Reptile expert and host of JayPrehistoricPets Jay Brewer visits WIRED to answer your questions from Twitter.
Reptile Royalty starring Jay Brewer is Now Available on The Roku Channel.
We inadvertently show a crocodile rather than an alligator at 4:12 of this video—sorry!
Reptile Royalty starring Jay Brewer is Now Available on The Roku Channel.
We inadvertently show a crocodile rather than an alligator at 4:12 of this video—sorry!
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TechTranscript
00:00 This is Big Lou and he is one amazing alligator snapping turtle.
00:04 If you look inside of his mouth,
00:05 he's got a little red lure for bringing fish in.
00:08 They got about 2,500 pounds of bite strength.
00:10 He can bite a two by two right in half. Hi, I'm Jay Brewer.
00:14 I'm here today to answer some questions off Twitter. This is reptile support.
00:18 Okay. @PrenzlerRyb, how does a chameleon change color? Well,
00:27 that's kind of a technical question, but you know what?
00:30 I'm going to get some help with a chameleon. Okay.
00:33 So we got Greco and it's actually a Panther chameleon. Now, if you see,
00:38 they don't really change color.
00:39 They just modify the colors that are there by squeezing open and close and
00:44 dilating like your eyeball. There's another cool part about him.
00:47 He has two eyeballs that work completely independently.
00:51 So he's actually great at catching his bugs and insects.
00:55 And look at how beautiful he is. @MaggotStomp,
00:58 do alligators chew their food? Absolutely not.
01:03 And you know what? I think we'll go feed Darth Gator, our giant Gator,
01:07 and you'll see he just swallows it whole. Okay.
01:11 This is Darth and Gomer. Darth, let's show them. Do you chew your food?
01:16 Oh, there you go. He doesn't chew his food.
01:21 He swallows it whole.
01:23 The only time you would even consider it kind of chewing their food is the
01:26 attempt of maybe breaking the shell of a crab or something like that.
01:30 @JackVandertal,
01:31 if you were bitten by a venomous snake, would you know what to do?
01:35 Unfortunately,
01:37 I'd really know what to do because I've been bit by a venomous snake at 23 years
01:40 old and it was not a pretty sight.
01:42 Some people actually say the first thing you're supposed to do is suck out the
01:46 venom. Completely a myth. That venom that went in is in.
01:51 End of story. Truth is when I got bit,
01:53 the first thing I did was start sucking the venom out.
01:55 So I thought my lips started tingling and the tingling. I thought, Oh my gosh,
02:00 I shouldn't have sucked it out. It got in my mouth, but that's not what happened.
02:03 The effects of the venom were already through my whole system in
02:08 seconds and my lips were tingling because of the venom inside my bloodstream.
02:12 That being said, if you get bit by a venomous snake,
02:15 the most important thing to do is stay calm and work your way towards a
02:20 hospital as quick as possible at planet reptile 23 question
02:24 for all snake handlers, wildlife experts handling dangerous reptiles.
02:29 What type of handling gear do you commonly use when handling snakes?
02:34 Some kind of snakes are not venomous,
02:36 so I might take a little risk and use my hands. Best tools ever made.
02:40 End of story. That being said, if I'm going to hold something dangerous,
02:44 I'm going to actually need a little bit of space. Something like a pair of tongs.
02:48 We also use these for feeding big pythons and stuff because the snakes excited
02:52 going after its food. Then the snake hook snake hook.
02:56 What it actually is for is that when the venomous snake that you're holding
03:00 drops his head in here, he's no longer can strike left or right.
03:04 Then you got your tongs and that can be used for a lot of different things for
03:09 handling tarantulas, scorpions, little venomous animals,
03:13 and also for feeding small animals. It works really well.
03:16 At James R us 42 without cheating.
03:20 What venomous snake has the longest fangs in the world? Wow.
03:24 That's the easy one.
03:25 I think I should get out a giant Gaboon Viper and show you how amazing they are.
03:29 This is a Gaboon Viper got the longest fang of any venomous snake in the world.
03:34 And you could tell that from that big head and actually has the most venom to
03:39 dump at one time, not to mention one of the fastest striking snakes.
03:44 Even has a horn like a Rhino Viper. They're closely related.
03:48 Both of them have this incredible pattern and color to hide in the forest floor
03:53 in Africa.
03:54 A a a one E two R three. Wow.
03:58 That one I better go back to school for.
04:00 What's the difference between a gator and a crocodile? Anyway,
04:05 a crocodile generally speaking has a long slender,
04:09 more V shaped nose where an alligator has got that nice U shaped nose.
04:14 Now the interesting part about that question is there's actually only two types
04:18 of gators in the whole world. They actually come from China and America.
04:22 If it's not a Chinese alligator or it's not an American alligator,
04:26 it is an alligator. Anyway, at Tango 89,
04:29 how do I lidless creature creatures clean the moisture of their eyes?
04:34 You know what? I think I'm going to cheat on this one.
04:37 Get a subject out to show you. This is George,
04:40 the giant new Caledonia gecko largest gecko in the world.
04:44 Now get those a lot of times have eyelids, but they don't close completely.
04:49 This one has no eyelids.
04:51 And what it does is actually just lick their eye like a windshield wiper,
04:56 kind of wild. But then when you have a snake, for instance,
04:59 it doesn't have eyelids either.
05:01 It gets a brand new lens every time it sheds. Pretty amazing.
05:05 Okay. At Graham, our kid,
05:09 can reptiles be said to have personalities? Absolutely.
05:13 So I have a lot of monitors lizards and they have a lot of personality.
05:18 So today I'm going to play with one of them and let you see what a rambunctious
05:22 little critter this particular one is.
05:24 And maybe we'll get a second one out and you can see how calm and relaxed the
05:28 other one is. I'm going to show you a little mini dragon.
05:31 That's got tons of personality. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
05:35 Here, here, come on. So we're going to take her for a swim. Here we go.
05:38 Here we go. Whoa, there we go.
05:40 So you see every animal's got a little bit different personality.
05:45 This guy here is a pure swimming, hunting, wild creature.
05:50 Oh, there you go.
05:51 It's great exercise for animals to interact with people.
05:55 And this is one of the ways it's called enrichment to make an animal love its
06:00 life. I'm going to show you a completely different personality. Come on,
06:03 come on, come on. So he's pretty laid back so much.
06:08 So that he won't chase it like that. Come on.
06:10 His name is Fabio and he's just a big sweetheart.
06:13 He's like more relaxed, more chill hair here. Come on.
06:18 There you go. Gentle, relaxed, just a complete,
06:23 whoa, what did you do? Vanishing chicken.
06:26 The other guy, if I tried to do that, he'd have my hand,
06:29 but all of them are very cool. Each one's a little bit different.
06:32 Kind of like you at Una Mary.
06:35 What if dragons exist in real life? Oh God.
06:39 I'm going to show you some footage of a giant dragon in Komodo Island.
06:43 Look at this guys. This is the most incredible time of my life.
06:48 This is the peak right here. I don't know if it's going to get better than this.
06:50 The two biggest lizards in the Island meet up at dinner time on the beach.
06:55 Wow. Look at him. They exist. Okay.
07:00 At TNT gal, why do Cobras have hoods?
07:04 Actually it's to make them look big and scary when they jump up,
07:08 they triple their size,
07:09 they start making a loud noise and it's going to scare off any animal that's
07:14 going to attack them. At Swagna, are iguanas dangerous?
07:18 Can they bite?
07:19 So the funny part is I think iguanas are the most underrated animal for being
07:24 dangerous. Not only they have razor sharp claws,
07:27 they have an incredible bite because they have to bite through lettuce,
07:31 leafy stuff and get a clean cut.
07:34 So unlike a snake that has really no bite except long teeth to hang on,
07:39 these teeth are actually for cutting.
07:40 I've seen some horrible bites from iguanas,
07:43 but let me show you how beautiful they are. And to be fair,
07:46 I've seen some amazing pet iguanas.
07:48 I'm going to show you one that we've had for many years.
07:50 So this is actually Jolly Green.
07:52 He's a rescue iguana because a lot of people don't realize iguanas can get big
07:57 and most people don't realize that they go in heat kind of like a dog,
08:01 except that when a male iguana goes into heat,
08:03 they get very aggressive and they want to be dominant and they can bite you
08:06 severely. That being said, they can be great animals.
08:10 And Jolly Green is luckily relaxed and he's about 25 years old.
08:15 We've had him over 10 years. He's absolutely amazing,
08:18 beautiful animal and not your normal iguana.
08:21 At Beralfi, Komodo dragon saliva kill the prey? Actually,
08:27 no. They used to say that the saliva would eventually kill it from
08:32 infection, but that's not true. It's not the bacteria.
08:35 The actual truth is their saliva is venom that is made to paralyze the
08:40 animal just long enough for the Komodo dragon to actually finish it off and eat
08:44 it. At Janet SK Watson,
08:46 how do you tell the difference between a Python and a boa? Okay.
08:50 So boas and pythons are both constrictors. They're both snakes.
08:55 They're both reptiles,
08:56 but boas have live birth and pythons lay eggs.
09:00 And those are all the questions for today. Peace out.
09:03 (chimes)
09:05 (chimes)