• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

What herps have bitten you?

I've been bitten by every animal under the sun, but the worst reptile bites I've had were: green iguana (adult, defensive, worst bite ever), tokay (adult, defensive), ackie (adult, defensive, multiple times), bearded dragon (adult, sick animal resisting being medicated), common snapper (pretty big one, mistaken feeding strike). All of these bites caused a lot of bleeding but no stitches needed. I have also been bitten by large boa constrictors two times. Once was on the forearm, when I was taking newly born babies away from Mom. The other was a mistaken feeding strike on the wrist. That one didn't bleed much but left part of my hand numb for a few weeks. I've actually gotten a few mistaken feeding strikes from that same animal.

All of these bites could have been avoided if I had been on my A-game. But I've worked with animals for about 17 years, so I'm bound to have made some mistakes.
 
27 years of reptile keeping, and not as many bites as you might expect...

Blue tailed skink when I was a kid (took exception to being caught)
Adult male green iguana (my finger in lieu of the fruit I was holding)
3 or 4 different Colombian redtail boas (one in front of a potential buyer at a reptile show...he didn’t purchase her lol)
13’ burmese python (totally my fault for just reaching in and grabbing her rather than using the hook first)
Soloman Island ground boa (wild caught female, never could tame her, nailed me every time I opened the cage)
Colombian rainbow boa (started chewing on my arm when he was around my neck as I cleaned his cage)

I’ll take any of the snake bites (including the burm) over the hamsters, mice, & rats as well as the cats and dogs during my rescue/foster home days.
 
I've been bitten by just about every animal with teeth (and a few without,) but by far the animal that bites me most in my life is my Sand Boa... which is mostly just amusing because she's harmless. She's just an incredibly fussy, defensive animal at the best of times, but it's a lot a fun to work with her because of that. My Dumeril's boa can be head-shy and nippy when startled, too, and the first night I bought my CRB home as a neonate, she bit me 25 times in the minute between taking her out of the box and putting her into the bin. (She's tamed down since then, thankfully.)

But I'm with the people who've posted before me- I'd rather my retic bite me than some of the dogs I've worked with over the years at the shelter... or the hamster I took in. That thing's got me through welding gloves before.
 
As for herps, the only non-snake bite I've ever received was a juvenile 5 lined skink. It's not like that's a serious bite... lol

I've been tagged by rainbow boas, common boas, kings, garters, rat snakes, and one blood python. None of those were anything to write home about.

As for feeding bites, I've been lucky. I've only had 2 of those as of yet (one of my wife's cali kings tried to eat MY pinky instead of his a couple times, lol).

I'd rather be bitten my any of the herps I've ever kept than be attacked by a German Shepherd again. Granted I was only like 9, but that one was bad... My clearest memories from that were actually me being upset about not being able to watch them put 25 stitches into my scalp at the hospital and the fact that my dad had to go help convince another father in the next room that his son wasn't going to die after being bitten by a "copperhead" (which was actually a juvenile black rat snake...). Pretty bad when that kid's father was freaking out over that bite in the next room while we were calmly getting me stitched up from something that could easily have been fatal.

Come to think of it, I did get fairly upset that guy killed a black rat snake because of his ignorance. It was around that time that I was known to run up to visitors at our house excitedly trying to show them a garter, eastern milk, or black rat that I had just caught in our yard...
 
I’ve been bitten by:
Fire Skink
Asian Water Monitor
Nile Monitor
Created Gecko
Beardie
Alligator
Leopard Gecko
Green Anaconda
Yellow Anaconda
African Rock
Red Eared Slider
Veiled Chameleon
Colombian Boa
Almost by Frilled Lizard
B&W Argentine Tegu
Anole
Chinese Water Dragon
 
Been doing this over 35 years been bit by a ton of different non venomous snakes lizards and even frogs. Was bitten dry bitten by a Black Forest Cobra and had a puff adder hit me with his head but not his mouth
 
I've just gotten back into herps at the age of 60 after a childhood of keeping herps in Nevada, New York, and Florida. Worst bite I got was when I was 11 and caught a 4 foot long Eastern Garter snake. It lacerated my hand until it was completely bloody and than proceeded to regurgitate a Southern toad.
 
Added to the list of things I’ve been bitten by:

Idk if this counts in here but I just got stung by my desert hairy and African burrowing scorpions lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I got a cumingi (water monitor) yesterday. Most expensive non-dog pet I’ve ever bought. It just slashed open (aggressively bit) my hand. Deeeeeeep cuts. Three massive slashes in my hand now. So that was fun. Fml lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I’ve been bitten by:
Fire Skink
Asian Water Monitor
Nile Monitor
Created Gecko
Beardie
Alligator
Leopard Gecko
Green Anaconda
Yellow Anaconda
African Rock
Red Eared Slider
Veiled Chameleon
Colombian Boa
Almost by Frilled Lizard
B&W Argentine Tegu
Anole
Chinese Water Dragon



Adding:
Bosc Monitor
Almost got hit by my Western Diamondback
Carpet Chameleon
White Throat Latches


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top