‘What is it?’ may seem like a stupid question but you’d be surprised!

There was a guy in my area trying to sell a ‘mixed lizard’.

When he bought it the label on the tank read............ you guessed it ‘Mixed Lizards’.

It was actually a Green Anole.

I occassionally helped out at a place near me called Tropical Rainforest World. They had a large greenhouse area which was well planted with walkways through it and birds flying freely (also Fruit Bats). They had display tanks scattered through the area with various reptiles, amphibians and creepy crawlies in them.

One day a young couple came in with a sack and said they had purchased this snake a few months back and it was aggressive. They thought it would calm down over time but it wasn’t getting any better.

When asked what kind of snake it was they said that they didn’t know and had bought it because it was ‘cute’.

The sack was opened expecting to see a Kingsnake or something similar.

The bright orange eyes that stared back gave the game away, it was a baby (6ft) Reticulated Python.

When they were told that they had purchased the longest species of snake in the world, possibly growing to over 30ft and a good chance that it might never calm down, they decided that they didn’t want it back.

Moral of the story?

Make sure you know exactly what you are buying!

Jim Lind

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