ZOO MIAMI TOUR! Reptiles, Birds, & More!

What's going on everybody? Today I'm in Miami, Florida and I am going to tour, right there, the Miami Zoo. So as most of you know, one of my favorite things to see at a zoo is the reptile house. And in this video, I'm going to give you guys a complete tour of Zoo Miami. And eventually, we're going to get right to the reptile house, which is my favorite part of a zoo. The reptile house. Who doesn't love the reptile house? I think the entrance is this way over here. Alright, so the first place we're going to hit is Florida Mission Everglades, right up this way. And the first thing we see is an invasive green iguana sitting on a cement alligator. You just can't get any more Florida than that. Look at this. We've got a little burrowing owl there, sitting right by his little burrow. And over there is the gopher tortoise. Look at him being all gopher-y and tortoise-y. Okay this zoo already rules. And right down here is a rosette spoonbill. These guys are native all over Central and South America, but they are also native to right here in Florida. And you can see why they're called spoonbills. Or if it had tines on the end of that, it would be a sporkbill. Oh yes. That's a good stick. That's a good stick there, dude. So right over here, we have some of the snake species that are native to Florida. We have the Florida pine snake. I have not yet found one of these in the wild down here in Florida, but I will. But these are one of the largest non-venomous snakes in Florida. Comment below if you know what the largest non-venomous snake is native to Florida. And over here, we have an Everglades rat snake, otherwise known as a yellow rat snake. And otherwise known as a eastern rat snake. I think that's an Everglades rat snake. Look at this guy just loving up on that log. That bear and that log. This is a love story for the ages. And the other one is over there by the fence just going, um, what's the log got that I don't got? So ironically, here in the Everglades exhibit, we've got two invasive reptiles right in this alligator exhibit. That is an invasive green iguana. They've been in Florida for so long, they're basically native now. But that guy right over there, that's a red-headed agama from West Africa. That lizard is definitely not native to southern Florida. Over here, we have bald eagles. And look at that one down there. I think he's giving me Morse code with his eyes. And if I know my Morse code, he's saying, America, f**k yeah, comin' to save the motherf**kin' day, yeah. Okay, so that was Florida Mission Everglades. There was some cool stuff in there. Lots of reptiles, so really cool stuff in there. But the reptile house that I'm looking for is either that way, that way, or that way. I don't know, let's see what's behind me. Alright, so right over here, we're going in to the Wings of Asia. A temporary entrance, I don't know why this is only a temporary entrance. But we're going in. Through the chains. Through the door. Through the plastic. Through the door. And our first exhibit is some Asian ducks. But those eiders are cool, but look down here. We've got all of these blue cichlids. Wow, you guys are in a bit of a hurry. Apparently, they're late for the duck luck dinner. Haha, duck luck, duck pot luck. I don't know, there's a joke in there somewhere. Alright, moving on. Um, hello, peahen, how's it going? You're, uh, kind of pretty for a peahen. So, um, female peafowl are called peahens. Um, the males are called peacocks. And that's where that word originates from. Are you walking with me or not? You're not. Okay, see ya. And right over here, we have the tapirs. And look at that little baby tapir. He's, um, sniffing mom's butt. Okay. But the interesting thing about these tapirs is you never really know what kind of tapir they are. Is it a scotch tapir? Is it a duct tapir? Is it a masking tapir? Complete mystery. You just never know. Okay, so, um, the reptile house is around here somewhere. I know that it is. Um, there's maps. I could look. But the problem is we've got less than two hours before this zoo closes. And we still have not found that reptile house. But it's around here. We're gonna move on this way. Okay, look at this. This woman has no idea that this squirrel is stalking her. The squirrel is getting closer. And closer. That squirrel has malicious intent. Look at those beady eyes. Look at the frothing mouth. He's gonna get her. Okay, so this is insane. I've never seen a wild squirrel stalk a human being like this before. Maybe I should play some, like, creepy music over this scene. Yeah, just like that. All right, we are getting closer to the reptiles here. We have an Orinoco crocodile. Such a cute little dude. One of the most endangered crocodilians in the world. Here we have a green basilisk. So that's a male. And males have those really bright blue spots like that. And those huge crests. Females do not. This is a juvenile male. Because his crests really aren't that pronounced yet. He'll get there, buddy. Don't worry. All right, we are heading into the Amazon and beyond. I wonder if that's, like, Bed Bath and Beyond. Stay out of that beyond part when you go in there. I walked into the beyond part and I was trapped in an alternative dimension. It took me quite a bit to get out of there. I had to get out of there by going through the target. All right, guys. We have made it to what I think might just be the reptile house. We're going in. Cloud Forest Islands in the Sky. Here we go. Oh, yeah. Look at this. This is a huge eyelash viper right here. I want this in my office. That is just cool. I mean, that's what greets you as soon as you walk into this reptile room. That is awesome. Let's see what's over here. We have a Mexican cantil, which I have found these in the wild. Actually, I found the Yucatan cantil in the wild. Have not found the Mexicans yet. That is just a really amazing snake. And these are related to our copperheads and our cottonmouths here in the United States. And once you get south of the border, you get into cantil country. That's very cool. Moving on over here. We've got a Brazilian lancehead. Look at that guy over there. These guys are one of the most venomous snakes in their range. These are sometimes called fer-de-lances, but these are not fer-de-lances. They're in the same genus as fer-de-lances, but not fer-de-lances. Totally different snake. And over here, we've got a jumping viper. These guys are so cool. But these guys are also from Central America. And what these guys will do is they'll lay in the leaf litter. And you don't know that they're there until they, well, jump. Hence the name jumping viper. All right. Over here, we've got Iroquoian rattlesnakes. These guys are so beautiful and so cool. I love that kind of greenish-brownish coloration these guys have. These guys are really smart snakes. So curious about their environment. So curious about what's going on. But look at the coloration on this guy. And there's a couple of color phases of these guys. And there's this beautiful rattle right there. And the other color phase looks just like this. This is the brown color phase. And so there is a couple of different color phases of these rattlesnakes. I happen to like the green one. And over here, we've got the tiger rat snakes. This snake is in the Spelotes genus. These are one of my favorite tropical rat snakes. These guys are called tiger rat snakes. They're called chicken snakes. They're called Central American rat snakes. They go by a couple of different names. But these guys are just amazingly cool. And here we have one of my favorite kinds of alligator lizards. This is a arboreal alligator lizard. This is an emerald arboreal alligator lizard. These guys come from Mexico. And these guys live kind of up in the mountains. And they're kind of a cold tolerant lizard. These are really cool and really popular. These are Panamanian golden frogs. And these are actually extinct in the wild and on purpose. So because of the chytrid fungus that was wiping out huge populations of amphibians in Central America, scientists went down to Panama and literally took every single Panamanian golden frog out of the wild. And so now they are extinct in the wild. And they were distributed to all zoos all over the country and all over the world. And once the chytrid fungus is under control and no longer a threat, every single golden frog that you see in a zoo like this will be taken back to Panama and re-released. So this is a perfect example of how zoos handle conservation issues and why zoos are so important. All right, and right over here we've got the yellow anaconda. And this one's a little one actually. But, you know, he's still a big snake as far as snakes go. As far as anacondas go, he's a little dinky one. But these aren't the giants that we all have seen in tons of photos. Those are green anacondas. Those are found in northern South America. These guys are found in southern South America down in Argentina and the surrounding area. So that seems to be it for this reptile house. I don't know if this is the reptile house I've been looking for this entire zoo tour, but it is a house full of reptiles and it is really cool. But there's still a little bit more of the zoo that we have left to explore. We've got one hour before they close. We're moving on. All right guys, look at this. This is a jaguar. And I love how they have this enclosure for this guy. It's actually just bamboo poles. And you can hear him breathing. It must be close to feeding time actually because he wouldn't be behaving this way if he was, you know, not hungry and staring at me like he is. But look at this. I mean, it's just bamboo poles. The only thing that's kept between me and this beautiful jaguar are bamboo poles. That's pretty cool. Are you hungry? I've got, I don't know, a cough drop, I guess, on me. That's all I got, buddy. I'm sorry. I mean, I do have Swedish fish on me, but you ain't getting those. All right, guys. So right past the jaguars, I found more reptiles. Right over here, we have Amazon Basin emerald tree boas. And there's two different types of emerald tree boas in the world. There's the northerns. Those are the ones we found in Suriname. And there's these guys. These are the basins. God, man, these guys are just absolutely beautiful. And that's what they do all day long is they'll sit on trees like that. And then at night, these are nocturnal. They'll come out and they'll go hunting. And their primary diet in the Amazon are tree rats. It was long thought that these guys eat birds. Not true. And over here, look at this incredible display. We've got caiman lizards in here. These guys are awesome. Found these down in Peru. And there looks to be about three of them. There's one right there. And there's two more perched up there. And these guys are snail eaters. And they have those big, huge jaws like that, which enable them to crunch down on snails and then suck all the innards out. One of the things I love about this enclosure, though, is look at this. It's completely open air. There's nothing here between us and the lizards inside. It's all an open air enclosure. Absolutely love that. And right over here, we've got a rainbow boa. And by the looks of him, he looks to be, I don't know, that looks like a hypo-Brazilian rainbow boa to me. Usually, zoos shy away from morphs. They want to present the wild type of the animal. Looks to be a hypo to me. So it's really weird to see a hypo in a zoo like this. Pretty cool. All right, I found more reptiles. Except this one isn't a reptile. This is a caecilian. And these are fully aquatic amphibians. And they're kind of like on an evolutionary trajectory. So they act like worms, but they actually are amphibians. And you can't tell which end is the head and which end is the tail. But, well, that end has the mouth. That one's the head. Pretty sure. And over here, we have one of my favorite beaded lizards. These are Rio Fuerte beaded lizards. And these are found on the mainland of Mexico in a small little population. And these are in a family that we thought were the only venomous lizards in the world until we discovered that Komodo dragons now have venom glands. But these are the original venomous lizards. And these guys are so amazing. They're named beaded lizards because their individual scales basically make it look like it's beaded. And over here, we have the green anaconda. I was talking about this when we were looking at the yellow anaconda. This guy is huge. These are the biggest snakes on the planet. And these are the snakes that I was catching when I was down in Suriname. But this guy, look at this. This guy is absolutely gigan-normous-tic. Gigantic enormous. He's big. He's really big. Over here, we've got a couple of false water cobras. And these guys are really cool. They are not cobras. They are false water cobras. But these guys are rear fanged, but they're mildly venomous. If you get bit by one of these, it's like a bee sting. Over here, we've got one of my favorite rattlesnakes. This is the Aruba Island rattlesnake. And Aruba is a tiny little island off the coast of Venezuela. And it has its own population of endemic rattlesnakes. And this is that one. This is the Aruba Island rattlesnake. I have got to get to this island and try to find these in the wild one day. And over here, we've got another Orinoco crocodile. The most endangered crocodile in the world. I really want to get down to South America to see these guys. These guys are found in the Orinoco rainforest. And they're disappearing pretty fast. And I hear something squeaking over here. And look at this. We've got these little bronze Orinoco crocodiles coming out. And it was just squeaking like the babies do. So when Orinoco crocodiles and all crocodilians hatch, the babies will start chirping for the mother to come and get them. And then the mother will scoop them up in her mouth and take them down to the river. That was actually a really cool display. I didn't know this chirped like that. Okay, look at how cool this is. Oh, that is just gnarly cool. I wonder if I can... I wonder if they'll sell this to me. That is just too cool. All right, we are going in to the flooded forest. Land of giants. We've got Smoky Jungle Frog right there. These guys are my favorite frogs to find when I'm down in South America. And these guys are small. These guys get so big that it really takes like two hands to hang on to them. Oh man, look at this. This whole aquarium is all fish from the Amazon. Look at the size of this paku. That guy is huge. We got some red-tailed cats back over there. And look at this freshwater stingray down here. And over there, we've got the arapaima. Look at this catfish right here. That's crazy. All right, and then coming out here, look at this. These are wild ibises just hanging out here. I-ibis-I? I-bi? Ibises? The hell is plural for these things? And right here, we have the coolest bird of prey in the world. That is a harpy eagle. And it's having dinner. And I certainly hope it's not the squirrel that was following that girl around from earlier. So cool. Love these birds. All right, so coming down this way, we've got another emerald tree boa here. This is the northern emerald tree boa. Earlier, we saw the basins. And you can see that these have a different pattern than the basins do. These kind of have vertical stripes where the basins had a solid white stripe all the way down their backs. But coming over here, look at this. These are the bats. And you've got one enclosure over here and one enclosure over here. But look up. They've got these clear tubes where you can see the bats flying between both enclosures. This may be the coolest bat exhibit I've ever seen. So, guys, that's the end of the tour of Zoo Miami. I did get a molarama red alligator. I love these things. I've been collecting these things for life. Every time I go to a zoo that has these things, I absolutely have to get one, especially the alligator one. I mean, red alligator? How cool is that? Anyway, my final review of Zoo Miami. This is an amazing zoo. And is it worth the visit? Absolutely, this is worth the visit. There's a lot of things to do here in Miami. And I think that a lot of visitors overlook this zoo. And that's a mistake. However, if I have one little criticism, it's that they don't put out enough maps. So, you don't really kind of know where you are from one point to another. You walk out of a building. You look around. You go left. You go right. If there was a map right there, it would have made it much easier for us to navigate this zoo. It's a pretty big zoo. So, that would be my only complaint. But I have another complaint, actually. A lot of the exhibits were closed down. And they didn't tell you that before you started touring the zoo. So, the Komodo dragons? Off exhibit. A lot of the other animals were off exhibit, too. And I would have really appreciated that information before I toured the zoo. So, is it worth it? Absolutely. Everybody should come and check out this zoo. Anyway, guys, as always, thanks for watching. And until the next zoo adventures, love the planet and rattle on.