Inside An Animal Lover's Dream Office

All right, you guys. Today I am at the most exclusive and most impressive indoor reptile greenhouse in the entire country. We're going to come back here and see more of these incredible animals that live in it later. But first, let's go start indoors at Zoo Med. Jack, what's up, buddy? What's going on, dude? How are you, man? Good to see you. Good to see you, too. Always a pleasure. Oh, yeah. Let's get into it. What do you got? Tell me about some of the animals you guys are breeding. Let's take a look. Yeah. I guess the first thing now that we're here, we got a couple of panther chameleons. These are a couple of our male panther chameleons. I don't know if you wanted to reach in and grab that guy. Sure. Hey, bud. Wow. He's so red, this guy. So these are both actually males. Yeah, that's a male, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And you can see the color difference. It's just, you know, the way panther chameleons are, you know, they're all across Madagascar. But depending on the place that you go, you get different color forms. This guy right here is going to be an amelobe. I believe that's an ambanja. Okay. They hate each other because And the last time I saw you, we were building a chameleon enclosure at the reptile show for Lucas. That's right. Which was awesome. By the way, we have a great video on that. If you haven't seen it, click the link right here. But you got things way crazier than these. I mean, this is level one. This is level one. Panther chameleons are around. Let's see some of the other stuff you guys have. Who do we have here? These are our emerald tree skinks. Can I open it? Yeah, absolutely. Guys. Oh, look at that. Look at that color on him. Oh, and then they just chill. Yeah. Whoops. There he goes. Flying skink. That's so cool. Whoa. He's really going for it. This guy. Hey, buddy. They're really relaxed. They don't like being held too often, but they will kind of sit and show on their show on your shoulder. Yeah. Look how beautiful they are. Yeah. So cool. Wow. They are quick too. There he goes. He's just trying to do it. What a loon. Where is this day gecko? Let's see here. They're super skittish. Are they? Yeah, they're extremely fast. I saw something move. Whoa. There he goes. Maybe we'll just leave him up there. Okay, that's fine. But look how pretty he is. Look at the colors on that. That's the Geico gecko. Yeah. He's a day gecko. That's the exact gecko. Hey, you're not allowed over that way. You're not allowed that way. You need to go back your way. Look at how beautiful this guy is. There we go. Look at that. So there's a couple of species invasive in Hawaii. I want to say the gold dusts are going to be the species that you see most often in Hawaii. They're everywhere. They're like in the hotels. They're like everywhere. Yeah. Coffee shops. Yep, totally. It's wild. But those ones are small. Those geckos are like this big. They're really small. This is really big for diurnal gecko. Yeah, it's, I believe, one of the largest day gecko species, if not the largest. But this next gecko is much bigger and much more aggressive. You're scared of them. See how scared he is? These things are mean. They will, you know, mess you up. Oh, he's going to bite you so bad. There. Oh, he got you. There we go. Watch your, watch your, that little soft part between your thumb and your finger there is about to get munched. All right. There's another one in there who's much larger, but there's no way. You don't want to mess with the boy. Oh, I kind of do though. Here you have the female. I kind of do though. Oh God. Oh God. He's so close to my finger and he's so big and I don't have him held properly. There he is. There we go. All right. Okay, buddy. Oh, look at that. And what's crazy is you wouldn't think that little mouth would hurt, but it hurts a lot. They have a lot of job. I don't know what the PSI is, but if these things scaled to the size of crocodiles, we'd all be in trouble. Um, but yeah, look how beautiful these Tokyo geckos are. And so I've heard them going, you know? Yeah. Which is so cool. And you hear it when you're in Indonesia and stuff, but yeah, I had this one in my tent and he was much bluer than this. It was like, I don't, you know, just a wild one. Didn't have nearly as much red, much bluer. And he was literally twice the size and it was scary. I was like, I'd rather have a Cobra in my tent than this thing in my tent. But yeah, super cool. So this is the male, that's the female. You can kind of see, you know, just big differences in the body. Morphology males have a much wider, more bulky head. Yeah. Yeah. So you're much more, you've given up on restraining. I'm going to do that too and see what happens. There we go. Look at that. What a pretty pair of animals. I don't trust this animal. Not one bit. All right, well, let's put these guys back. Oh, listen to that. It's like a little crocodile. So these guys, they're Cuban, right? Cuban false chameleon. And it's actually an anole. Is that right? Yeah. It's a species of anole. Yeah. You know, it's a very good example of convergent evolution, right? Where you look at chameleons in Africa and here's an anole, an entirely different family of lizards that's evolved to look just like that and occupying sort of that same niche and filling up that whole look. I mean, it's just, it's, it's like a Tasmanian tiger and a tiger or like a dingo and a coyote, right? It's like they've just converged to look the same, even though they're super far apart. Right. You can see how big this, you know, how, how muscular their head structure is and how beefy it is. In the wild, they're known to take down mollusks. Oh, okay. They're chomping snails. Chomping snails and kind of some of those slower moving prey, but they will eat, you know, crickets and grasshoppers and other invertebrates as well. Awesome. Well, they're really cool. And you guys are breeding them as well? Yep. Amazing. We got some babies. Super cool. So how cool are these things? I mean, they're just, they're like living dinosaurs. They are quite prehistoric. Yeah. Yeah. Like all long-living animals and all prehistoric creatures, everything they do is in slow motion. Right. So yeah. So, sorry, you're saying these guys were captive bred in Australia. Right. And then they were imported, we were on a list for a, for a really long time for these guys. And something really cool about these two individuals as well is that they're also microchipped. So no way. Oh, okay. All right. See, I told you guys we can't steal them later. No joke, no laughs from the camera team. And they live in these bodies of water in Australia that fluctuate a lot. Right. And so being lungfish, they actually have an organ that allows them to breathe air. So that's where the name comes from. Yeah. Somewhere between a fish and amphibian, really. All right. So this has got to be probably my favorite animal in the entire animal room. I'll give you like 10 seconds to find it. Well, it's cheating because I've been, I know what it is. I read from the logo and I've been to Madagascar and seen them. So you don't mind if I bring them out, right? It's cheating, but I'll tell you this, when you're there, they're impossible to find. So leaf tail gecko. Yeah. So this is the mossy leaf tail gecko. Mossy leaf tail gecko. Okay. Yeah. You find these guys on the east coast of Madagascar and kind of like the intermediate elevation rainforests. They're insectivores and they'll spend their days kind of, you know, hugging branches essentially. Look at that face. Look at that. Look at that. It's a very dragon-esque animal. They really are. Yeah. And so they'll suck down onto the wood and the bark of these things. And you can see that unbelievable camouflage that they have. Do you breed these guys? I know you're into the geckos. Yeah. So I breed these guys at home, but this is our only representative of the Europlatus genus here, but he's such a pretty example. Day gecko or leaf tail gecko? Leaf tail gecko. All day. All day. I like that. All right. Well, while you put that guy away, I saw Ashley over there somewhere, right? Let's go connect with her and then we'll get into some turtles. Oh man. This is a female fly river, right? Yes. Yeah. Oh, she's so cool. These guys have no idea, by the way, Ashley, they think these things are like red ear sliders because everywhere we go, I'm like, a fly river turtle. And they're like, they're everywhere we go. They don't know how rare a fully aquatic freshwater turtle is, but you can see where the name pig nose comes from. Like, look at that little piggy snout there. What's her name? Her name's Ursula. That's a fantastic name. So my son's here today. What's up, Rhodes? What do you got? What is this? Do you know? I don't know. You don't know? What has a spiny tail? Do you know? You've just been holding him, obviously. I don't remember. You don't remember? Well, who gave you this lizard? You're just running around with lizards? It's a Uromasty. Isn't he cool? Can I take him back? You can. Do you know how these guys defend themselves? By throwing that little tail. By throwing that little tail. Feel how spiky it is. Has he tried to spike you with the tail? No. Do you know what these guys are like? I was feeding him a second ago. You were feeding him? No way. Did he love it? Yeah. You know what these guys are like? What? What did we catch in Baja that looks kind of like this? A chuckwalla. A chuckwalla. These are like Middle Eastern chuckwallas, huh? Yeah, they are. Yeah. Can you let dad keep shooting his video and you run away with the lizard? Get a good look at his spiky tail on camera. Tell Tommy he's got that camera. Say, Tommy, shoot it tight. That's what you say. He knows. He knows what he's doing. Bye-bye. No more bugging us, okay? Oh, a claudius. A narrow bridge, right? Our mini snapping turtles. You can see that jaw just starting to open there. And they have a nickname, which if I get bitten, by the way, I'm losing a fingertip. This isn't like an owl that kind of hurts. These things are insane. Like, look at the sharpness of that beak. You're a brave, brave man, Forrest. I dare you. I dare you. Here, just hold still. Oh, look at that. He's putting the head way out there. So they're just crazy, crazy aggressive animals. I have one at home that's about this big that I couldn't put with any other animals because it just ripped them all to shreds. Mostly just had it with fish. But yeah, it's about this big. And I'll walk by the tank six feet away and it lunges at the tank. So the attitude on these guys is insane. Let's head out to the, what do you call it? The coupe de gras. The grand finale. The turtle nirvana. Turtle nirvana. Plus all of the insane big lizards that you guys have out in the greenhouse. Let's do it. All right. Okay. So this is it. This is the coolest greenhouse, I think, in the world, but definitely the biggest, best private reptile greenhouse that I've ever seen. So here we go. Unveil the greenhouse, Jack. Look at this place. This majorly cool tropical greenhouse. You step into here. In fact, the cameras are probably going to fog up because it's like a hundred degrees in here. Well, let's go through it. I mean, so I know these are one of my favorites. We opened the video with it. Yeah. The banana iguana. Banana iguana. Banana iguana. Banana iguana. It's hard to say. Oh, look at that color. Oh my goodness. Hey nippy. Whoa. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Calm down. Oh, you're so scratchy. Oh, whoa. Leaf or flower. Hibiscus. Hibiscus. Really calm them down. Yeah. Look at that. And this isn't a morph. This is their natural native color, right? That's amazing. Look at that. That's so cool. Let's see some more skittles. Shall we? Yeah, let's do it. Oh my goodness. Look at that big orange baby. He is a very handsome guy, but if I'm not mistaken, the last time I was here, you told me, was it your husband who got beat up by him? Yes. My husband was working here and taking care of some animals and went in to clean his cage. And, and to be fair, Gus threw his head around and said, Hey, get out of here. And he didn't really heed that warning and Gus just nailed him. So he, he got bit on the arm and had to get 15 stitches. 15 stitches. Yeah. That's a lot of stitches. Keep him out a little bit. Okay. Maybe you stay with mom over there. Oh my goodness. Chinese water dragons, right? Oh, Hey Wiggles. Wow. They are pretty. Look at that bluish on the, on the banding. Wait, you got to get yours now. You got to get your chicken turtle. Then we can do the whole enclosure of animals at the same time. Let's see. Come on. There we go. There we go. Come on. Pull your head out. What a cool like combo of animals in one place. I'm sure they don't bother each other. No. Well, that's awesome. And congrats on breeding both these very hard to breed animals. Whoop. There he goes. Did his water dive. All right. And then what's so cool about this hothouse is you guys have these live giant mangroves of which you gave me some the last time I was here, but they were about this big. Now they're about that big. Um, and it's so cool seeing mangroves and papaya trees, like giant papaya trees, hibiscus, banana, everything growing in this, the screen house. Sorry. I'm going to interrupt you for a second. Look, just film this. I'm going to interrupt you for a second. Look, look at what he does everywhere we go. He's a menace. You're a menace boy. You're I don't want to hold him. I want you to put him down gently. You're a menace. Do you even know what kind of tortoise that is? Oh, okay. Well, you get a pass for knowing it's all she showed me. Oh, this is that, that super exciting podoc species, right? Oh, look at that one. Oh my goodness. This is a small one. Oh yeah. There's a huge one over there. Go get it, Jack. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You don't need to go in there. Okay. But these are cool. This, so of every animal here, I think this is the only one I've never seen before anywhere. Not at a zoo, not in the wild, not in a private collection. This is the first time I've ever seen this species. Last thing I'll say and show before we go is this scale tail. I've never seen it. And it's, if you're watching this at home, one thing that you kind of understand is just how soft this skin is and how weird the sand papery textured scale tail is. It's bizarre. And I've never seen a turtle that has scale tail like that before. It's very, very unique. So I do know that there is one other very, very cool large lizard, a favorite of yours, Jack, that we got to see. We got to check out the rhino iguanas. I love it. Oh, these guys are so cool. And yeah, you can get down and they'll let you pet them and stuff. They, I've seen them before where they like go into a bit of a, yeah, see that? They get like the butt wiggle and stuff. And they're like, oh, it feels good. And you can see why they call these guys rhino iguanas with the, uh, the horns that they have here. And they're from what island? These guys are from Hispaniola. So the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Hi, pretty, where are you going? Don't be jumpy. And you can see this one's a little bit, you know, iffy with, uh, with getting pet. Funny story about when we first set up this, set up this enclosure, we moved all the animals out. We thought it had a completely escape proof. Overnight they managed to dig under, uh, under the, uh, under the wooden frame and they actually gone out into the greenhouse. No way. That's hilarious. We reinforced the cage and haven't had any issues since. And that that's the male, I presume. And he looks very content there. He's just loving his, uh, his tail tickle. Guys, amazing tour. Thank you so much. Zoo Med is one of my favorite facilities. I love coming here and visiting with you. I love all your amazing animals. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. Anytime, man.