Bryan Christy

Originally uploaded by B Christy

I shot a tiny bit of video at the 2008 National Reptile Breeders’s Expo last weekend. Friday was set up and it was raining, which made it a great moment for a tub of albino bullfrogs. Their tub blew off a loading truck and the frogs hopped among busy human legs as others scrambled to catch the little golden creatures. Here’s the opening.

The worst job at Strictly Reptiles is not feeding the cobras, or bagging the crocodile monitors. It is cupping bird-eating tarantulas. To do it, some employees wear masks and long-sleeve shirts. They tape their cuffs and shirt collars closed because tarantulas turn around and spray nictating hairs as a defense. My first day doing it, one spider sent Mike Van Nostrand to the hospital for a scratched cornea.

What a delight Marty Moss-Coane is!  Those of you from the Philadelphia area know her voice well, and I have started my day with her shows on 91 FM for years.  It is quite another experience to head in to WHYY studios and sit with her.  Instantly old friends.  Instantly in the company of someone who cares.  The show started with Professor Blair Hedges’ discovery of the world’s smallest snake in Barbados.  Hedges had very interesting things to say about the effect of islands on populations, animal size, and more.  If you liked his talk I recommend David Quammen’s The Song of the Dodo.  You will never see the world the same way again.

I had the last forty minutes of the hour to talk smuggling, designer breeding, and why I was compelled to write this book.  There’s a podcast available here.  The date is August 27, 2008, 10 am program.