Does Anyone Else Have Reptiles As A Special Interest?

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Mainly snakes and lizards for me. I'm interested in keeping them and also just general information about them. I tend to be most interested in the kind i have.. I think reticulated pythons are the coolest, and if i had more room and money(and didn't live with my parents) i'd probably get more. Its kind of cool that there are a lot of NTs who are into reptile-keeping as a hobby, so there are expos to go to and lots of websites about it. When people who aren't as interested in reptiles get facts wrong about them, it really annoys me. One thing that happens a lot is people exaggerating the sizes of snakes. For example, saying "this species grows to over 30 feet long" when the over 30 foot thing was a RECORD SIZE and they usually don't get over 20(the *largest* snakes in captivity right now aren't even very close to 30..). It's sort of like saying "humans grow to over 8 feet tall" just because it has been known to happen in rare instances. Many popular snake "facts" like that are incorrect or very misleading. A lot of people working at pet shops have annoyed me a lot with their misinformation too. Most recently a lady at a pet shop here told a guy that bearded dragons get four feet long. Another time someone at one told another worker that a tegu was a type of monitor when she was explaining the animals to them(i said that they were a teiid, not a monitor, and they both just stared at me). Anyway, i'd like to know if there are any other autistic spectrum reptile people around.

I was into reptiles for a while (I don't remember how that started) but I never got any because I'm in college and I'm not really allowed to have pets (besides fish) in the dorms. I was mostly interested in getting a blue-tongued skink, but I think some of the chameleons (particularly the pygmy chameleon) are really cool

I went on field trips in college where we caught and identified reptiles and amphibians in the wild. I've never had one as a pet or done much with exotic, non-North American reptiles. I am not sure how well I would do with reptiles as pets, but maybe I'll try if I am able one of these days.

I had a phase of fascination with them, reading books in the school library and Wikipedia. Dinosaurs too. The main focus was crocodilians.

It was mainly to do with my imaginary world, where the main race of creatures are reptilian. They are called ogrodiles, and were inspired by the Daedroths from Morrowind. They have gone SO much further than that now though.

David Icke

I was very interested in reptiles between the ages 11 and 13.

Corn snakes, milksnakes, kingsnakes, and ball pythons are popular snakes for beginners and are pretty easy to care for. I have a corn and a ball. The only issue with ball pythons is that some of them can be very picky eaters or decide to not eat for awhile for no apparent reason. Even larger snakes like boas are pretty easy to care for(just everything on a larger scale.. bigger food, more feces to clean up, etc), but because of their size it's a good idea for people to have a little experience with snakes first and be sure they are completely comfortable with a snake of that size. This is even more important with the giants like burmese pythons, reticulated pythons, etc., because if you accidentally do something to put them in a bad mood, or you aren't careful enough and get mistaken for food, then you're going to need to be able to handle it(and hopefully not get badly injured).

But, yeah.. Corns, milks, kings, balls, and a lot of other smaller snakes are pretty much harmless though. The absolute worst case scenario with them would be that you need to wash/disinfect a bite and put a bandaid on it.. lol. Heck, even with big snakes a bite isn't always a big deal. I got bitten on the arm by my retic(and they have some big teeth) back when she was about 8 or 9 feet long... It bled quite a bit, but i held her a little longer, put her back in her enclosure, and just washed it off. The end. It didn't even leave a scar. So.. yeah.. and compared to that, a ball python bite is nothing.. So i really don't understand why people are afraid of small to medium sized nonvenomous snakes. It makes no sense. I'd much rather get bitten by a large or giant snake than get seriously bitten by a medium dog.

As for lizards, leopard geckos and bearded dragons are popular pets. Neither are very difficult to take care of, but they require a little more attention than snakes.. Mainly because they eat more often. Leopard geckos are easier in my opinion, just because they are smaller, require smaller enclosures, don't require UVB light(nocturnal), and have a simpler diet. You can just feed leos some mealworms and/or crickets, while a beardie will require those plus vegetables. There are also other types of geckos that are less popular but are just as simple or almost as simple to take care of as leos are, like crested geckos or fat-tailed geckos. And there are other lizards like uromastyx and blue-tongued skinks that aren't really harder to care for than bearded dragons are.

My favorite lizards are argentine tegus, but they get large, require a very large enclosure(mine lives in an 8 foot long by 3 feet wide enclosure), and get too big for an insect-based diet(they will eat whole rats, raw turkey, fruit, eggs, lots of stuff). I think they are probably better for someone who has a little bit of experience with lizards, unless you do a whole lot of research about them.

Anyway, i think getting a reptile pet is a great idea as long as you get something that you know you will be able to take care of and do your research first

Not me, but I know it's not a rare special interest.

Thanks for the useful information. I found water snakes to have a nasty temperament.

You're welcome. If you ever have any questions about keeping snakes or lizards then you can pm me. I'll probably know the answer, or, if it's about a species I'm unfamiliar with, be able to find the answer.

Yeah, water snakes aren't usually very friendly! I'm not sure how they would be if they were hatched and raised in captivity and handled frequently though, because they aren't commonly kept.. I know that reticulated pythons have a reputation for being really aggressive, but if they are raised in captivity and are used to people they can be very nice(mine is perfectly friendly most of the time.. Unless something puts her in one of her moods. And if you are jumpy and not completely confident around her she will pick up on it and get defensive. You just need to know how to handle her and she's fine. Anytime someone says that retics are poor pets because of their aggression it annoys me, because they've probably based that on something they saw on tv or read and never even been near one).