Paul Szmal: Wildlife rock stars are in the house. James and Steve are here today. Morning guys. What's happening?
Guest: Good morning, morning, and we have our special guest in the studio with us now Normally Sarah gives me a heads up as to what's coming in didn't get that today and I'm very pleasantly surprised to find out that we have He's kind of like a cross between a dragon and an overgrown lizard. So who's our guest today? This is Keys. She's a black and white Argentine tegu.
Paul Szmal: A tegu. So is that from the lizard family?
Guest: Yes. Yeah, they are a large lizard. Yeah big enough that it takes almost two arms to hold and And Wow, she's got a wider tongue than I expected with the Two, I don't want to say prongs, but like the forks.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Thank you And she's very docile.
Guest: Oh, yeah right now. Yeah She loves being handled but she'll let you know when she's had enough.
Paul Szmal: Ah, okay. Okay so she is I want to say like an off-white and brown color So does she come from like a more arid desert type environment or she's just from all over in Argentina
Guest: A little bit of low grasslands sometimes getting into the forest.
Paul Szmal: Oh, okay I can imagine though with that coloring and being down on the ground covered by grass That's an excellent way to hide and hunt food.
Guest: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah, so how much does she weigh? She only weighs about 10 pounds. It looks big. She looks big, but yeah, pretty light Yeah, and she's got the the four-toed feet. I Am counting that right actually Real small one. I was gonna say. Yeah. Well what we would refer to is like that thumb is pretty well pretty well hidden So what what does keys eat? So she's actually an omnivore. She'll eat all sorts of different things. Their favorite is definitely protein So they love getting chicken and other kind of food in the wild They would eat, you know anything they could get their mouths around But they'll also eat an assortment of different vegetables and there they actually have a sweet tooth if you would believe it They love honey. So that's one of their favorite foods They actually their scales are thick enough that they can't get stung very easily So they'll raid an entire hive when they get the chance.
Paul Szmal: No kidding. That's pretty awesome So I because they're an omnivore and they'll eat just about anything. Are they considered a scavenger type animal or a
Guest: Little bit. Yeah, I would say if if they're coming across things They'll probably try to take what they can out of it, but there are also pretty good hunters as well
Paul Szmal: Hmm, they're they're a jack-of-all-trades. They'll graze. They'll hunt. They'll scavenge Wow. That's pretty impressive And yeah now what is the body feel like? It's kind of beaded.
Guest: Mm-hmm. Not not rough not slimy, right?
Paul Szmal: Right, but those scales that type of scale structure is Protective against other predator. What would hunt one of these tegus?
Guest: It could be large birds Big cats, maybe some foxes or wolves Sometimes other tegus will fight with each other whether that's over a meal territory or a mate Typically the males which keys is a female here and you can kind of tell that she has some smaller jaw muscles
Paul Szmal: Mm-hmm. The males have a lot thicker jaw muscles called their jowls and that Helps them with their bite force, but also helps kind of protect their neck area from other male tegus I'm trying to see her eyes and Oh, there we go There we go. So yeah, it doesn't look like are her eyes like open wide or
Guest: This one she might be covering up, but oh, there we go. Okay She has rounded pupils. So they're not slitted like right the reptiles right and a very long tail
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's got to be That's at least what of maybe 16 inches Something like that more than that.
Guest: Yeah over 12. Wow, okay Now she now she's getting frisky and she wants to move around. She likes to climb.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so it's oh, there we go So that long tail they'll use defensively as well. They can engage in pretty strong tail whips and they'll spin it around I could yeah, I can imagine that's gonna hurt a smaller animal
Guest: Oh, it'll hurt your leg too if she's upset, but generally she doesn't get that. Oh, yeah She just when they spend it a little bit Yeah, when James picked her up she whacked her tail and I heard the thud against the wall I would not want to be a small animal in the way of that would be kind of like getting whacked with a baseball bat Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. What's the life expectancy for a tegu in the wild? They can live up to 20 years in captivity. They can live even longer with good quality care
Paul Szmal: Yeah, well, she obviously gets good quality care with with you guys at the wildlife rock stars we do our best she's down on the floor and just kind of Kind of sussing out the situation Kind of looking around a little bit.
Guest: Yeah, so Tegus are actually one of the most intelligent reptiles So she's very curious and will oftentimes want to explore new environments.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Well, there's plenty for her to explore here. So She's just kind of sitting right now though and just kind of figuring out where she is She's gonna be a hit presentation-wise.
Guest: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah Her and Clifford is the male tegu we have back at the sanctuary.
Paul Szmal: Oh, they're both big heads So we have male and female counterparts.
Guest: Awesome. Clifford is a little different So you can see where she's kind of black on her body Paul Clifford is white and where she's white He's black. So oh they're kind of inverse colors
Paul Szmal: Yeah, same species kind of like Yin and Yang
Guest: So she's actually a pretty rare coloration only about one in ten are born with that and Oftentimes that color turns a bluish as they age. So they are called blue tegus.
Paul Szmal: Oh Interesting interesting. All right. I want to talk about some presentations Namely you guys are gonna be at the Ontario County Fair.
Guest: Yes, so we were there yesterday and Tuesday night We'll be there again tonight and then tomorrow. So tonight we'll be there from 4 to 6 30 Tomorrow from 12 to 2 30. We're in the Merchant Isle building And if you come either of those days, you'll get to see Steve and maybe keys face-to-face nice
Paul Szmal: Very nice and I reference this I think the last time you guys were in the house The stuff the bus event is coming up here. Not too far away. Just a couple of weeks.
Guest: Mm-hmm Yeah, so that'll be at Country max and is that Farmington
Paul Szmal: Farmington, sorry Farmington country max.
Guest: Yeah. Mm-hmm Saturday, August 8th from 11 in the morning until 2.30 in the afternoon and You'll have actually a specific wish list
Paul Szmal: Yes, so we tend to get a majority of our supplies from country max So there are many things there that if you were to want to purchase as a donation for us All would be beneficial for all of our animals and would be a huge help
Guest: Yeah and country max is a great place to get feed and various things because a lot of the stuff that they have available you guys Adapt for these animals basic diets.
Paul Szmal: Mm-hmm. Yeah, just kind of act as a Substitute for what they would get in the wild like you were talking about chicken. I don't think I don't think a tegu does much chicken hunting But lean protein.
Guest: Yeah, but you know getting chicken. It's kind of like buffets open.
Paul Szmal: Mm-hmm. So great great alright, so What happens? After the end of the summer. Do you guys actually slowed down at any point in the year?
Guest: In previous years it would slow down for us as we're kind of getting our name out more We are booking a little bit more presentations throughout the year But once summer kind of ends then we get back to going to more schools and doing in in school presentations So we always try to stay busy But that also gives us a little bit more time to focus on our expansion and take care of our animals as well
Paul Szmal: Now if people are headed down to the Ontario County Fair and they check out the presentations over in the Mercantile building today or tomorrow What can they expect to see?
Guest: So that kind of depends on the day We see how the animals attitudes and how they're doing and we pick the ones that are really excited to be going out So, okay, we'll probably see keys. She'll definitely be one to be going out and depends on temperature, too So we don't like to bring you know Animals that don't like the heat when it's real sunny and hot but a lot of our reptiles do love getting out in the summer
Paul Szmal: Yeah, she's kind of gravitating towards it. There's like one little Sunbeam and she's kind of like gravitated towards that right now I wouldn't be so wouldn't be at all surprised if we let her sit there for a couple of minutes That she wound up just finding that Sunbeam and acting like a cat in a window
Guest: Absolutely, and and just laying out and chilling like oh, this is this is good.
Paul Szmal: So, all right guys. I appreciate it very much and well you might see keys at the Ontario County Fair later today or Tomorrow or you might see keys at one of the other presentations that are going on and don't forget that stuff The bus event is August 8th. That's at the country max in Farmington starts at 11 and runs until 2 30. All right. We'll talk to you guys next month.
Guest: Thanks Ben Thank you. Thank you.
Paul Szmal: All right
