Serpentarium

WARNING: We went to the serpentarium today, so there are lots of pictures of snakes in this post. If that's going to bother you, you should skip past the post.

The first thing we saw at the serpentarium was the alligator feeding. I should explain something---we've been here for 4 days now and Sedona is still terrified of my nephew. In her defense, he is almost 6'4", but he's also in a cast and largely immobile. She cries anytime she inadvertantly gets too close to him. Now on with the pictures...

This is "Big George":


And this is Sedona "boo-ing" Big George:

Yes, she screams and runs from a tall kid that's 150 pounds soaking wet, but a giant alligator? No problem....just boo 'em.

This snake gave us a little nature lesson. Apparently it's a constrictor and killed it's habitat-mate earlier in the day, then tried to eat it. Unfortunately, the victim was too long, so the snake had to regurgitate it back up and was working on its second attempt:


Inside, they had lots of interesting, dangerous snakes (all behind plexi-glass).

Copperhead:


Cotton Mouth/Water Mocassin:
A real, live gila monster (surely the most relaxed gila monster ever?)


A western diamondback rattler (the kind that bit my grandmother almost 2 years ago)

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And the rattler's babies.



This is about the point I started to get totally icked out. A few of you know I feel cats are my toaster fear personified (long story that I'm not re-telling here)--well, before we went in, they explained we needed to stay 3 feet back from the exhibits because the snakes sometimes strike and injure themselves by hitting the plexi glass. I started just waiting for one of these snakes to strike. Anytime someone let their kid tap on the glass, I had to "run away"

Seeing snakes in trees did not help the ick factor. This was a large exhibit where the trees didn't come near the edges, but still, it was open........ (oh, it's a green boa constrictor):

And at the snake demonstration/lecture the lady actually had water mocassins and copperheads out. She showed us her boots---up to the knee and basically the same stuff that bullet proof vests are made out of. Yeah, that's nice and all.......couldn't pay me enough money to do that!


Last, we visited the baby alligators, who are currently living with the turtles, until next year, when they will apparently be big enough to start eating the turtles. I don't know about you, but this guy looks a little too fat to me.....wonder if they've counted the turtles lately...