324: Egg-Eating Snake w/ Lyn!

Hey there friends and welcome to episode 324 of Just the Zoo of Us. This week I am joined by an artist and reptile keeper for an up-close and personal look at a little snake with a big appetite. We discuss how it feels to handle a snake, stress dreams that are specific to pet owners, gastoning it, spine teeth, snacktivities, how snakes flirt with each other, and so much more. Just the Zoo of Us presents egg-eating snakes with Lynn. Thank you. Hi there, everybody. It's Ellen Weatherford with Just the Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast. I'm so excited this week. We have a brand new friend here to talk with us about a fascinating, delightful, quirky and charming little critter. This is Lynn. Say hi, Lynn. Hi, guys. Lynn, what are your pronouns? My pronouns are they and them. Thank you so much, Lynn. And Lynn, you are coming to us from the world, the sort of intersection, I think, between creativity and a love and a passion for animals, particularly reptiles. So you are infusing your relationship to reptiles and your love for reptiles into this creative expression through, you know, crafting and jewelry making and things like that. So what got you into reptiles? How did you cross paths with reptiles? I adored animals of every kind growing up, especially the ones that were considered like gross or weird. And like snakes were one that I had a like particular fondness for. After one of my elementary school teachers had one as a class pet, I was the only one able to get her out of her enclosure without being bitten. That is a valuable skill. Exactly. And if I tried to pass her off to someone, she would usually like go around their neck and then she would just come right back to me. And I was like, oh, yeah, Disney princess moment. I'm chosen. They can see my pure heart they can see my intentions i am the main character yeah and honestly with snakes like that is one thing you will get your disney princess moment you will anthropomorphize them in your head and be like this snake loves me we are best friends and meanwhile in the snake's head they're just like warm exactly i vend at reptile shows and stuff and i bring my own snakes well i'm not selling snakes or anything. I sell jewelry and paintings and stuff made with reptile sheds. But people will like have my snake on them, specifically Ouroboros. He's a Mexican black king snake. He's just the sweetest boy. Best snake name ever. Love it. They're known to self cannibalize, so it made sense. He's not even hungry. He's just doing it for the love of the game. Exactly. But yeah, people will be carrying him and they will tell me to my face like I kind of want to run away with. Yeah. And they'll just be like having their own main character moment with him and like cuddling and stuff. And he'll let go like in their jacket and all throughout their sleeves and stuff. And I don't know, it's really cool getting to like witness the interactions and such. And he's like here at least 50 phobias in his time with me. Did you ever have a time in your life where you were like nervous around or afraid of reptiles? I was already ready to go. I mean, I also grew up around horses and stuff. So like a thousand pound animal that can run me over and a snake that can bite me. I mean, it's not going to really do much damage in comparison. Yeah. Especially if you have that understanding of like, if you know enough about snakes to know like which ones are venomous, which ones don't even have teeth. Also like reading body language and stuff. Like I can tell if my snake is like happy to be handled or if they're like, please leave me alone. Right. It does also feel because reptiles and snakes are so like far removed from us as mammals. It feels like you're like communicating with a very alien almost thing, you know, so, so when you have this like positive interaction with them, it does feel like you like made contact with aliens or something. It is really cool. Yes, there was this one instance where I was holding Ouroboros at a show. And I do a lot of different shows because I like to I like giving people the interactions with snakes because I want to help destigmatize them. And there was this one like drag performance going on and a drag performer turned around, and they saw him immediately started to cry. And then I handed him to them. And they were like, I was so scared of snakes right up until this moment. Oh, and then they were like dancing and stuff with him. And it was just so cool. What a cool moment. And the fact that like it being part of like a performance too, I feel like probably a lot of people got to see that positive interaction. And like, not just for the performer, but for people watching, you know, that was probably a good, impactful visual, right? Of someone smiling and having a nice, friendly interaction with a snake. absolutely a lot of people don't get to see that like a lot of people don't get to see fondness and tenderness for snakes absolutely but one thing that I have learned is like great for getting people over the fear is FOMO oh true because I'll be at an event and people will be holding my snake and their friend who's standing right there who has been telling I'm so scared of snakes like I'm never gonna touch them but they're like watching their friend handling this animal and you can just see it in their eyes. They're like, it's really fun though. Usually within like five minutes, I've gotten them to more often than not hold the snake, but at least pet the snake. That reminds me of, I've told this story on this podcast before, so I'm sorry for anyone listening who is like, oh, this again. Many, many years ago, Christian and I were out on the beach at night in Florida and we found a beached shark. It was a bonnet head shark which is basically if you don't know what a bonnet head shark is it's like a hammerhead shark but like scaled down really tiny and actually my dog found it and christian picked it up and was like you know looking at examining it you know he's curious about it and you know yeah this was years before we started the podcast and i was much more afraid of sea life fish sharks everything much much much more afraid of them than i am now so i was not going to touch it. But I was like, what does it feel like? Is it like smooth? Is it slimy? Like what texture does the shark feel like? And Christian was like, I'm not telling you. And I was like, I was like, why won't you tell me? And he was like, because I think you should touch it. You should touch it and see for yourself. If you want to find out, you got to touch it. And I was like, and I did like I didn't want to be the only one that wasn't going to touch the shark so I touched the shark and it felt really really weird like way different than I thought it was gonna feel so I was like okay well you got me oh and snakes they feel so different from each other it's very like like species specific and stuff keel scaled ones they like a raised highly textured scale but then like a ball python is going to feel very smooth and stuff they're so like they're so satisfying it's such like a there's like a little bit of bump to it but like it's overall like colder than i thought it would be and also like smooth it's really interesting i remember i don't know the species it was but i was holding on to this like large snake and i kind of had like my hand around like it's a few inches below its neck but it just like pulled its head back through the loop of my hand and like fully like going against the scales. It was just the strangest sensation. And I mean, I felt like maybe you should be a little bit more careful with your scales, my guy. I always have to like tell people like, you know, pet towards the butt away from the head and stuff. So you mentioned that at these reptile shows that you go to, you're bringing your snakes with you who are kind of like ambassadors, you know, they're kind of there to give people a warm introduction to reptiles and snakes. But you mentioned that you were there to sell jewelry and art that you make, could you talk a little bit about how you incorporate reptiles into your art? Yeah, so I make jewelry and artwork utilizing natural materials like snake sheds. The paintings I make are usually of snakes, but sometimes fish or other animals. I've also used spider molds and snail shells in my work. How difficult is it to work with materials like that? Because every time I've ever touched a snake shed, I feel like it's going to disintegrate in my hands. It depends. Like if it's really old and dry, it's going to kind of do the disintegrating in your hands. You can lightly spray it with like a water bottle, leave it alone for a second, and then it's easier to work with. Fresh sheds are also not great to work with because they're like, they are a little slimy. And sometimes they can hold some like some grossness in there. I remember one time like I got one, I worked so hard on unraveling. It was like a ball python shed and ball pythons, their sheds aren't so fun because they roll them up really well. really tiny. I'm imagining like if you've ever worn like tights or something and you take them off and get all balled up. That is a more cleaner thing than I was going to say. Oh. But you know, sometimes you'll unroll it and then there'll just be a big thing of poop in there. And that's that's fun. Oh, that's not what you want. That's a free bonus. Exactly. That's like, well, I'm just gonna toss this out. My favorite piece that I made was actually the diamondback rattlesnake using a shed from a real rattlesnake jeez how'd you get your hands on that i went to the new mexico rattlesnake museum and uh you know just asking kind of gets you places that's wild to me but i actually had uh two people like reach for that painting while it was on display and watch them like physically like flinch and jump back which i think that was the highest non-verbal phrase I ever got. Because they realized that it was like actual snake skin. They knew it was snake shed, but that monkey brain took over. Right. Like while they were reaching for it and was like, nope, that's dangerous. Instinct is like, do not touch. So you just like roll up on Folk and just be like, hey, you got any like snake sheds you're not using? Do they like have them on hand or do they like take your number down and they'll like, we'll call you next time one sheds or something? Like, can you put in a hold at the library? Is that one aside for me? I have people at the expos who will just bring me bags of snake skin. Oh, my gosh. I know that, like, when they scan your bags and stuff at TSA, I just know that is a perplexing day. Oh, 100%. I get some weird looks. Do you have a bag of snakes? What are you doing? it started off because i got a shed from my first snake and i was like i felt very attached to it because it's a piece of your animal's history that's true um it's like keeping your kids first haircut yeah exactly um but yeah i put it in a necklace and then i was like oh i really like doing this and it kind of went from there but the painting thing happened because i was making a sign and i was too lazy to paint a snake on the sign so i just kind of glued a shed down and I was like wait a second I'm on to something here hold on a second I'm cooking actually you know what laziness breeds innovation guys you actually sent me one of the paintings a while ago which is now on my mantle over my fireplace it is really cool like not only does it look really cool but like the closer you get to it the more detail you can see it's a conversation starter for sure because it looks like a just like a 3d at first people like oh cool it's like a 3d painting but then it's like you know what's even cooler about it is that there's real snake in there thank you i'm so glad that you like the piece so much to have it on display like that that means the world oh it's a permanent fixture it stays up now lynn tell me about the snake we're talking about today can you introduce us to the egg eating snake? Yes, yes, yes. Well, first, actually, is it okay if I talk about this guy whose name just kept coming up while I was researching this snake and different publications? Because it got to the point where I was really wondering who the heck this guy was. And after doing a deep dive, I was so surprised I hadn't heard of him before. Carl Gons. I love those moments where you're doing research on an obscure animal and the same name pops up in every paper to the point where you develop a parasocial relationship with the scientists from 40 years ago. You see his name pop up and stuff, you're like, that's my boy. There he is. Oh my God. But to start with a quote from Harry Green, Gans himself was arguably the most prolific and influential of all 20th century herpetologists, as well as a founding father of functional and evolutionary morphology. Basically means he studied the how and why physical features evolved over time, as well their structure and the function that they serve. So as a teen, he and his family fled Nazi Germany, immigrating to the United States and settling in New York. Just going to pause there for no reason in particular and say, hmm, interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Wait, what year was this? 1939. Okay. So this is like, this is really like in the thick of it. Oh yeah. Thankfully they did manage to flee and they settled in New York. Growing up, he would spend his time at george washington bridge herping which is like looking for reptiles it's just like birding i'm sorry guys we gotta come up with something it can't be herping you guys i'm sorry that's that does not sound good yeah we need another pass at this one i'm sorry please one more that can't be it reptiling it doesn't sound good either no there's there's not a good one But he just, he absolutely loved reptiles. But when it came time for him to attend college, his father was like, no, you are going to go for something practical, mechanical engineering. And he was like, okay, dad. So he went ahead and did that and then joined the military as an engineer. But while stationed in Japan, he would continue his favorite hobby of herping, that lovely word. And he would study the amphibians and reptiles of Japan and write papers on what he found and what he learned, even though there was like, no school project telling him to do this. Love of the game purely. Exactly. No incentive. This guy was just like, you know what, mechanical engineering pays the bills, but nothing will ever come between a man and his love for reptiles. Exactly. And when he left the army, he worked as a mechanical engineer and got a master's in it as well. And yeah, his dad pushed him so much to do this stuff. But then his dad died. So then he was like, okay, it's time to publish stuff about reptiles. I'm free! Exactly. I'm coming into my power! His first major publication was a bibliography on the herpetology of Japan. There'd been plenty of publications written in Japan on native herpetology with a plethora of information on some really cool species that most people didn't know existed, but those species weren't listed on the zoological record because of language differences and such. The hard pivot from mechanical engineering to like bibliography of reptiles is I've never seen a hard reset. Like so such a stark rebrand. Listen, man had had baptism and he was denied his special interest for years. But never forgot it. Never forgot it. Never. yeah he worked uh with herptologists in japan as well as the u.s to compile a bibliography of studies completed on amphibians and reptiles in japan between 1782 and 1947 because that's a long time man staying busy he was still working as a mechanical engineer at this point but he took a few years to just go to south america and keep herping but then he came back and he was like yeah i just can't do this engineering stuff oh my god so he's like okay you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna go to Harvard. Dude, chase your bliss, man. Like, get out there. Follow your passion. He was a doctoral student in biology at Harvard, and his dissertation was actually on this snake we're gonna be talking about today, the African egg-eating snake. He went on to write about the various species he came across in his travels around the world. But his engineering background actually gave him a unique perspective when it came to studying how these animals' physical adaptations work. So thanks, dad, I guess. That is an interesting angle of it, though, because like, I really enjoy reading about like biomimicry instances where engineers incorporate inspiration from the natural world, right? Where they'll be like, you know, oh, the shape of the Kingfisher's beak is really like aerodynamic and good for diving into the water. So they used it to like, you know, make the shape of the bullet train more streamlined so that it wouldn't make sonic booms when it went through tunnels or like, you know, they would use the shape of like a Gannett's neck to like make, um, aircraft more impact resistant. And like I really enjoy that stuff where like engineers are drawing inspiration from like the natural world And this almost seems like the reverse of it like he like using what he knows about mechanical engineering to understand animals better like he's going the opposite direction i feel like it usually does also that's crazy that was just off the dome like i was trying to think of those examples but you just had them right there i've done videos on them quite a few times so like i've had to write scripts for this stuff a few times the more like i have to repeat it and the more i have to like write it and edit it the more it sticks in there so like i feel like by this point i have like i believe the engineer's name that designed the bullet train hansen bullet train i think was eiji nakatsu oh my god hold on i'm gonna fact check myself wait hold on yep eiji nakatsu engineer and birdwatcher You're so powerful. Design the job. I'm not kidding. I have written, recorded, and edited like four different scripts about this. It's lodged deep in there. That has probably kicked out the names of my childhood best friends. Those memories have been deleted and overwritten with the name of this Japanese engineer from the 80s. Well, clearly that's more important. That's obviously, I've used that information more as an adult than the name of my neighbor. When I was eight. So Carl Gans. Yes, yes. So he had over 10,000 specimens in his personal collection from all of his travels and over 600 publications in his lifetime. He came up with the idea of creating a reptile encyclopedia and worked with several other authors to create his publication, Biology of the Reptilia, with a goal to, in his words, facilitate future work rather than place a tombstone upon past knowledge. And he accomplished just that. He published 22 volumes. Overall, 129 authors contributed to the books. And he died right before the 22nd was published. But he absolutely accomplished what he set out to. A pioneer of my personal favorite childhood reading genre, which was the animal encyclopedia. Heck yes. I had probably about 20 of those bad boys. So I have this man to thank. Thank you. Appreciate that. Great for me. Carl Gons for everything you did. Gomba never forgotten. Pour one out. Thank you. So yeah, the majority of my information is from various publishings of Carl Gons himself, as well as Bruce Jane, a professor at the University of Cincinnati in the Department of Biological Research and impressive in his own right with almost 100 publications. I am going to be talking about reptile feeding, which I know some people can kind of find gross, but it will be very egg focused, like shape of water levels of eggs. Okay. So our snake of today is the African egg eating snake, Dasipeltis. I actually do have this species. Unfortunately, I'm traveling right now, so I'm not able to show her off. But if you come to one of the expos specifically in Denver, I will be bringing her. I have just started bringing her out to shows recently and she's done great. I was a little worried because they're a pretty flighty species of snake, but she literally hung out in like a little flower pot for like an hour. So there are two snake species that we know of that have adapted to eat exclusively eggs. We have the Dasipeltis and we have the Alakistodon westermani, the Indian egg-eating snake. They are widespread across Africa as well as the southern Arabian Peninsula and primarily found in forested areas or wooded habitats. There's about 17 species of Dostapeltis in the genus. It could be 18, 19. There were so many different numbers I saw, literally from 5 to like 19. You ask five taxonomists and they'll give you six different answers. I have the Dostapeltis gonzi muffin, and they're actually named after Carl Goms. I was about to ask that. I was like, do I detect a through line? Yes, and they are the most special among them. Well, what makes them the specialist? We'll get into that later. Muffin, also a fantastic name. A very good name for a snake. Egg McMuffin is her full name. Oh my God. Muffin for short. She was named that because I was eating a muffin when I adopted her and I was just kind of carrying it on top of her little belly cup. And everyone was like, all right, well, you know, her name's Muffin, right? And I'm like, I guess. Although Egg McMuffin is a good, that's a good expansion of the name though. Does incorporate the egg element, which is crucial. 100%. Size-wise, the females are going to be about 40-ish inches. The males are about 30 inches. And they're so slender. They are the slenderest little noodles. Like they kind of look like if you took a kingsnake and just kept rolling it out. Like if it was Play-Doh and you just kept rolling it out. Anyone who's ever been in physical contact with Play-Doh knows that's the first thing you're making absolutely but when they aren't stretched out they uh kind of give the appearance of a much smaller snake than they are like when people hold her they're like she just kind of keeps going like a clown pulling the handkerchiefs like there's a lot more of this than i thought there was gonna be their eyes are freaking huge just gigantic like googly eyes that like bulge significantly outwards if you're looking at them straight on it looks exactly like the eye emoji lips emoji eye emoji that's my favorite combo that's probably one of my first one of my most used combos yeah i i did a quick google search and this is an unserious looking snake they're just little goobers it's very goober coated their color and pattern varies quite a bit i'll get into why later but muffin is like a yellow brown with really subtle patterning And what's really cool about her, though, is like between her scales along her back, in some parts, there's like white between her scales. And you can really see it when she's eating. If this is anyone's first time listening to this particular podcast, what we do is rate animals out of 10 in different categories. And the first one is effectiveness. These are things built into the animal's body that let them do a good job of the things that they're trying to do, like finding their own food, not becoming food themselves, things that are built into their body. Lynn, what do you give the African egg-eating snake out of 10 for effectiveness? She's going to get an eight. They're semi-arboreal. They're going to be spending a lot of time foraging in trees. So they're extremely good at climbing. That is where eggs are. Once I walked past her enclosure and she was using three different points of contact on the glass to hold herself up so she could like try to pry the lid off. Oh, parkour. That's like those like urban rock climbing people. They'll be like in some sort of yoga pose up trying to get somewhere where they're not supposed to be. Yeah. Oh, 100%. But was she strong enough to lift the lid or no? Oh, no. I also use baby locks on my enclosures. That's a good idea. Oh, yeah. They will get out even if they're a completely terrestrial species. A lot of people think like just because your snake isn't known to go up into the trees and stuff that you don't need to give them stuff to climb on. But no, all snakes are going to love exploring whatever you put into their enclosures. I have a friend who used to have a ball python that got really big. And as it grew bigger and bigger, she had to progressively stack more and more books on top of the enclosure. Because as it got bigger, it got stronger, and it would be able to lift the lid. And then at one point, there was like, she had like a small library of books that she was stacking on top of the lid to keep the snake from getting out. Oh, that reminds me. Did you know that reptile keepers kind of get they get specific types of dreams? Where like, you come home and suddenly your reptile had a million babies and you have to figure out enclosures for all of them, which is one I get a lot, even though I don't breed snakes. Or like that they've gotten out like one I had recently was like all my snakes were in the wrong enclosures. Oh, no. And I'd gotten out and stuff and I was trying to put them back into their right enclosures, but I turned around and they were back in the wrong ones. Oh, the reptile owner specific stress dreams. Yes. I every once in a while when I'm stressed out, I will have dreams that I think are left over from a period of time when I did have a lot of pets, which I don't anymore. But I will have a dream where I suddenly remember that I have like 20 pets that I forgot about. Those two. Yeah, that I'll suddenly be like, oh my God, this whole time I've had like 20 pets that I was supposed to be taking care of and I forgot about them. And I've only had one cat for like multiple years now. Like, I still have those. Wait, I forgot about all my pets. 100% I get those. It's so stressful. That sucks. But it keeps you in check though, because there is an unfortunate inclination in the reptile hobby to get tons and tons of animals. I only have four snakes and a couple spiders and stuff. And I want to make sure I'm only able to take care of the amount that I can properly give affection and proper care of, of course. So the egg eating steak that you have is, you mentioned she's a climber. Oh yeah. Except like, I mean, I was very proud of her at the show because she was totally calm and happy just observing those big eyes of her taking everything in. Oh, what a cutie pie. So going on to their scales, their colors and patterns match the members of the Viperidae family that they share the habitat with. Like as you go across the continent and the vipers are looking different so are the egg-eating snakes oh that's interesting does that seem to be like because they're both evolved for the same kind of camouflage or does it seem like the egg-eating snake is like trying to mimic the vipers 100 trying to mimic interesting they're bluffing their scales heavily overlap and are keeled which i talked about earlier so they're raised and have a ridge down the center so like just so much texture to them what is that for what does that do well i will talk about that a little later okay we'll save that we'll save that we'll keep that in our pocket yeah it does have a very specific function which is fascinating and has to do with the vipers as well oh okay so they have uh vertically slitted pupils they're nocturnal But moving on, when we are thinking of impressive examples of snakes eating large meals, who comes to mind? I mean, my first thing I'm thinking of is something like a constrictor that might be eating something very large. Like, you know, you've heard of like anacondas in the Amazon eating like capybaras or something like that. Yeah, you're thinking of ambush predators versus foragers. Yeah, the ambush guys, they're much more heavily bodied than like a corn snake or whatever. They have like a much wider size range of prey that they're able to eat because they're actively waiting for things to come by. And they're not going to be spending as much caloric energy going around looking. That's kind of like why you're ball pythons in its hide most of the time. They wait for days or weeks for meals to come into their melee range. Yeah, to take an attack of opportunity. but they also like need to be really really bulky and muscular so that they can you know like take down something big because i'm looking at this little this noodley little egg eating snake and i don't think this thing could take down very much well the dasipeltis specifically the dasipeltis gansi are the current world record holders for the highest relative prey mass and largest relative gape of any snake so relative prey mass is the size of prey a predator eats relative to its own body mass and length and the gape is how wide they can stretch their mouths which is a fantastic metric yes how much mouth oh so much mouth so why eating uh exclusively bird eggs raises problems how you getting those eggs exactly in this economy in this economy in this economy you're telling me you're eating nothing but eggs they would have started eating eggs exclusively because eggs share the same chemical cues as their parents oftentimes. And so at some point down the line, one of their ancestors was like, wait, this is easier. Guys, hey, have you seen these things? It's so much easier than fighting. They make them prepackaged now. They put them in these little things. It's like a pill. It's a pill form. Yeah, they make it in pill form now. It's the whole bird is in there. It's crazy. The whole thing. the whole thing no no beak no it's like a skittle i think a gusher maybe well the snake treats it like a gusher we'll get into that um so if a snake is eating an egg it's probably gonna be a reptile's egg because reptile eggs are like squishy and elongated whereas bird eggs are like hard shell close to spherical shape with a wide circumference like i have small mouth between like a burrito and a giant jawbreaker i'm gonna have an easier time om noming on that burrito true because then you can squish it down a little bit right like exactly there are even some snakes that don't have the gape to eat the eggs of the birds that they hunt although there is an issue with the nutrition aspect well yes you are getting a lot of good nutrition uh like proteins fats and calcium and stuff from the egg if you had an egg and whole prey of the same size the whole prey is going to be much more nutritious. That's why while some other species do eat eggs, generally it should only be given as like a treat. So what's the solution? Bigger egg. Make egg big. Make egg big. So there's more nutrition in a bigger egg and a wider variety of birds to get them from. So like same reason why ambush predators snakes tend to have a wider range of prey. Let's get into how though they can do this. It seems like a challenge. I don't think I could swallow an egg hole. And I'm a lot bigger than this snake. You were not going to guess on it? So when he was talking about all the dozens of eggs that he eats every day, you think he's fully popping them in and just swallowing them whole? I'm pretty sure there's exact animation of that. They're like, we don't have the time or the budget to animate chewing. just let him sort of unhinge his jaw let him just kind of slide him right down there the guest on is egg eating confirmed in a suit so there is a common belief that snakes unhinge their jaw to swallow large prey but that's a myth oh how they do it though it is thanks to a specialized bone called a quadrate most reptiles and birds have one we have it too but it's located in her inner ear. On reptiles, it's located between the lower jaw and brain case and acts as a hinge when opening and closing their mouths. But snakes further develop the quadrate. So it's now like an elongated bone that acts as a mobile hinge, which allows the snake to open its mouth much, much further. Oh, yeah. I pulled up a picture of it and it does. It looks like the atlatl. You know what I mean? Like the little like flinging device thing. Oh, that's what it Kind of reminds me of. Like it just like extends the sort of reach of it so they can go a lot farther. The hinge also attaches like at the back of the skull rather than midway like our own. A human skull is going to have very little movement because like everything has its place and it should stay about there. But with snakes, everything is built to stretch apart. So the quadrate is attached to the brain case and lower jaw by stretchy ligaments and soft tissues. And their mandibles actually aren't fused at the front. Instead, they're connected by those same stretchy tissues. This allows them to move their lower jaws independently of one another. And the independent movement of each side of their jaw lets them compensate for their lack of arms by literally walking the prey back down their throat. This is crazy. This is wild to me. The idea of being able to articulate your jaw movement, I can kind of move my jaw side to side a little bit but it's such a weird sensation to think about independently operating the left and right sides of your jaw that is so weird yeah an example i think of is like shimmying on two tight pants you think the snakes got to do the little wiggle yeah sorry we just lost the entire gen z audience who they're like excuse me we do not do that i don't know if you're aware tight pants are over. You don't stuff yourself into two tight pants cutting off your circulation? The tight pants era is done. I finally caved. I've been like clinging to skinny jeans for dear life this whole time because like I was in high school in like the 2010s and so that was the style at the time and then I finally just caved and got a pair of these like baggy gen z barrel jeans that are all the rage now and I finally put them on and I was like you know what? I'm sorry. You guys were right about this one. For some reason, when I was younger, I wore jeans constantly, like even to bed. And now I'm like, what was wrong with me? Sensory nightmare. Now I sweat all the time or like leggings or a dress because I don't want to wear pants. That is a cheat code. Life hack. That is a cheat code. People think I'm dressing up. No, I don't want to wear pants today. I didn't want to have to pick out two articles of clothing. mm okay so i looked up pictures of the like snake skull and the way that the bottom jaw is like two distinct pieces reminds me of the arbiter from the halo games oh let me look it up have you ever seen this man it might be difficult to see in like pictures if you see him talking in the game you can see that his lower jaw is like two distinct pieces okay yeah i think i saw a picture that's cool i wonder if maybe that design was inspired by like the skull of a snake because it kind of is what it looks like to me it makes sense oh a random very cute thing about snakes eating is if you hang around after they've swallowed they yawn to reset their jaw oh interesting it's so cute as a note they're um i don't know what to call it but their breathing tube is on the lower jaw oh i've seen this yeah you can kind of see it sticking up so like that's like also how they're able to eat without suffocating oh that makes sense i have seen videos of snakes drinking water that's pretty cute too because they do a sort of like bloop bloop bloop kind of motion with their like whole face it's really cute okay since you since you brought up water i have to talk about ouroboros real quick okay he has this thing where whatever i feed him he has to bring it into his water bowl and swish it around before he will eat it we call it saucing up his food he's just like me for real i'm so that is so me and he loves water so much oftentimes like a snake soaking a lot is a sign that they might have mites or something he doesn't but he does like his water bowl for like getting a refreshing bath one time this this little guy he fell asleep under the water and i thought he died oh no um bro wake up like i saw him in there and i was like oh my god i started like slapping the enclosure and stuff nothing no movement and then finally like i rip off the baby locks which makes like a lot of noise and i pull it open and he like raises his head and looks at me like why maybe don't do that i don't want to sleep i was enjoying my luxurious bath that you gave me they all why'd you give me this if i wasn't supposed to get in it yeah no you're right it's my fault. 100%. Yeah, like it's so cool. Just all their different personalities. But back to the quadrate, the egg eaters quadrate is particularly long for their skull size, aiding them in being able to open their jaw wider. But it's also like it's so thin and flexible. Generally, a longer snout is going to help a snake eat larger meals. But in direct contrast to this, of course, as the egg-eating snake likes to be. It has a very, very short and blunt snout. One of the biggest contributors to their relative prey mass is their intermandibular soft tissues. They've just adapted to be better than everyone else. Just build different. Purely build different. Just build different. To study this, herpetologist Bruce Wayne used freshly euthanized snakes and inserted cylindrical probes of increasing sizes. Sir. Sir. Stop it. That's not... this is not like making people think scientists are normal people this is not helping he did multiple studies of this stop it i love this guy so much they would mimic the movement of how a snake swallows prey to insert it so our walk-in method and would stop increasing the size once it was too large to fit or started to damage the specimen's tissues and i have some numbers here a relative contribution to gait by intermandibular soft tissues. So a brown tree snake, it's going to get about 17% of its gape from its soft tissues. A black rat snake, 19%. Burmese python, 43%. Dostepeltis, Gansi specifically, is at a whopping 50%. Putting up numbers. And I'm going to send you some pictures. Oh, I feel like I remember this. Yeah, you do. Alright, let's see it. Look at this goober. this clown of a snake so in the first image it is i believe the rat snake and the das of health is gansi and then the second is the burmese python yeah this okay there's a there's a facebook page or group or something like that there's a social media account called science diagrams that look like i mean it's a grown-up word but uh let's call it trash posting this is a prime candidate for that because this is the most unserious scientific illustration that's ever existed i think it looks like a like a puppet and it's it's comical oh you know what i know exactly what the mental image is it's the alaskan bullworm oh yes you know like in the in spongebob when the alaskan bullworm like opens up its mouth and like swallows a whole city by opening a mouth up its mouth real wide that's exactly what this dude looks like 100 let me pull up a are you gonna make a meme for us i mean i need to at least do a side by side okay oh well there's a picture of the alaskan bullworm with the ocean gate submersible in it that's not what i need but it's great that's exactly what i needed exactly what i wanted um i'm gonna share my screen real quick oh dear lord now pull up the picture you sent me on discord and just side by side those real quick it's the same image it's the same it's the same picture 100%. Honestly, I think they just got an egg-eating snake and put it in the ocean for that. That was the reference image they had to have used. It's the same guy. It's the same guy. It's the same dude. There's a quote from biologist Bruce Jane from when U.S. Cincinnati interviewed him. This will help put it into more perspective how crazy these size differences are. adult burmese pythons can consume deer weighing more than 70 pounds and alligators 100 pounds or more still the little egg eater can consume prey with a cross-sectional area more than twice that of a burmese python of similar weight not even close an egg-eating snake can consume prey up to approximately four times the size of what a rat snake is able to consume only one job only one one job eat egg consume egg um i mean what else do you need so when the snake eats the egg this is a serious looking egg it looks like it's gonna take a minute to break down so good on them for getting the egg down the hatch in the first place what's gameplay well we're not quite there yet okay we're not even down the hatch yet no it's not down we're still in the lobby of the of the body yes yes we We are still in the mouth. As a quick note, diamond rattlesnakes are just behind the Gons egg eater and the Burmese python and predator to prey size ratio. Just have to give them a call out. They wish they could. So egg eater is number one, but being better than everyone else isn't enough. You need more egg. Yet more egg. That was not enough egg. I won't stop until I'm putting ostriches in here. You see, we have a problem in the way of our quest for maximum egg. Do you have a guess? How? Okay. There's another door. that it has to get through, right? You've got to swallow the darn thing. That is, that's one part of it. Teeth, actually, they're just in your way, you know? That's true. We want bigger eggs. So what do we got to do? Get rid of those teeth. Get rid of them. We're done. We're not using these. They're only holding you back. That's valuable space you could be using for bigger eggs. Optimize your build. Teeth is a dump stat. Get rid of those. Technically, they have like the smallest remnants of teeth, which Carl Gans said that they act as suction ridges to aid in the gripping of the egg. So on to the throat. Their throat skin, it's extremely stretchy. Yeah, I'm looking at the picture and it's like a balloon. It's like a veiny balloon in there. Yeah, like when they swallow the egg, you can see the rows of those previously overlapping scales spread significantly. and there's literal centimeters of space between the rows of scales like several times the width of the scales themselves. Reminds me of um the humpback whale like when the humpback whale like scoops up a bunch of like water in and the like throat like billows out that's what it reminds me of. Oh my god I hadn't thought about that. Now we have a new problem though there's a giant egg in your throat you're an extremely noodley sized snake and this egg is like a golf ball basically this wouldn't be a huge problem for like a rat snake or something like who's also an egg eater of sorts but for a little noodle that's going to slow you down and it's going to take a long time to digest so we adapt we improvise we overcome we don't have teeth in our mouth but we have spine teeth now that's not usually where teeth go you don't usually get teeth from there uh they sure do put them wherever just put them wherever like we don't just find space they're not actual teeth but they're developed specialized elongated bony protrusions on their upper spine called hypopophysis there we go these protrusions are angled towards the head and topped with enamel once the egg enters the throat they keep it from passing into the stomach three of these spinal protrusions are particularly large and they'll flex their muscles and saw these spinal protrusions through the egg and you can actually hear like the crack if you're watching them don't care for that it's kind of not my favorite um i don't want to see a snake easily and then hear crunching from within i don't want to like hear things going on inside your potty. I don't want snap, crackle, pop going on in there. It would be so much worse if it was whole prey though. It'd be so much worse. That would be a million times worse. Aren't you glad it's an egg? I mean, I guess. After they've cracked the egg, they're going to squeeze their throat muscles and kind of do like an undulating motion. And they're draining every bit of yolk from that egg. And it's like watching a balloon deflate inside them. Definitely a fun thing to watch a video of. Now, another issue. We have a crushed eggshell in our throat and don't want it. Get rid of it. So then they raise the front part of their body and start doing that writhing serpentine motion. And you can see their muscles in their throat contracting as it pushes the egg upwards. And like how when Shaggy and Scooby like open their mouth to eat a sandwich, they open their mouth. And you see this, if you look head on, it's like an endless black hole of darkness. And then they just kind of go, and the eggshell pops out in like a cigar shape. And it's like not in pieces. It's like fully intact. Guys, I feel like the egg eating thing has introduced so many more problems. It has raised so many more issues than it solved. At what point do you go, you know what, this was a good idea, but like at what point is it more trouble than it's worth because i mean you have to go to such incredible lengths you don't gotta fight birds though i'm trying to find uh an image for you of one with their mouth just open so you can see the black hole it's like me like cutting up a pineapple where i'm like at one point i'm like is this even worth it i don't even need to eat this i have to do so much to access this food oh that's quite silly yeah that's abyssal They're a little old rich monster. But the reason that regurgitation is actually unique for a snake to evolve to do frequently is because for most snakes, they regurgitate because they're dealing with an extremely stressful and traumatic experience. The usual reasons in the wild are the meal's too large or they're trying to escape a threat. And in captivity, snakes will often regurgitate or throw up if they're handled within 48 hours of feeding or if the temperature of the enclosure is too low so if like your snake is doing that you need to first adjust your like how you're keeping them your husbandry uh and then if it continues go see a vet unless they're an egg-eating snake yeah then it's fine and you can just sit and watch do you use that in your art is that in there um you ever use one of these little shells yeah one of these little shell pellets i've thought about it you know what maybe next maybe my next piece will be that i do like an owl pellet but that has like cool bones and stuff in it this is just egg chunks i don't like that one thing i did take away for is that they can't digest meals that are too far along in development so like the bird is gonna hatch soon they can't digest it but moving on to how can how can they defend themselves it can't we simply don't what's she gonna do yeah no no arms no teeth no feet nothing literally nothing in the kit no venom nothing you'd have to like i think for it to hurt a human you'd have to like jab your finger down its throat and at that point that's on you if you're getting hurt at that point that's your fault 100 supposedly there was this old paper i tried to read through and I couldn't find this mentioned, but Carl Gons mentioned that what this researcher had said that they never bite. And then a few pages later said that they bite viciously. You can see where it's crossed out. It's like the little Reddit post underneath that says update. Let's take a quick break to hear from our friends on the Maximum Fun Network. And when we get back, we will talk ingenuity and aesthetics for the egg eating snake. Hi, I am Jordan Krusciola and I host Feeling Seen. I'm here with Maximum Fun member of the month, Khalil Goodman. Hi, Khalil. Hi, Jordan. Thank you for having me. So great to see you. I gotta know what's made you feel seen. I figure you've thought about this if you've listened to the show a bunch. I read X-Men when I was six. When you're a kid who makes art, which I am, and you're a queer kid, there's this feeling of something is different, but you don't know what it is. You can be different, but it can be a superpower. What would you say to others who might be considering supporting the show? What would be your sales pitch to them? If you love this thing, if you are getting all of this joy and comfort from this thing, make sure that this thing that you like will continue. Thank you so much, Khalil, for taking the time to talk to me today and for listening to the show. My God, it means a lot to just know people are really listening and valuing what they're hearing. Thank you so much. Become a Maximum Fun member now at MaximumFun.org. If you want to know what's going on in the world of movies, you should be listening to Maximum Film so we can tell you all about it. Okay, but what if you already know what's going on in the world of movies? What if you're kind of obsessed with movies, like maybe you have a problem? Well, then you should definitely be listening to Maximum Film because we too have that problem and it's important you know you're not alone. We're talking indies you'll want to seek out. Blockbusters and blockbusting wannabes. Classics we can't get enough of. I'm comedian and writer Kevin Avery. I'm film critic Alonzo Duraldi. I'm festival programmer and producer Drea Clark. Together, we're Maximum Film. Smart about movies in Hollywood, so you don't have to be. But if you already are, that's also great. And hey, we see you. New episodes every week on MaximumFun.org. The next category that we rate animals on is ingenuity. These are behaviors, things the animal is doing with their body to solve the problems that they face. Lynn, what do you give egg-eating snakes for ingenuity? A six. now i am looking at this noggin because i was observing the skull because i was looking at the bones mostly eyes i see a lot of room for mouth i see a lot of room for eyes that's not leaving a ton left over for brain not a lot of room left for brain i fear not a ton but they do some actually pretty intelligent things i'm pretty proud of them they're working with what they got dude So when an egg-eating snake comes across a nest, it'll actually stop and examine the eggs thoroughly before attempting to eat them. If you've spent any time around snakes, you'll notice that they flick their tongues a lot, like especially if there's something of interest happening. This is because of their Jacobson organ, which it's an organ located in the nasal cavity with ducts going into the snake's mouth. And when a snake flicks its tongue out, scent particles and chemical cues will stick to it. So when the snake brings its tongue back into its mouth and flicks the forked tongue into those ducks, it's going to get feedback on the environment around them. But the egg eating snake, there's just better. Not only can they tell if the egg is good or bad, but they can tell how far along the embryo is in development. So then they'll make like the active decision like, oh, I am not going to eat this egg because it'll make my tummy hurt. Oh, listen, even I sometimes don't make that judgment call. Even I sometimes am like, this is going to hurt my tummy. I am going to eat it anyway. Honestly, yes. I'm so glad I'm not lactose intolerant because, my God, the agony I'd go through. For some cheese, I'm risking it all. Yes. In the 19th Publishment, The Snakes of South Africa, Their Venom, and the Treatment of Snake Bites, this is supposedly where the guy talked about them biting viciously. But I read through some of the book. Like I said, I couldn't find it. author Fitzsimmons spoke on his struggles and experiments with getting his captive egg eaters to eat I love this quote The egg eater is not altogether a fool You cannot trick him about things which his ancestors for untold generations have learned from experience and transmitted to him in the form of a remarkably acute sense of smell, which is very necessary for him in his profession of an egg eater. Being short of fresh pigeon's eggs once, I went to my cabinet and took the clean blown shells of a few dove eggs. Beating up the contents of a fresh fowl's egg, I syringed it into the empty shells and carefully pasted tiny bits of tissue paper over the holes. Placing these in the egg-eater's cage, I watched, expecting the snakes to swallow them as they always did the other eggs. First one egg-eater advanced, touching each egg gently and turned with the tip of his nose or the point of his forked tongue. He crawled away in disgust. Another, and yet another, advanced, repeating the performance and duly retired. Am I a joke to you? You think? You think you're gonna sneak a dove egg by me it didn't matter how long he left the eggs there the snakes would not touch them until he got them some fresh dove eggs you think this trash this filth that you're trying to slop in front of me this garbage i don't think so you turn around and you go back to the market you go get the fresh eggs i asked for you go outside you climb that tree you go climb that tree you get up in that nest you get me my breakfast so yeah he tried it again and again and got the same results he also noted that the egg eaters would sometimes reject certain eggs and when he opened them he'd find uh that they were either spoiled or with a well-developed bird inside. Absolutely not. Listen, my little minor superpower that I have is that I am really, really good at picking produce. Oh, like when I do most of the grocery shopping for our family, I am the one that picks produce. And if anyone else in the family tries to pick produce, it's going to be moldy. It's going to like have a weird bruise on it. Like there's, or it's just not going to taste right. Like it just ends up not being right. So like, I get it sometimes you just you the vibe is off and you're like it's not this one this one's bad you need to pick out my pomegranates for me because I have picked out what looked like the most beautiful pomegranates and like this year every time I open them up they're just rotten inside pomegranates are tough bring your snake with you have your snake help you pick oh my god that's such a good idea you know how like when you're when you're buying eggs at the store you're supposed to like open the carton and like check to make sure none of them are like broken or anything like that you should like in the egg aisle at the store just like bust the snake out real quick and have her do a quick little a quick little rundown of like the carton to see like hey are any of these like rotten that would be the perfect photo shoot you have to just like say nothing about it i bring them on errands with me so perfect little connoisseurs not the snake snobbery this one is actually too developed they yeah they are the snobs of snakes 100 percent an egg sommelier so when they're out foraging for eggs it's usually at a time when the parents are out of the nest uh you'll find several at a time in the trees looking for eggs and once they manage to get into a nest of eggs they inspect them and then gorge themselves on all that are suitable there is a bbc documentary you can find on youtube of one foraging for eggs while there are birds around and it's kind of hilarious watching the snake with like they just have a keep moving forward mindset but it's being dive bombed by angry parents like there's nothing i can do about that that's out of my hands but they can hold on so well like the birds are knocking it off but it's like holding on with its tail and just brings itself back up they do play a really vital role in controlling bird populations though biologist jj krupa did a study called do african egg eating snakes exhibit preference for eggs they eat. He wondered this because the curiosity was revolving around size is due to the fact that the large egg is going to contain more nutrients than a smaller one, but it's going to take a longer time to eat, which gives mom and pop-up bird more time to come back. So five species of Dossy peltis were offered a variety of eggs from galliform game birds of different sizes. They ranged from small, soft-shelled quail eggs to hard-and-thick shelled turkey eggs. In a follow-up experiment, they were offered game birds as well as eggs from columbiform species, which include dove and pigeon. These eggs were different sizes, colors, and range and thickness of shell. His study showed that large adult Dossipeltis will eat eggs of any size, but they have a preference for large, tough-shelled eggs, but that the small and young snakes would just go for the small eggs. They can be pretty picky, though. A big challenge in captivity is getting them to eat, and it's normal to waste quite a few eggs. When I first got Muffin, she refused to eat the fresh button quail eggs I was providing her, but two things I did seem to help. I gave her a fake nest for her to discover. Oh, wow. You need enrichment. Yes. A snacktivity. She needs a snacktivity. I also managed to get her some budgie eggs. So I found that variety really helped. But she lets me know when she's hungry by like she just hangs out in her nest and spares at me. Usually there's eggs here. Eggs go here. This is looking a little empty i hope they're not just hanging out in empty nest in the wild bad idea just hey bring me some dinner ordering doordash like get laying deliver to nest in tree oh it's dine in yeah uh when faced with danger their first inclination is to flee and they're so fast that's like why i was like a little worried about bringing her to events but she did great they're also perfectly willing to fling themselves off of things like your hand. But if that doesn't work, they have a defensive display. Let's go. AKA lying. Oh, we love a literal lying snake. Yes. Oh my God. When faced with danger, they puff up their face and neck to look more like the vipers that they share territory and pattern and coloration with. Like it is strikingly similar. Ooh. They'll hold their head up above their coiled body, poised to strike, but then if you look closer they're not actually forming what you'd think of as like a true snake coil. Instead, they have their body looped in like a series of parallel folds which are constantly in motion and have several points of contact. Their scales, those keeled scales scraping together at points of contact, create a continuous hissing noise. Oh, that's interesting. It's like stridulation. Yes. It makes the snake's body look like it's like swirling in a way that's like mesmerizing to watch. Oh, that's cool. And then with their mouth open, they'll just like viciously strike at whatever the perceived threat is, but not actually bite generally, unless you're that one researcher trying to feed a snake. Which that one was just because they were mad about the eggs. Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. I would be too. I am going to send you a video of a snake doing this. Oh, now this is cool. Oh, the effect is very interesting. because like the stripes are going in opposite directions. It's like the head is staying in one place. Like the head is very stabilized, but the rest of the body is in this sort of like constant motion. It's very like confusing to look at. It's so hypnotizing too. It is. That's really cool. There's a, this story that Gons mentioned in warning behavior and snakes of the genus Dossy Palthus that a specimen collector for Darwin, who's like, he was very familiar with the species and behavior, but he actually just mistook one of these harmless snakes for a night adder. Its performance was so good. Ooh, I mean, yeah. If I saw a snake acting like this, I would assume that's being backed up by something. Yeah. There's got to be something going on here for you to have this kind of attitude. I mean, they're kind of just disarming to look at. You're like mesmerized and stuff. Yeah, they're really, really pretty. I think it's beautiful to look at, but I can see it also being intimidating. Yeah, if you don't know what you're looking at, which I mean, he did. So shame on him, I guess. Do better at your job. So March to October is their mating season. Flirting. Did you know that snakes flirt? I didn't. This is great. Though it's different among snake species. Some of them do things like chin rubbing or head jerking. It's hard to flirt when you don't have much more than a noodle body, but you know. Do you think they slither up to each other and they're like, hey, babe, you want to see how wide my gape is? Well, hers is always going to be better, so. Mm-hmm. Just send him that picture from that paper. Hey, this is me. This is not a dead snake. Freshly euthanized with a probe. HMU. You up? Some snakes will also get on to the female's back and kind of just make a wave pattern on her. I love that. That's great. The males of this species will be very clingy and active following the female around, but she decides on the frequency of mating. Mostly his way of flirting is rubbing up against her and trying to line up their tails. But yeah, that's my last bit on ingenuity. Well, the last category that we rate animals on is aesthetics. It's just how nice they are to look at, whether they're cute, cool, whatever you think about them. What do you give the egg-eating snake out of 10 for aesthetics? Well, of course, Muffin. She gets a 10 out of 10, of course. She specifically. She gets her own score. But 6 out of 10. Wow, that's harsher than I thought. I'm a mean grader. Clearly. Really? Because I'm looking at this adorable little snake with the tiny head and the big little kawaii eyes. Like, I'm thinking this is a pretty cute little guy. And you're like, I've seen cuter. You're like, I've seen better. What would you rate them? Well, now, with the egg in the mouth is a different thing, though. When the egg is in the mouth, it's dragging it down a little bit. But, like, I mean, I think this cute little cutie pie is probably, like, worth an eight or a nine to me. I think they're so cute. Oh, that's so nice. And then with the, like, with the... You're so kind. with the that's true i am kind of a i'm a soft grader i'm i'm a pushover do you feel like it's because you've like seen cuter snake yes okay all right listen we always say ouroboros is so baby girl because he is like you just look at his face and you're like wow that's a baby girl i'm just saying there's nothing happening in that little head nothing going on it is circus music in there but i say that because genuinely they just look like a generic snake even with their patterns evolved to look like the Vipuridae without their face all flattened out it's it's just if you look up snake in a dictionary there it is they are kind of a starter kit looking snake but I don't know I think that's really interesting that like even for such a an animal that might appear to be like basic from the outside is hiding such interesting unique specializations under the hood that's honestly my favorite thing about them is just like at first glance, they're just very non-assuming, but then like you spend three seconds researching, you're like, what? They're full of surprises. Their conservation status is least concern. The Alecistodon western moni is extremely rare, but also recognized as least concern. They're not super common in the pet trade, being mostly more of like a nichely kept species. It is difficult to care for hatchlings since the eggs have to be very small. So unfortunately, frequently the ones available for purchase are ones that have been taken from the wild. I was lucky because I got muffin captive bred from Firestone reptiles. They breed finches, which is how they get their eggs for feeding the hatchlings. They were also kind enough to let me ask them a few different questions about breeding and such for this. Also, the reason that we don't have specialized egg eaters like in the Americas and in Europe and stuff is that our bird species are just too big for an egg specialist as well. Yeah, we do have some chunky birds. I guess that makes sense that like they wouldn't have the variety of small eggs that they would need to get through adulthood. I mean, yeah, turkeys and stuff. And they will hurt you very bad. They're so mean. That is true. Turkeys are so mean. Ours might be a little bit meaner. Turkeys will kick the absolute crap out of you, dude. Yeah, and they'll just gobble you up. They won't dive bomb you from the trees. No, they're running up on you. They're walking you down. But I mean, we do have other snakes that will do that, like the rat snake. and such. I always hear about the egg tax with rat snakes. Like, oftentimes rat snakes will just kind of hang out in like a coop and eat an egg every once in a while, but also keep away the rats. Yeah, it's like, what's an egg here and there? You know, like, leave a little tip, you know what I mean? Like, what's an egg here and there to you? You weren't gonna eat all those eggs. He gets a salary. I've also heard that they supposedly kind of learn when it is okay to like kind of slither about like when the chickens are kind of doing their downtime but I don't know that for sure it's just what I've heard the thing I always hear about rat snakes is like how you can tell that it's a rat snake is if it's just in an absolutely ridiculous place if the snake is somewhere snakes should not go it's probably a rat snake probably if it's like doing parkour off your gutters that's probably a rat snake I saw this story on next door recently where a guy posted about a Mexican black king snake he found in his bed. No. Like someone had lost one of their pet snakes, I guess. And it's just one in this guy's bed. Well, Lynn, where can people find more of your work? Where can people find like the art that you make and things like that? Where can people go next? You can find me on TikTok and Instagram at calypsos underscore charms, which is like the name of my business named after my first snake. You can also find me at searofashes on Instagram where I'm slowly posting stuff about a comic I'm making. My life's a little hectic right now, but I'm working on it like between projects and stuff. It's set in a fantasy-esque world of my own creation. The comic's protagonist has been having visions of the end of the world since they were a little kid and no one believed them. And eventually they turned apathetic to it happening. Now the signs of the apocalypse are here and in wanting to experience some semblance of a life worth living before the world ends, they leave home for the first time. out in the world they find reasons for wanting to save it in the connections they make with other people. I don't really want to give more away but it has clear themes that'll come up later on. I've been using it as an outlet for my own mental health struggles a big one being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and having to like completely relearn how I think. Oh yeah. Really excitingly I'll actually be working with the company hosting with Hamamzi to teach classes on how to make jewelry using reptile sheds as well as how to paint using snake sheds. you'll even get to meet some of my snakes I'm so excited and nervous it'll be at Wanderment Brewing Taproom in Denver Hi there, just editing in the date and time of this event, it is on Saturday March 14th at 2.30pm I will have a link to it in the episode description if you are in the Denver area and interested in joining Other than that you can catch me at various reptile expos throughout the Midwest and a few events in Denver as they come up Particularly, I'm working with the organizers from Show Me Reptiles. Awesome. I'll have links to everything also in the episode description so that anybody listening can scroll down and click through and check out your other work. Check out what you've got going on. Maybe come meet one of the snakes. They are absolute sweethearts. You will have a wonderful time. I promise. You'll have those lines to meet a celebrity. That's what it's like with Ouroboros. He's literally famous in the market community. I don't get invited to things. he gets invited to things and I just come along. They'll send me messages like, hey, there's this event. You should bring a Roboros. You're his plus one. You're his guest. He's such a good boy. Thank you so much, Liz. Thank you for telling us all about your snakes. Thank you for sharing your love for snakes and sharing your creativity and teaching us more about the fascinating, mind-blowing, really weird things going on in the reptile world. It has been an absolute delight. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. And y'all should come join the Discord. I'm very active in there. And I post lots of pictures of my babies. Yes, it's a great time. And largely thanks to Lynn. You really bring it to life, I feel like. Oh, thank you. You're so kind. Thank you. And we will talk to you later, Lynn. Bye, guys. Bye. thank you all so much for listening i hope you enjoy a little snacktivity that's too big for your own mouth in this snake's honor if you liked what you heard i would love it if you left behind some kind words for us in a review on your podcast app of choice if you want to hang out with us online we're on facebook instagram discord blue sky links to everything will be in the episode description you can also send me an email at ellen at just the zoo of us.com if you have a cool animal you'd like to hear us talk about on the show. We'd like to thank Maximum Fun for having us on their network alongside their other amazing shows like the ones that you heard promos for here today. You can go check those out and learn more about the network and how you can be a part of supporting our show, plus get access to our exclusive monthly bonus episodes over at MaximumFun.org. Finally, we would like to thank Louis Zong for our theme music. That's all for today. We'll see you next week. Thanks. 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