- ... considered to be a horrible bite.
What an amazing snake.
Look at that guy.
Felt a little bit of venom on my face shield there.
(energetic music)
Hey good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog,
and today it's gonna be amazing because we are going to be
able to play with some of my favorite venomous snakes.
Of course this beautiful leucitic monocled cobra.
I mean just take a look at this little dude here.
It is so mellow, I mean it won't even hood up.
I think that you could probably handle this thing
like a corn snake to be totally honest with you.
Although I promise you I'm not gonna do that.
Now monocled cobras are just amazing big cobras
and I love them.
They have an absolutely huge range and they're the most
polymorphic of all the venomous snakes, coming in all kinds
of different colors, and like I said you can see this guy
here is just so puppy dog tame.
He's not doing anything.
And hey when I say puppy dog tame that doesn't mean I think
you should hold it because if you did something silly you
can certainly get bit and these guys have a
pretty nasty toxin as well.
It's mainly a neuro toxin that basically shuts down
your nervous system, but these guys will also have
a little mild toxin as well as a cardio toxin.
So again this guy is not something you want to get
bit by that is absolutely for sure.
Like I said he's not moving around or doing anything
that you would think that would ever cause you anything.
Now you can take a look at my hand right here.
This is the one thing that I always am doing.
I don't want this snake to curl around me like that
because once it grabs me I can't let it go.
So if anything ever were to happen I can always let
the snake go and re-grab it.
I'm doing a technique that is basically called tailing
and that's just that I have my thumb at the base of its
tail and I can kind of turn its spine and actually
manipulate the way the snake is going to some extent.
There he goes, he's hooding up just a
little bit right there.
Now again these guys are called monocled cobras because
in the wild where they're from, which is all
over Southeast Asia,
they have that one ring on their back,
that's like a monocle.
Now we've seen a lot of Indian cobras that have what they
call a spectacle pattern with the two circles on the back.
But these guys are absolutely amazing.
They are egg layers and they'll have anywhere up to
30 eggs believe it or not.
What an absolutely gorgeous snake this is, isn't it?
Woo doggy I'll tell you what
there's just something about messing with venomous snakes
in particular a lapid That I absolutely love.
But hey this isn't the only venomous snake that we have
to play with today, but I could play with this thing all day
long because not only is it unbelievably gorgeous but it's
awesome to see such an amazingly well behaved animal.
Wow what a great, great snake.
All right guys so what we have here is an absolutely
amazing rattle snake.
This is the timber rattle snake or crotalus horridus.
These guys are native to a large part of North America.
They'll literally range all the way up into Minnesota,
all the way over to New Hampshire and even all the way down
into the Carolinas and Georgia.
So a really wide berth and they're absolutely amazing.
Some are more silver.
Some are more dark like this one.
And this one is absolutely gorgeous.
I'll tell you what.
I have always loved rattle snakes and these guys are one
of my favorites now a couple things about these that make
them cool is the fact that their venom varies from
depending on where they're at.
The more northern parts of the terrain of the venom from
the timber rattle snake is typically hemotoxic
which basically just means its necrotic.
It'll rot away your skin,
It'll clog your blood.
Now what's interesting, is a lot of times they thought
that this was an animal that was relatively a milder bite
and because of the hemoptoxic it would still
be medically significant that you would
want to get treatment but it wasn't considered
to be a horrible bite like some of the diamond back
bites and so on like that.
But what's happened is that there's some southern varieties
of these guys believe it or not that have a neuro toxin
and that neuro toxin is actually considered to be pretty bad
and can even be fatal with a bite.
So definitely something you have to be aware of depending
on where you end up catching or whatever locality
these guys are actually from.
Of course this one has all those incredible buttons on it.
Wow you know I tell you what it takes a long time
to get that many buttons for sure.
Again those buttons are actually trying to keep you away.
A lot of people think venomous snakes are mean and they want
to bite but the truth is they have those little buttons
there warning you like hey I'm here stay away from me
I don't want to bite you, I don't want you to come near me.
And when you hear this it's probably a good idea to stay
away from that little monkey for sure because you don't want
to take a bite from these guys because again being a front
fang venomous snake it's going to sink its teeth in
and be pretty radical.
These guys are live bearers just like all the other
rattle snakes but one of the things that really causing some
issues with this particular species of snake especially
in the Northeast of America, is there's actually a fungus
that is actually attacking these snakes and wiping
out entire populations.
Now these guys will actually den during the winter time
so you'll find dozens of them together and that's part
of the problem is that this fungus is actually spreading
to all of the animals in the den.
Now some scientists believe that maybe it's because we're
not getting as cold of winters now and the fungus is able to
grow whereas maybe they've always had it, but when it got
really cold the fungus would die off.
Now that the winters are much more mild it's
actually wiping out populations.
There's certain states where you can hardly
even find these guys now.
I tell you what these things are absolutely gorgeous.
You guys might realize that I'm wearing some glasses here
because this guys is actually a little bit
of a spitting cobra.
This is a rinkhals cobra right here.
Unbelievable animals these guys are
so absolutely incredible.
I mean just take a look at it.
And they're very unique.
They're not actually a Naja species
and again they don't spit like some of the Mozambique
spitters where they actually have
to come back and actually swing it at you in a way but they
absolutely use it as a defense for sure and the thing that's
really interesting about rinkhals too is that they're live
bearing cobras.
I mean just take a look at this.
This is probably about an adult size.
They can get a little bit bigger but males and females are
heavily sexual dimorphic.
And they're just absolutely incredible animals.
These guys are from South Africa.
Again there are so many things that make these guys unique.
This really rough keeled scale almost like a viper
or even a rattle snake.
It's something you don't see on other cobras as well as
the fact that again cobras are egg layers and these guys are
absolutely live bearers.
Now another thing that's really interesting is that they
will actually play dead much like a hognose almost,
so sometimes when you catch these things in the wild,
which I've had the pleasure to do, when you actually catch
them they'll roll upside down.
They'll stick their tongue out and they'll actually
look like they're dead, which is just crazy cool.
But this guys is pretty good.
When we first got him out he was definitely a little bit
standoffish but rinkhals typically are
relatively good animals.
But again it's something you really don't want
to get bitten by.
I don't know that it would be a fatal bite per se but
definitely something that you don't want to get bit by.
They'll have a little bit of mild toxin and neuro toxin as
well so again something that will mess you up and it's like
I've been saying, you never really want to get bit by
a venomous snake and he just spit some on my hand.
I literally felt the venom hit my hand when he struck at
my hand like that.
So you can see he's up in the air now.
He's going around and he'll just like fling his body forward
and that's how they actually project the venom.
Look at that guy.
Wow it's beautiful.
And this particular locality is really unbelievably
it's probably the most beautiful of the rinkhals because
a lot of these guys will be born with the bars like this
but as they get older they basically turn black,
which is still really cool but
they're not really as beautiful.
The ones that stay like this, this unbelievable banding
is unbelievably beautiful what an incredible, incredible
snake, I tell you what a pleasure to just have time with
these animals right now.
I love venomous snakes but guys I cannot stress enough
that if you're messing with venomous animals you always have
to be extremely careful number one.
And number two never try to act like a cowboy.
Like I mentioned earlier, there are no badges of honor
for being bitten by a venomous snake, and there's no badge
of honor for doing things that could potentially get
you bit by a venomous snake.
Be safe.
Be smart because listen when you get bit
because you're doing something you shouldn't do,
all it does hurt the entire hobby.
We want people that are responsible and knowledgeable
and experienced to be able to keep these animals forever
and have these amazing wonderful experiences
like I'm having today.
Every time someone makes a mistake and gets bit we're
one step closer to laws.
They're outlawing these things so listen guys
I love venomous snakes.
I've been working with them since I was a teenager
and if you want to mess with these guys
my suggestion to you is get a mentor,
someone who has dealt with venomous snakes
for a long time that is willing to allow you to kind of
learn from them so that you can learn from their mistakes
that way you stay safe, the animal stays safe,
and the hobby stays safe.
The rinkhals cobra what an amazing snake.
Look at that guy.
A little bit of venom on my face shield there.
That's awesome.
Woo doggy I love it.
See how he's rolling over?
He's acting completely stiff like he can't move.
You can move him around and now
he's just kind of popping up.
That's what they do.
How freaking awesome is that?
Guys remember a snake is a snake is a snake.
Obviously venomous snakes aren't something you should mess
with on the level you would mess with a ball python or
a corn snake, and I always want to definitely stress the
fact you shouldn't keep venomous snakes
or work with venomous snakes if you're just trying
to do a macho trip because listen these guys
need to be respected but not feared.
Again the thing that is the biggest message
when I talk about venomous snakes is that they don't
want to bite you.
Snakes don't think that way.
They don't bite out of like spite, or spite of hey I
just want to bite someone.
The only time they bite is out of necessity,
if they feel scared, if they feel threatened,
if the feel like they are cornered they're gonna do it.
You've seen with black mambas that when you go toward them
they'll come at you but as soon as you back away
they immediately back away.
So venomous snakes are absolutely amazing and I never feel
more alive than when I get a chance to play with them
they're so amazing but I definitely don't want you guys to
be encouraged to do it without having a lot of experience.
Again my first venomous snake was when I was 17 years-old
and I've been messing with them ever since.
They're absolutely truly amazing so today was great
and I hope that you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.
With that said guys I'm going to go ahead
and just end the vlog.
I mean I don't know what else to do after you get to
play with a bunch of really awesome venomous snakes.
I mean I think that was enough for the day.
I hope you guys agree.
And I hope you guys have an absolutely amazing day,
evening whenever you happen to be watching
your support means the world to me and I truly, truly love
you guys so much.
Do me a favor, comment down below let me know what you
think about that.
Would you ever want to give it a go?
Do you eventually want to work with venomous snakes?
I mean do you just think I'm crazy?
Do you think that it's nuts to do that?
I would love to hear your part about it.
While you're down there can you do me a favor and smash
that like button as well as turn those post notifications
on so you know when I upload a video.
Make sure to be kind to someone today and I promise
I will see you guys tomorrow.
(upbeat music)