Hi, I am Jessi and this is Animal Wonders. We rescue displaced, exotic animals and provide them a permanent home, where we focus on their health and happiness. We've rescued well over a hundred animals over the years, and today, I'd like to share all of our amazing scaly friends. 

(Intro)


The majority of the animals we're asked to take in are reptiles, and I think that's because they're relatively cheap and easy to buy from pet stores. But, even though reptiles can be easily purchased, that doesn't mean they're easy to care for. 

Almost all of them require heat and/or UV lighting. They need a large enclosure, special substrate, and a specific diet including vitamins and supplements. We're able to provide for 23 reptiles at Animal Wonders because we know their needs, and we have the resources. 

Okay. Smalles to largest, going by weight, let's meet all of our 23 reptiles. 

1. Terd

First off, is our tiniest lizard. This is Terd. He's a baby red-eyed crocodile skink. He was born in November 2017, and he's growing up nice and healthy. Isn't he just so tiny and cute? 

2+3. Puff and Smaug

Here are Terd's parents, Puff and Smaug. As adults, they get this beautiful, red-orange around their eyes. We've had this couple since 2015, and they aren't very fond of humans. So, we mostly just let them hide out and do their own thing in their bio-active habitat. 

4. Jelly

Jelly is our newest rescue. She's a leopard gecko. We made an episode about her story: the link is in the doobly-doo along with all of the other videos we've made about specific reptiles. 

In the short time that we've had Jelly, we've learned that her favorite food is cockroaches. She's training to be an ambassador and recently went on her first trip to a presentation. She stayed in her travel crate, so she could experience the sounds and smells before doing the next step: which is meeting an audience and teaching them about her species and letting us share her rescue story. 

5. Freckles

Freckles is our veteran leopard gecko. She's been with us since 2007 before Animal Wonders was even founded. So, she's witnessed the adoptions of almost all of our reptiles. She's a favorite at presentations, because she's so calm and tolerates gentle handling by volunteers. 

6. Wilbur

This is Wilbur, our Western hognose snake. Wilbur joined us in 2010, and I named him thinking we were being kinda clever. Turns out, that more than a half of the hognose snakes I've met since, are named Wilbur.

(To Wilbur) Sorry, buddy. Even though your name might not be unique, you definitely are. 

Wilbur is a happy-go-lucky snake with a big appetite. During the day, he's often found squeezing himself into cozy places to relax. At night, he's out adventuring and especially likes to investigate any new items in his home, like a new plant or a branch. 

7. Carlos the Colorful

Say hello to Carlos, the Sinaloan milk snake. Right now, Carlos is getting ready to shed, but here he is, looking his best. 

Carlos was sponsored when we first rescued him and the sponsor got to name him, so his full name is Carlos the Colorful, which suits him and his beautiful mimicry colors.

Sinaloan milk snakes are not venomous; they have adapted these colors to mimic the very venomous coral snake. 

8+9+10. Domino, CS and Saffron

And, here we have Domino, CS and Saffron, the corn snakes.

Domino, the gray one, was our very first rescue in 2006. CS, the orange one, hatched in 2012, and Saffron, the yellow, was taken in in 2014. 

Having a variety of color morphs is nice, because we can teach about genetics and how humans are artificially selecting different traits in some species of animals to create a diversity of patterns and colors, not normally seen in the wild. 

11. Loki

And, back to a lizard. This is Loki, the Chinese water dragon. He's a male, and males have large crests on the back of their neck. He's still young and immature, but he's growing up healthy and we're just starting to see his crest really start to lengthen. 

It's so good to see an animal in your care flourish.

(To Loki) Good job, buddy. You're doing great!

12. Argos

Here's Argos, the Mali uromastyx. He's been around since 2012, and we don't have any idea how old he was when we rescued him. All we know is that he was an adult then, so he's at least 10 years old. 

Argos doesn't tolerate a lot of handling, so we limit our interaction with him to short visits. He does occasional presentations for older audiences that are interested in unique adaptations like this fancy tail.

13. Sampson

Okay, say hello to Sampson the Savannah monitor. Sampson might be a bit smaller than Argos right now, but he's going to grow much bigger really soon. Savannah monitors can grow between two-and-a-half  to three-and-a-half feet. 

He's a recent rescue and he's still warming up to being handled, but he's getting better each week. Savannah monitors are commonly re-homed in the pet trade, and are often housed in enclosures that are too small and fed an improper diet of just rodents.

Our biggest success with Sampson was that, after two months of trying, we finally got him to accept a nice variety of insects into his diet, so he can grow up happy and healthy. 

14. Sandy

This is Sandy. She's about 15 years old, and she's another favorite at school presentations. 

This is why she's so popular. Watch closely. 

She's a Kenya sand boa and her adaptations are so awesome. No one expects a snake this big to come out from under that sand. She's incredible and it's so fun to teach others about her. 

15. Leonard

And, here we have a reptile that looks a lot like a snake, but he's not. This is Leonard, the Russian legless lizard, also known as a European legless lizard, or a Sheltopusik, or Pallas' glass lizard. 

These guys are very interesting looking. His face is, well, it's his face. They have this incredible adaptation of rolling their body if a predator gets a hold of their tail. When they roll, it puts so much pressure on their tail, that it will break off in several pieces.  The pieces of tail immediately start wiggling around because of the nerves firing, and all the chaos confuses the predator so much, that the lizard can make a getaway. 

Leonard, you're really weird.

Jessi from the Future: Hey! So, this is Jessi after we finished our reptiles episode, and we realized we totally forgot Bindi. 

Bonus: Bindi

This is Bindi, the bearded dragon. He was originally thought to be female, but that was due to his stunted growth from improper care from previous owner. 

Since coming to Animal Wonders, he's really grown into his full potential. Bindi is approximately nine years old and he's doing the best he can. He loves eating cockroaches and strongly dislikes his mandatory warm water soaks. He's a good dragon. 

And now back to past Jessi with our next reptile. 

16. Blueberry

Jessi from the Past: This is Blueberry, the blue-tongued skink. She's a sweetheart, and by far our most popular reptile, because... look at her tongue. 

Before she came to Animal Wonders, she had it pretty rough. She was rescued with several infections and needs quite a bit of special care. A link to her full story is below. 

17. Freya

Freya the Northern pine snake is one of our lesser-known reptiles. She doesn't come out to many presentations because she's sensitive to movement and easily becomes defensive. Freya's personality tends to be aggressive, but if I move slowly and confidently, I can still handle her. 

18. Riddle 

And here we have Riddle, the pinstripe ball python. He's a couple years old; we don't know his exact age. But, Riddle was taken in after he was dumped at a local pet store along with 17 others. 

19. Puzzle

Puzzle is our normal-patterned ball python. She's our big girl, and she was also taken in after she was abandoned by her previous owners. Puzzle was such a calm snake that she met her first audience just a couple weeks after we rescued her. 

The audience was a small gathering for a seven-year-old's birthday, and we asked the birthday girl for a name suggestion, and she came up with Puzzle, which was just the perfect fit. 

20+21. Titus and Yucca

Here's some reptiles that are not snakes or lizards. This is Titus, the red-footed tortoise, and this is Yucca, also a red-footed tortoise. These two are quite different in size and weight, and that's because Titus was improperly cared-for and malnourished for ten years before we rescued him. 

Yucca is two years younger, and since she's female, she should be smaller than Titus. We're hoping that with proper care and a good diet, Titus will catch up to Yucca in size and weight. 

These two are endlessly curious and love to go outside when the weather is warm.

22. Pearl

Pearl is our largest lizard. She's a Colombian black and white tegu. She's about 11 to 12 years old and full-grown. She's been with us since she was about a year old, and she was relinquished by her previous owner, because she bit him. 

Pearl was named after the beautiful white scales on her back. She enjoys taking walks, swimming in pools and eating scrambled eggs with banana. 

23. Daisy

And for our finale, our biggest reptile: this is Daisy, the red-tail boa, or more commonly known as a boa constrictor. Daisy may be huge, but she's a gentle giant. 

Some species of snakes grow up to 35 feet, like Burmese pythons. We don't have any of the gigantic snakes at Animal Wonders, but Daisy is impressive enough at nine-and-a-half feet.

We love bringing Daisy to schools, a nd having student volunteers help hold her, so we can show off her full length. She's a happy and healthy snake, and I'm glad we can give her a great home. 

And those are our reptiles! 

I hope you enjoyed meeting all 23 of our scaly friends currently at Animal Wonders. If you'd like to continue going on adventures with us, check out more of our videos on Animal Wonders Montana. 

If you wanna know more about one of the reptiles you saw in this video, I've put a bunch of links to the episodes on specific ones in the doobly-doo below. 

And don't forget to subscribe for new videos every week. Thanks, guys.