble for two or three minutes,
this is probably where you wanna end the video.
If you guys wanna hear what my thoughts are,
and actually, I just was sitting down
and editing this piece,
and basically what it is
is I was gonna talk a little bit about
the kinda animal hoarding thing,
and just my opinions on it,
but I decided I was not gonna put this in here,
because to be totally honest with you,
I like to stay away from drama.
I like to stay away from
kinda controversy of all sorts.
I wanna stay positive, upbeat,
so I hope you guys don't mind that
I'm gonna just go ahead and cut this on,
but I just prefer not to be involved in
all of this stuff.
So why don't we go ahead
and get back to the rest of the vlog,
and stay away from the politics and drama
of everything on YouTube.
And I appreciate you guys listening.
Let's get back to reptiles.
And by back to reptiles,
I'm actually gonna steal a clip from Noah's vlog.
It's actually about
our new bird-eating tarantula.
He used a GoPro to see it eat,
and holy cow, when we reviewed the footage,
I was like, oh my gosh, check this out.
(suspenseful music)
And that was absolutely insane.
If you wanna see the whole thing,
I'll put a link in the description
to Noah's channel.
Do me a favor,
go show Noah some love,
subscribe to his channel,
tell him I sent you,
because I love that kid,
and I really think you guys
will love his content,
because it's not only fun, it's exciting,
and of course, I'm biased because he's my son,
but the truth is,
I'm a fan of what he's doing.
Just a quick update on
the prehensile tail skinks
before we get outta here.
The female is way up here.
You can just barely see her behind that leaf.
You can see her right there.
And the male is way back there.
You can see his tail just poking out.
And just like I suspected,
they kinda disappeared in this cage.
That's okay,
because I think it's still breathtaking,
and I think that once they get
a little bit acclimated,
they'll probably be
out and about a little bit more,
and even if they aren't,
I still think it's amazing that
I get to work with some animals
that I have always wanted to work with.
I am so excited, and hey,
when you come to the Reptarium,
you're gonna have a heck of a time
trying to find these guys,
looking around, going,
where are they at?
Hopefully, you guys will see them,
and hopefully, once they get really acclimated,
we can even start taking them out
and letting people mess with them,
'cause they are absolutely incredible.
And with that said,
I am gonna go ahead and end the vlog
and wish you guys an absolutely amazing day,
evening, whenever you happen to be watching.
As always, your support means the world to me,
and I truly, truly do love you guys so much.
Have you noticed lately,
I am just really happy.
I'm so happy with so many of the things in life,
and I appreciate you guys for allowing me
and helping me along on this amazing journey.
Do me a couple of favors
before we get outta here.
Can you smash that like button,
turn those post notifications on,
so you know when I upload a video,
make sure to comment down below,
because I love reading
about your beautiful faces,
be kind to someone,
and I promise I will see you guys tomorrow.
("Straight Out The Basement 2" by Axel Ljung)