Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey
Human podcast.
This is episode
422,
and my guest is Bob Bledsoe.
Bob breeds and raises ball pythons and is
the founder of Green Room Pythons, educating us
on all things python
while helping to dispel fears and myths around
these
gentle and interesting tube socks.
He's a musician, comic, and actor, and you've
likely seen him in film or on one
of your favorite shows, like Parks and Rec,
Lie to Me, Hannah Montana,
Jay Leno. He's been on a ton of
stuff. He's a dear friend. I've known him
forever,
and I'm excited for him to be on
the show. As some of you may know,
I am a huge fan of snakes. I've
always loved them,
and I very much enjoy going over to
Bob's place
and getting to pet and love on these
really intriguing, interesting,
beautiful creatures. So, hopefully, even if you're a
little afraid or very afraid of snakes,
this episode will, I don't know, make you
a little bit more open minded toward them.
Alright. General stuff. Hey, Human Podcast is now
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Be well, be kind,
be love, and here we go.
Bob, let's go. Welcome to Hey Human.
Hi, Susan. I'm so happy to be here.
Hello, love. It's so good to see you.
It's it's always good to see you. Anytime
I can hang out with you is a
great day. Aw. Thanks, honey.
We have known each other a long
time.
Yeah. I can't even count how many fingers
that is, but it's a lot of them.
It's gotta be 60 to 70 years, something
like that. Yeah. We might have to involve
toes, for sure.
And you
have had many lifetimes within a lifetime, which
I love that because I'm the same way.
We're gonna
start with the beginning of you. Tell me
about your upbringing. Where'd you grow up? What
shaped you as a person?
I grew up in Spokane, Washington
with a loving mother and father,
supportive,
and a sister who was and still is
my best friend, favorite person on earth. So
that that family,
that lovely family upbringing,
shaped me
as a person, you know, began to shape
me as a person.
Did you have aspirations
as a young kid to go into the
arts?
Yeah.
Yeah. I wanted to be a comedian or
I I wanted to be an entertainer of
some sort, you know, when I was a
kid. I mean, I also had dreams of,
like, being a zoologist.
I remember that as one of my earliest
things. I found out what what the word
zoologist meant when I was maybe in 1st
grade or something. I was like, yeah. I
wanna do that. But then it was all
like I would see Saturday Night Live and
I'd be like, oh, no. I kinda wanna
do that. And how old are you when
you started doing stand up?
I was in my early twenties.
Did that come secondary to acting or was
that first? No. That was first. That was
first. I start I started doing open mics
in Seattle.
They they were going pretty well and I
I actually, the same week, now I'm I'm
remembering, the same week that I did my
first open mic, I signed up for an
acting class. I kinda started them both at
the same time.
What was it like as a stand up
comedian? That's a pretty brutal existence from what
I understand.
What was that like for you and how
did that shape your personality?
It it is kind of a brutal existence
and in in a couple of ways, but
it's also great in some others. Looking back
on it, starting stand up in Seattle at
that time in the early nineties, it was
it it was just a great place to
start
because when I compare it to people that
are trying to start stand up now
in in Los Angeles, they if they can
find a place to get up on stage,
they're not going to find a real audience.
Their audience is just going to be other
comics waiting to hit the stage, you know.
And it's it's really tough to do. And
I think that's kind of the case in
Seattle right now, maybe. But back then, you
could you could do an open mic and
and we had good
audiences, you know. People would come and and
pay and sit down and buy drinks and
watch open mics.
So it was really great in that respect.
There were, you know, I was young and
as much as I
actively tried not to be competitive with other
comics or whatever, I think I was. I
think I I didn't like comedians that I
thought were maybe funnier than I was or
maybe they did a thing that I felt
like I couldn't do and so I just
didn't like that person, you know. So there
were some traits in my personality that came
out that I didn't like when I or
that I don't like when I look back
on that. How did you make an adjustment
for that or have you not? No. No.
No. I have for sure. I have for
sure. It's just giving. I know you. I
think it just comes with growing up, you
know, and and maturing. And when you're in
your early twenties, you're not an adult yet.
You know, I had to go through that
and and,
you know, get some a little bit of
perspective and and understand that
we're not in a there's no competition here,
you know, with with artists. With stand up
comics, there's no competition. There's nobody that's me,
and I'm not gonna be them.
Did you know you were funny from a
young age too? Or was it just that
you saw these other actor comedians and you
thought, oh, I want to do that without
really understanding what it meant to do that?
I was I was funny as a kid.
I could make my sister and my mom
cry laughing,
and I was pretty good at being a
class clown. I I think I thought that
that that was that that was my thing,
you know, that I could probably do that.
Did you audition for SNL?
I I did in that I I didn't
do a live audition, but I sent in
a tape of characters. My my manager pitched
me to them and they wanted to see
a tape. So,
I put a tape together.
And, I did audition for Mad TV and
I went through the entire process of the
audition. And at the very last one, the
screen test, I tested I did a great
it felt like I had a great audition
and had a great rapport. My manager called
me about an hour after that audition
and he was like, yeah, they decided not
to not to cast a fat funny guy.
So they had, you know, they have these
categories
and and I was in the category of
the fat funny guy and
you know, I can't remember who they had
at that time. But that but that was
the thing. They were like, yeah. I mean,
they liked you, but they decided not to
go with your type, basically,
for this and that and that was the
final season of Mad TV. We didn't know
at the time, obviously, but it got cancelled
mid season. So it was crushing to go
through that
that process and think that I was probably
gonna be cast
and then not get it. But I think
it would have been worse to get it
and think, oh my gosh. I'm on Mad
TV now. I've made it. And then get
6 episodes in and be canceled.
Were you at this time also starting your
family?
Not at that time. That was after. I
started my family at right I started my
family before
I did my first open mic.
I had I had kids at at that
time. So I had I had young kids.
I was working as a mortgage
banker,
basically, which,
which is what I did right,
you know, right away. I I started working
in the mortgage industry because my dad had
done it. And, I kinda hated it, but
I can make money at it. That's what
I was doing. And then I started doing
open mics. We were in Seattle, and I
was like, I think I wanna try this.
So that was that. That's great, though, that
you had the support to try it because
that's a huge leap of faith to go
from such a
well, an industry that's not going away certainly
to an industry where it's feast or famine.
Yeah. Well, I also I mean, I didn't
quit my day job for a while. You
know? I guess I was in the mortgage
industry for for a number of years while
I was developing my act and I still
would I, you know, I started touring. I
started going on the road for for road
gigs when I was still working as a
as a mortgage guy, you know.
Yeah.
I just, this morning, I texted you about
this earlier, but just this morning was scrolling
TikTok and came
upon a little blip from Parks and Rec.
And there you were on Parks and Rec.
Yeah. And I okay. Because I watch
I watch different shows and just randomly, and
all of a sudden, there's Bob.
So funny. It's so funny that that clip
is on TikTok. That that was one of
my favorite things. You know, I was that
I probably was on set for a total
of 2 hours that it was so fast,
and I was really disappointed because I'm a
fan of that show and and was at
the time that,
that I shot the thing. The what I
what I really liked about that, it's one
little scene with Rashida Jones
and the, you know, the idea is that
it's it's that I'm I'm trying to complain
about something about the city, and she is
supposed to be a surrogate for the city
on on that particular day
to answer my complaint. And and so after
I say whatever, she goes, you know, I'm
I'm just a nurse, actually. I don't really
work for the city. And then I'm supposed
to show her my arm, pull up my
sleeve and show her my arm and say,
oh, can you take a look at this?
And so we did a couple takes of
that and then I asked the director. I
said, do you mind if I just
instead of pulling up my sleeve, do you
mind if I just whip off my shirt?
Because that might be really funny. And he
goes, no. Let's try it. So we did
one take of that of me taking the
shirt all the way off, which is so
stupid and ridiculous.
And that's what they used, which made me
really happy. At that time, I was doing
a lot of Jay Leno appearances. I was
I was one of the regular sketch guys
on Leno, and it seemed like every time
they brought me in is when they needed
a fat guy to take off his shirt.
So, like, that was kind of my go
to thing at the time was was take
off your shirt. I've seen you let's see.
I've seen you as in giving a hot
dog, hot dog vendor person.
I don't remember which show that was. That
was on.
That was on that, lie to me.
Lie to me. That's right. And it's always
so random when I see you. My the
same goes with my friend Grant. He just
shows up and thinks, and I'm like, what
the hell? Yeah. Yeah. Funny. Isn't that fun
though, like, to see you're just watching a
show and you see your friend pop up?
I I love that.
It's the best. Mhmm. It really is. It's
the best.
You have been in a few movies
and and and had that experience. But the
thing that really intrigues me about you
is a while back,
you started to get into snakes. And maybe
you've been in snakes your whole life. Yeah.
But you really,
you went for it. So let's talk about
that. Yeah. I went deep. What started that
adventure? I've always had reptiles
as a kid and have been fascinated
in them, in in keeping them, but also
just learning anything I can about them because
they're so different from us. Like, what is
going on with those things? Right? So let
so let me say this. I've been,
there's one part of the story, which is
that I went from touring
comedy clubs to touring renaissance festivals.
Right? So I have this show that I
do for renaissance fairs and that's pretty much
what I do. That's my touring now, as
I do these festival gigs. When COVID hit,
the all those gigs were canceled, obviously.
And that gave me time to start my
YouTube channel, which I've been wanting to do
for a long time. And separately,
I've also always wanted to breed reptiles.
And I had one I had a snake.
I had a ball python.
And I thought, okay. I paid too much
for this ball python anyway. Maybe I just
get another one and breed him and and
then I can produce babies and sell a
couple babies and that'll recoup my cost. Plus
it'll get me it'll get me, doing something
that I've always wanted to do.
And I have time at home now to
learn how to do that. And then I
went, oh, I can make my YouTube channel
about that as well because I know a
lot about snakes. I can teach people about
snakes, and I can make it funny. So
we'll start this channel and we'll just see
how it goes. I'll put up a video
every week.
And,
the channel has done well. It's done really
well. And you have 30 snakes now? I
have around 30 right now, but that goes
up and down based on,
snakes that hatch and and the cell and
whatever. I usually keep 1 or 2 snakes
out of each clutch that I have,
clutch of eggs, and then I and then
I sell the others.
For many people listening, they are
crawling out of their skin with the idea.
I personally
love snakes, and I always You love snakes.
Yeah. Love them. And I have so much
fun when I come over to your place
and get to cuddle snakes. Yeah. And they
really have a lot of personality.
They're so beautiful.
And I think people think, oh, they're slimy
and gross, but they they're not at all
slimy. They have a really cool texture or
feel.
They're cool to the touch. It's sublime, really.
Yeah. And
their their
patterning is so gorgeous.
Talk a little bit about how you
manipulate pattern as a breeder. Yeah. So so
these are all, I I breed pythons, and,
these are ball pythons. I'm raising up some
other species to breed as well, but but
right now it's ball pythons.
And this the species of ball python, we
have 100 of morphs
that we have identified. These are genes that,
change the color and pattern of these snakes.
So, you can have everything from crazy pattern
orange and black with some
I mean, all kinds of colors, not green.
We we haven't found green yet, but tons
of colors and patterns all the way to
just a plain white snake, like all all
white. When you learn a little bit about
the genetics, you can you can understand how
mixing
1 male with 1 female will get the
potential for certain gene combinations
that do some really cool things. Yeah. Because
some of your snakes have smiley faces on
them, so
have triangles
and squares. Well, I don't think I've seen
a square, but just really interesting. And I
think it's so funny that in
everyone's mind, if you say think of a
snake, for the most part, people think green,
and that's it. Yeah. A snake is green.
And maybe that comes from our childhood when
we're chasing garter snakes and Well, it's also
when you see a picture I think when
you see a picture of a emerald tree
boa or a green tree python,
that bright bright green is so stunning that
it sticks in our mind
Yeah. As the color of snakes, you know.
What's a fallacy that you like to dispel
for people who are
that you don't know a lot about snakes?
Well, the one that I hear almost once
a week
and and this this comes to me because
people are either telling me this as a
really interesting story or they're warning me that
I should be careful and not have pythons.
They always make it personal. The story is
this.
My cousin has a friend who had a
python and the python stopped eating and she
would sleep with it every night. And then
she took the snake to the vet to
see why it wasn't eating and the vet
told her that it's sizing her up. It
stopped eating to empty its belly and it's
sizing her up to eat her. What, you
know, and so they go, so be careful
with those pythons that you have. And that
is something that no snake would ever do.
Snakes don't plan out their meals
for for one thing. They're opportunistic feeders. They
don't they don't they they would never, you
know,
snuggle up next to a deer to decide
if that's gonna work or not. That's why
you never ever see a snake at Weight
Watchers ever. Right. That's right. That's the thing.
And then also there's only one species of
snake that is ever in recorded history
eaten a person.
And it's not an anaconda as as people
might guess. It's a reticulated python. Reticulated means
that their jaws open up? No. Or what
No. Pretty much all snakes have jaws that
are unhinged already and, and open up. Reticulated
refers to it's a I don't know. I
don't understand why this is a thing, but,
reticulated is a word that means netting,
and I've never heard it in any other
context other than talking about this snake. And
the pattern on them looks like a net.
They have a really cool pattern. And you've
you have played with 2 reticulated pythons. They're
dwarf though. Though so they'll never get as
big as the ones who actually can eat
a small human in in Southeast Asia. It's
hard to pick a favorite of your snakes,
but I was partial to that cutie patootie
baby
tiny one that curled around my wrist.
Oh oh, was that, was that little Pip?
Was that the pygmy python? Pip.
Yeah.
Yeah. Pip is so cute. Small smallest python
in the world. They smell through their tongues?
They do have noses, and they can smell.
But Oh, okay. They say that they I
don't know anything. Yeah. No. That's okay. I
mean, that's that's another thing that a lot
of people believe because we always say that
that tongue flicking is them smelling with with
their tongue. But really what it is is
they are they can smell normally.
Probably not great. They probably don't have a
great sense of of nose smell,
but I don't know. I'm just guessing. But
that tongue, what it does is it picks
up scent particles in the air. That's why
we call it smelling. But what it does
is they pull it back in and there's
a hole in the roof of their mouth
called the Jacobson's organ that goes directly
to their brain. And they hit their tongue
with that Jacobson or hit their tongue to
the Jacobson's organ, and it tells
them everything that's going on in the room.
It's their main sense. They they that's a
that's a better sense for them than vision
and anything else. So they can tell directionally.
A snake could be, like, on the side
of a trail and they could tongue flick
and they can tell directionally
where a rodent is. Not just that there's
a rodent in the area somewhere, but they've
got those 2 forks on their tongue and
they can tell they've picked up more scents
on one of the forks than the other.
So it's
the rodent is off to the right or
something.
That's like a water witcher.
Yeah. Yes. Exactly. It's like a water witcher.
Yeah.
That's really cool. I just noticed that as
I was snuggling with your bebez that they
they would stick their tongue out along my
face. You know? And I thought, oh, are
they sniffing me? They're giving me. Yeah. They're
yeah. And they'll they'll they'll touch your face
with it. Like, they wanna they wanna figure
out what that is. You know?
Yeah. They and I know I know you
say that they
are they very bright? I mean, it seems
like they are an instinct driven, but they
I like to anthropomorphize
pretty much everything.
They seem to have so much personality individually.
They do. They they do have a lot
of personality individually.
They are instinct driven. However,
this this fallacy of, you know, we we
talk about the reptile brain. And when we
when we say the reptile brain, we're talking
about the part of the brain in humans
that just goes off instinct,
because the idea used to be that reptiles
and amphibians only act on instinct. They don't
have any feelings. They don't have anything, you
know, and it's just not true.
They are trainable.
I I train I target train a lot
of my snakes. So target training for just
for those who don't know is,
I present a target to them, a colored
disc,
and
that means that food is available. So for,
like, the reticulated pythons and my my black
headed pythons and my boa, I do this
with. When they see that target, they know
food is available. The only time they get
fed is when they see that target. So
if they don't see the target, they know
they're not getting fed. But the idea is
that they follow the target, touch it with
their nose or tongue, and then they get
their meal. So they're trained that way. I
have other snakes that that I'll let out
to roam around the room if they want,
and I have them trained I have one
specifically trained not to go in a certain
area that she likes to go in and
I don't want her to go there. So
I trained her, to not go there and
she doesn't.
And you did that all with food? No.
I didn't do that with food. What I
did is I I opened her enclosure and
kept it open and I let her come
out on her own like I always do
and she would she would always go behind
it was it was in and behind other
enclosures and she would always try to go
there. So as soon as she would start
going there, I would pick her up and
put her back in her enclosure and leave
it open. So I'm not, you know, I'm
not shutting it and saying you can't get
out. But then I would just let her
come back out and try it again and
I'd pick her up and put her back
in her enclosure. We did that for I
probably did that for a week and I
would do it maybe, I don't know, 5
or 6, 8 times
a day until she would decide to go
somewhere else. And after that week of doing
that, it just,
it just enforced in her brain that when
she goes back there, it leads to back
in her cage.
And she's trying to explore. She doesn't wanna
go back in her cage. So every time
she goes back there, she she ends up
in her cage again. So it wasn't a
negative reinforcement. It was just that's that's where
you end up if you, you know, if
you go back there. So that was I
trained her 2 years ago, two and a
half years ago, and she still
doesn't go behind that rack. She'll poke her
head in there and then and then come
back
out and go somewhere else.
It's pretty interesting. So interesting. That's what I
like to call the Groundhog Day training.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's right.
But, yeah, they they are super smart. They're
they they're aware of me. They know who
I am. They know that that I'm different
than you, and you and you've experienced this.
If I hand you a snake, they tongue
flick on you and they go, oh, I'm
probably safe, but I'm not super comfortable with
this new person. Let me find the guy
that I know. Let me find the big
monkey that feeds me, You know?
Yes. Yeah. Although they do they're still pretty
interested.
Yes. I don't know what the right word
is. Yeah. For sure. Especially the ones that
I hand you. They're they're more The the
ones that I've handed you for the most
part are more interested in hanging out with
other people. I have some others that will
if I hand them to you, they'll they're
not gonna try to run away, but they'll
sort of be like, let me find this
other guy like a kid does to their
mom. You know? Sure. Their mom hands the
kid off to some stranger and the kid
reaches for their mom really quick. You know?
Well, and you have the benefit of having
them from babyhood so that you can Yeah.
Really show them that physical touch is okay.
Yeah. And they trust me. You know, snakes
are never snakes don't bond,
so they're they never want to hang out
with me necessarily. They'd rather just do their
own thing. But if given the option, if
I'm holding them and then I hand them
off to a stranger, they'll go, oh, actually,
I'd rather be with that guy that I
know.
And then once I'm holding them, they're gonna
be like, okay. Now I'd rather go off
on my own. You know? It's like they're
never in their cage going, wow. I hope
that big monkey comes and pulls me out.
You know? I'm realizing right now I might
be part snake.
I know that when we brought out one
of your babies, they, actually,
she was quite large. She I think it
was a girl, the the white one.
And she I was wearing my overalls, and
she crawled around me and then went and
hung out underneath my oh, inside my overalls,
like, underneath my butt. Yeah. Yeah. And
that and you had and I it surprised
me, and and I thought, oh, I thought
that they would be more
in the mood to be out and about
and seeing what's what. And you said that
they're really not aggressive
or
predatory or anything like that. They really just
want to find
the least
amount of space to get into and hide
and and chill out. That they're They they
wanna be secure.
Well, yeah, I think you called them a
meat tube.
They are meat tubes. Yeah. And that's how
that's how all the other animals in the
in, you know, these these are ball pythons.
They come from Africa. And every other animal
whether it's on the ground or flying
see them as meat tubes. And so they
just want to
get in a nice safe spot that's kind
of their natural behavior. And so you you're
talking about Keita, and Keita is one that
is not super comfortable being held. So what
she did is she was like, let me
find this dark space. It was in your
overalls,
basically. And she's like, let me just crawl
down into this dark space before I feel
more comfortable.
Yeah. She's so cute. And then she went
on to behind the the mirror. Mhmm.
Yeah. Yep. You train kids how to be
okay with them too or people in general.
You that's part of your work is to
help them not be afraid? Yeah. Yeah. Peep
more it's it's usually adults because kids don't
unless the parent has worked on making their
kid afraid of snakes,
generally, I find that kids aren't afraid. I
have run into children who are afraid of
animals
in general and snakes would fall under that
category. But for the most part, kids are
are totally fine with snakes. But adults, I
have a series on the channel that I
call introducing people to snakes who are afraid
of snakes, where I bring someone on who
is an actor or a comic or someone
who I know is gonna be good on
camera. Like, I don't wanna bring some dud
on. But they're but they're also genuinely afraid
of snakes, and I help them get over
their fear. You know?
And it's fun. That's great. Talk about the
channel a little bit and also the adventures,
where it's taken you. You go now Yeah.
Into the jungle and talk about all that.
Yeah. Yeah. It's really taken me places that
I never thought I would be. Yeah. So
the channel, you know, started as, like I
said, as the COVID project. We're in the
3rd year right now. It'll be 4 years
in in December.
It grew steadily
and kind of became my full time job.
And it started off as me talking about
behavior and care and training and and socialization
of snakes in my room, as well as
the, you know, teaching people how to not
fear snakes, which is a sort of separate
category in, you know, in my little studio
here.
And then I started
traveling,
doing doing little, you know, going out into
the desert to find snakes or whatever, or
going to somebody else's facility to talk about
their animals, or going to a reptile show
to talk about that. But then, I ended
up
last year,
in the Amazon jungle, I went to Suriname
to find boas and anacondas in the wild
and specifically emerald tree boas
to move basically,
there's an area on the Quarantine River, which
which
you've got Suriname on one side and Guyana
on the other. And in this one little
area of the Quarantine River, it's highly trafficked.
There are a lot of hunters and trappers
that will if they see a green snake
in a tree, they're gonna grab it because
they know they can make $35
selling it to someone who will put it
in the in the export system
and either send it to the US or
the UK to become pets.
And, those snakes often don't survive that trip.
And if they do, they're sickly by the
time they get there, and they won't survive
long oftentimes,
in somebody's cage. What we did, I've been
twice now. And on both those trips, we
find as many of these snakes as we
can in that area. We pull them out
of trees and take them deeper into the
jungle and re release them in an area
that is not
that people don't go as much. I I
ended up becoming friends with a middle man
who buys these snakes from the people who
who trap them, and then he sells them
to the exporters.
And so I'll go to him. I've done
this twice now where when I get to
Suriname, I go to him and I go,
what do you got? And we end up
buying all of his snakes that he that
he currently has and we take them back.
So those are snakes that have been wild
caught within the last
week or 2, maybe. We just you know,
it's cheap. It's like between $5.35
per snake, and we might end up with,
you know, maybe he has, between 5.10. It's
not like a huge amount, you know. We
bring those back and
and re release them.
Do they have a homing sense where if
you get them and put them further into
the jungle, will they try and go back
to where they were before? That's a great
question, and we don't know. Here's the trick
with this.
When I relocated a rattlesnake
in Southern California,
which I do sometimes,
there is sort of a general rule that
if you take that rattlesnake more than a
mile from where it
from where you found it, its chances of
survival is about 50%.
And it's because they know within a mile
of that of that air that territory,
they know where to get their resources. They're
living in the desert, you know, so they
know where water is, they know where they
can get food, they know where they can
hide from predators,
stuff like that. There was studies done on
rattlesnakes. There's never been a study done on
snakes in the Amazon jungle or or emerald
tree boas.
But the thought is that that first of
all, there's food, water, shelter everywhere in the
John Cole no matter where you're at. So
they're they're never gonna have to look for
any resources.
If I find them and or my guy
it's usually one one of the guides that
that finds these snakes. If those guides find
the snakes in the tree in that area,
a hunter or a trapper is definitely gonna
find them that same night or the next
night or whatever. So getting them out of
there is is the most important thing.
I my guess is that they kind of
stay in the range that that we put
them in. I doubt that they have
a homing sense that that brings them back,
but we don't know because the the study
has never been done.
They don't have ears to put a tag
on. Right. Well, you can't so here's the
thing. I've talked I've talked to some people
about this. You actually can tag them. So
you can put a little tracker in them
that's or it's a it's a little scanning
device that that you just, implant with a
with
a syringe
and it when you scan it, you can
pull up all the information on that snake
where it was found before or whatever. But
you have to catch it again in order
to scan it and in the jungle it's
really tough to do that.
You can also put a GPS tracker on
a snake and that's what I would love
to do with some snakes. Like a little
collar? It's it's actually a it's a thing
that's surgically
implanted,
but then you have to take it out
again
before it goes dead. So you gotta find
that snake a year later
and and take it out. And if the
GPS tracking is working, you you can find
it, you know. But it's pretty invasive,
but it would tell us what that behavior
is and I'd love to learn, you know.
Yeah. I I know that tracking is important
with creatures, but I would think that just
to stop poachers,
throw a little
neon spray paint on them or something. Well,
also, by the way, the I should be
clear because I I was saying that it's
a highly trafficked area. These aren't poachers,
and it is legal, and it is a
way of life for people in Suriname. And
these hunt so these hunters are legally they
can just go out and catch whatever they
want. The majority of the money they make
is on birds. So they're going and and
taking baby
parrots and and macaws out of trees and
putting those on the market. They get the
most money for those. But on their trip,
they go out for, like, a week at
a time, 2 weeks at a time. If
they see a green snake, they're gonna snag
it too. But also people that are going
to work that are that work in the
mines,
they'll they'll go down river and on their
on their trip in, they're looking for snakes
too. And they'll grab whatever snakes they can,
put them in a bag and then they
go work in the mines for 2 weeks
and that snake sits in a bag for
2 weeks
and then they take it back and and
sell it and they make extra cash. So
it's legal to do
and they're not depleting the Amazon of these
emerald tree boas, there there's a lot of
them.
It's not like I'm saving the world. What
I'm doing is saving a handful of snakes,
individual snakes
that would have otherwise
maybe died in the in the process of
being captured and
These snakes get quite large. How in the
world do you get one of I've seen
videos of they're huge. How do you get
them out of the tree? Well, the the
emeralds are not that big. I mean, you
could get you could get an emerald that's
6 feet long, but really the thickness That
seems big. Yeah. It seems big. It seems
big, but it's really not. Like, when you
stretch it out,
it's 6 feet, but you're never gonna see
it stretched out and it doesn't seem like
that. Like, I can easily hold it in
one hand. They're not that big, but the
way we get them out of the trees
is we have a a long we actually
have a series of 3 or 4 of
these long wooden poles with a fork at
the end. And when we see, an emerald
up in a tree, we just put put
the fork,
you know,
put get the snake in the fork basically,
and then twist it like like spaghetti
and and bring the snake down.
Works really well. So we can do that
with with emerald tree boas, and we do
it with Amazon tree boas, which are a
different species and they're much smaller, but those
also get get,
caught sometimes.
Now are you working at all toward getting
a show, like, on National Geographic or anything
to to do this? You know, I'm not
right now. I would love to. It would
be fun. But,
you know, there are a lot of people
that that are you know, when you when
you get into, like, the reptile YouTube world,
there's a number of people that are really
good that could have their own TV show.
I could potentially, but, like, my channel the
way my channel is set up right now,
it's it's definitely a YouTube channel.
You know, I do some silly funny things
on it and and it's but it's for
sure a YouTube channel. I think if I
were to pitch a TV show, I would
have to come up with a completely different
concept.
You know? Yeah. And still would be teaching
people about snakes and maybe finding them in
the wild or reptiles in general could be,
you know, we could do anything.
But, I haven't I don't have anything
that I'm pitching right now.
And they all eat different things,
mice or rats or I think you said
crickets sometimes? No. They eat bugs too or
just Not not bugs. Uh-huh. That must just
be the lizards I'm thinking of. Yeah. Lizards
eat eat bugs oftentimes depending on the species.
The snakes right now with the snakes that
I have, I feed frozen thawed. I don't
feed live, but I have a dedicated freezer
that has
mice, rats, chicks
and quail.
And reptilinx
which
are basically sausages that are made for reptiles
And they I have a couple of species
that naturally in the wild eat other snakes
and lizards.
So I have reptilinx that are made of
iguana meat or
whole prey iguana. So it's like the whole
thing, guts and bones and everything mixed up
in a little sausage.
Jimmy Dean, eat your heart out. Yeah. Yeah.
The snake that the snake that you like,
Pip, the little tiny one Yeah. Gets little
micro links, which are 1 gram each,
and she gets those.
She's so freaking cute. Yeah. She's pretty cute.
Yeah.
How do you get them to get amorous
with each other?
Turn the lights down, put on a little
berry white. What are you gonna what are
you doing? Yeah. You don't have to do
much with the with the species that I
breed. They're every species is different. And some
some of them, you have to cycle their
food, you've gotta cycle their temperatures,
all kinds of crazy stuff. With ball pythons,
you take a male out of his cage
and you put it in the female's cage
for about 3 days.
And in within 3 days, they will eventually
lock up, sometimes they do it right away,
and they basically lock tails
and then they stay perfectly still for up
to 3 days. I mean, it's usually not
that long, but sometimes it is. Sometimes it's
12 hours, you know,
whatever. And sometimes within 3 days, they'll lock
and unlock a couple times,
you know. But I so I do that
during breeding season. I do that once every
every month. Every 4 to 6 weeks, I'll
put the male in with the female for
3 days and eventually,
she'll
lay some eggs for us.
And they they
some versions of snakes, some breeds live breed
or do they all egg only? No. No.
There are there are a lot of species
that do that do live birth. I have
one boa
in my group, and boas are are live
bearing
snake. Yeah. Pythons are pythons lay eggs.
Boas are alive. And then and then there
are other different snakes. Garter snakes are alive.
Most others lay eggs. Are they protective of
those eggs once they've laid them to let
you get in there and snack them away?
Or They're very protective of their eggs.
And if you let so I've I have
so normally what what happens is the female
lays eggs and then I go in and
take the eggs and put them into an
incubator because that's, first of all, it's a
good way to keep the humidity
and temperature correct for for those babies.
But also I can as soon as the
mother's not on eggs anymore, she can get
back to eating.
Otherwise, she'll sit on those eggs for 2
months and she already hasn't eaten for 2
to 3 months
while she's building those eggs, and now she
won't eat for another 2 months if I
if I have her sit on them. And
I have done that before. I've had, female
maternally incubate before, and it's really interesting and
cool. It just is she's she's not gonna
eat for a while. You know?
How do they go so long without food?
Oh, they can go they can go a
year without food. They can go a very
long time. A a big snake can go
a really long time without eating.
And and sometimes they just decide that they're
gonna take a break from food for a
couple months, You know? I wish I could
do that.
Yeah. You still have me at the their
tails
intertwined, and then they don't move for 3
days. Yeah. I would break up with that
steak. I know. It's crazy. It's crazy.
And and here's the other thing.
Males have 2 penises. Say what? Yep.
It's crazy. They're called hemipenes, and there's 2
of them. During coitus, they,
choose to use 1 or the other.
So Well, I wonder what makes the choice
for them.
I think my my guess is that it
has to do with
which one with which side is going to
produce more sperm. And it probably makes it
so that in the wild, they can breed
with multiple females back to back.
If
you got 2, if you got 2 sets,
you know, you use one up and then
you're done for a while on that one,
but you got another one ready to go.
Sounds like an insult, but I guess that's
a compliment. You hemmy penis.
Yeah. Right.
Actually, there have been humans born with 2
penis. I've seen that. Now I've don't Google
it unless you're really ready for it. But
you've spent some time Googling it. So you
I did because I was curious. You know
me. I'll look anything up. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
not anything, but most things. Yeah.
Well, let's, when we're done with this, let's
make a list of things that we can
look up.
Okay. Good. Good idea.
You still haven't mentioned the name of your
YouTube by the way. Green Room Pythons
is the YouTube channel. With the coolest logo
because you're also a musician and you teach
music. You're also a member of Men's Eye.
You're like a well rounded Thanks. Yeah. I
don't really teach music anymore, but but I
do I do play music. And I've got
a good friend, Mark Jackson, who who
does has done, like, campaigns for movies and
things like that. Creates the the campaign for
a movie.
And I just asked him when I started
this, I was like, hey. What's the best
website where I can just put together a
logo myself? And he goes, oh, I'll do
it for you.
So he's the one that created my logo
and That's beautiful. He made it. I didn't
even ask him to do this, but he
made the snake head in the shape of
a guitar also. And some people notice it
and and I think most people don't, but,
I think it's interesting. It's cool. Oh, yeah.
I love it. It's so well done. This
is very, very cool. Well, what happens next
with what's on the agenda coming up?
So on the agenda coming up, I have
well, I have a festival that I'm that
I'm performing at, that has nothing to do
with snakes in a couple weeks. But then
I do I go and do a fan
meet and greet event in
Salt Lake City, Utah.
And then I'm doing Animal Con, which
is like Comic Con, but it's for people
who who,
wanna meet animal content creators. So I'm going
You need an assistant? Can I go? Yeah.
You can come. You can come. It's in
Orlando, Florida. You wanna come to Orlando? I
don't like humidity, but yeah. Yeah. It's it's
gonna be super fun. That's a 4 day
event. I'm I'm doing these back to back.
I'm I'm doing Salt Lake City and then
Animal Con. Yeah. So end of September is
Salt Lake City, the 1st weekend
of October is Animal Con,
and then I'm supposed to be in Chicago
for a reptile show, but I don't think
I'm going to that. So I think it's
just those things. And then I'm planning another
trip to Suriname
just for
some of my Patreon supporters. I've got a
small handful of Patreon supporters that wanna come
with me to Suriname to do that trip.
And so we're kind of in the beginning
stages of planning that for 2025.
I love it. How many vaccines did you
have to get to go over there? I
bet there was a lot.
I think I got 6,
if I remember right. Yeah. Yeah. And they're
not cheap. They're like, one of them was,
like, $500
to get Holy moly. The jab. Yeah. And
I'm I'm planning a trip, to
Malaysia,
and I'm gonna have to get more vaccines
from Malaysia. They just you know, there's different
vaccines for every place you go and
For sure. For sure.
So exciting. Alright. Where can people find you
besides your YouTube channel? I mean, the YouTube
channel, the greener pythons on,
Instagram,
TikTok TikTok?
YouTube. YouTube is the main, you know, is
the main content, but I've got short stuff
on the others.
Yeah. I love it. You're the best. Love
you so much. You're the best. I'm so
excited.
You're doing so much fun things. Aw, thanks.
Yeah. I really dig it. Thank you for
listening everybody, and if you have any questions
about
snakes,
you gotta reach out to Bob. He's the
best. Thanks for having me, Susan. This is
fun. Absolutely.
Bye, everybody.
Bye. Bye, honey. I'll see you. Bye.
Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast
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Thanks.
Bye.