Good thing for plexiglass. Thick plexiglass.
Because the Eastern green mamba was looking anything but warm and fuzzy.
It’s a snake. It’s a deadly snake.
Same with its buddy, the Gaboon viper, which was in the same enclosure at a new exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Opening on Saturday, it’s aptly called, “Lizards & Snakes: Alive!”
Yep.
They’re alive all right.
The snakes slither. They coil. They do that thing with their tongues. Voldemort would love it here.
Indiana Jones, not so much.
“They’re visually stunning,” said Brad Hollingsworth, the museum’s curator of herpetology.
The red spitting cobra? It’s an amazing creature. It spits venom at anybody who comes too close. It’s pretty good at it. According to the exhibit, in one experiment, a snake hit the goggle-covered eyes of a researcher 10 time straight.
As said, good thing for plexiglass…
This is the first time the exhibit has been on the West Coast. The American Museum of Natural History in New York organized it three years ago with help from this museum.
It features more than 60 creatures from throughout the world.
The museum doesn’t think it will be a blockbuster draw on par with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which dramatically bumped attendance a few years ago. But the museum could always use help and new exhibits don’t hurt.
The Balboa Park museum laid off 10 percent of its workforce in a restructuring move in late summer. The sour economy also played a role in the downsizing.
Snakes and lizards do have their following, no question. “Many people today have snakes as pets,” Hollingsworth noted.
The exhibit is unique because it allows for people to experience snakes and lizards in an “intimate setting,” he said.
(Just need candlelight…)
There’s also a significant focus on education, he added. All the enclosures include a number of facts and features about each reptile.
For instance, the Gila monster while “shy and beautiful” is also highly venomous.
Um, good thing for plexiglass…
Keaton Massie is responsible for the care of the creatures. He’s an employee with the Pennsylvania-based Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland, which provides the snakes and lizards.
He swears he’s never lost one.
He uses a snake hook to get them out of the enclosures when it’s cleaning time. That keeps them a few feet away from him. He then puts them in a covered can.
He swears he’s never been bitten.
Dinnertime? Well, that depends on the snake. The Burmese python, for instance, gets fed every two to three weeks. She enjoys a thawed frozen rabbit.
None of the snakes get live food. Live food, such as rats, fight back. They could injure the snakes, all of which are captive born, Massie said.
The exhibit will remain on view until April of next year. It’s included in the price of admission, which ranges between $11 and $17.
And even people who are a little gun-shy when it comes to snakes say they might be enticed to check it out.
Take Julia Gulliver, 14 and Dani Jo Cooney, 15, both of Escondido. Students at High Tech High, they were at the museum on Friday.
“It sounds cool,” Gulliver said of the exhibit.
“It’d be neat,” Cooney added.
As long as there is plexiglass between them, of course.