Raging reptiles: reptile education at Manassas Mall

It's your time. I don't know why. Just cut the mic. Here's the deal. One of the things I love about Good Day, it forces us outside of our personal comfort zones at some point. Maybe for you as well. Maybe you love reptiles. Maybe you just want to run away screaming. Maybe you don't understand them. That's the key. Raging Reptiles over at Manassas Mall is helping families get up close and learn about these often misunderstood animals. So joining us, reptile educators. This is Nick. This is Josh. Chloe is modeling someone right now, which actually looks like it could be a handbag, an accessory. We're going to talk about all these wonderful animals in just a minute. But first, I got to ask you guys, Nick and Josh, what is it that you do specifically? Is this educational? Is this we're teaching people that reptiles are not super scary? Yeah. So we do educational shows all around the DMV up and down the East Coast. We do birthday parties we go to schools uh our main goal is to just teach people uh that these guys are not scary they're not dangerous and they're animals and they deserve love too yeah absolutely now that that you are holding there uh josh what is that this is toothless he's our rhino iguana okay so what's the difference between a rhino iguana and a non-rhino iguana standard non-rhino iguana is going to be like your green iguana those are the guys that we hear about falling out of trees in south florida and they're living invasively in the everglades this guy's actually he's from the caribbean he's not going to be from central or south america like those green iguanas he's going to be in jamaica cuba hispanola puerto rico um yeah he's uh he's he's an island hopper all right so here's the deal we want to show him first because he gets a little feisty so why don't you do two things you can put him back to uh where he was resting comfortably before but also you guys all have animals and i feel like i need one do you have one maybe we've got something So I'm going to jump over here. Tell me what you're holding here next to Chloe. So this is Fela. He's our bearded dragon. He's about five years old. He's our little prospector. He's got a little Halloween costume on him. These guys make great pets. They can live for about 15 to 20 years. Desert creatures. Very beginner animals. And who is Chloe modeling? Oh, hello. We're going to introduce you to Petra. Hi, Petra. She is our Burmese python. These are also animals. You hear about them being invasive in the United States. This is incredible, okay. So we'll get back to you in one second, uh let's talk about that the invasiveness we do hear about that a lot right so yeah you know is do you encourage them as pets or not because sometimes when they do get released they you know well the misconception is that own lives these guys are living invasively in the Everglades because people get them as pets and then they release them into the wild um the truth is actually that uh the hurricanes that that pop up down there and in South Florida are responsible for um you know knocking over facilities and warehouses that house animals uh Hurricane Andrew in the 90s you know was responsible for releasing a lot of these guys into the wild Hurricane Katrina um was responsible for releasing a lot of these guys into the wild so let me let me ask you this real quick i don't mean to interrupt you but um i mean this with all respect because she's in control right now she's a big girl i know she's not fully grown, but how much does she weigh? She's about 60, 70 pounds right now. She feels it. She's still growing. She's only about eight or nine feet. These animals get, you know, upwards to 20 feet. Like this, this snake might get 16, 18 feet before she's done growing. Can't hold her then. And I'm getting an arm workout right now. I can tell you that. Okay. Sorry to keep you hanging. Who is Chloe modeling over here? This is Foxy, our boa constrictor. Newly named. We just named her in the green room. I like it. So she's a boa. How old is she and how big will she get? She's fairly young. I'd say she's probably about three to five years old. She can get probably up to, I'd say, eight feet long. Wow. And we have somebody else over here. We have a white snake, which is what in this box? This is our ball python right here. This is called a banana pie. Oh my gosh. Oh, different colors, but she's got a marking on her. So this carries two recessive genes in it, piebald. Right here. This is a workout. Thank you very much. Tell me all right she's a big girl yeah this is a beautiful snake here wow so let me with the snakes right if you're and we'll say petting them um what's the proper way to do it like do we have to do in a certain direction yeah so you want to go with the scales right you want to go from head to tail okay that's the smooth way just like that so i know they're not this is not like super furry like a puppy obviously with the scales but they're actually a lot softer than i thought they would be Do you think the same thing? I'm replacing my golden doodle. No, you're not. You're not. Never. But you can accessorize, though. So it's really very comforting and soft and cozy. People seem to think they're slimy and gross, but they're actually very pleasant and touchy. We're cuddling. We're fully cuddling. While Chloe cuddles, real quick, this is? This is Potato. Potato's a blue-tongued skink. These guys have that distinctive. Oh, he does have a blue tongue. Look at that. Yeah. We just got done eating a bag of Takis before we came on. That's like the color of my tie. Exactly. That's amazing. All right. So listen, the bottom line for the educational center that you have here, what message do you want to get across to people? We obviously want to keep people safe. You want to keep people happy. You want them to understand. But like we said, you also don't want people to get one of these and then just release them. Right. I find that the more you know about these animals, the better off you are. A lot of people seem to think that they're scary and weird. But the more you interact with them, the more you learn about them, the less alien they become, the more personable you kind of imagine them being. And if you think about getting these guys as a pet, just do your research. Learn as much as you can about them. Come talk to these guys is a good thing as well. Where do they find you if people want to come out to Raging Raccoons? We're in Manassas, Virginia. We're in the Manassas Mall right off of 234, exit 47 off the highway. The IHOP entrance by Billy Bees. Okay. Yeah. People can just stop in? Yeah, spend a day learning about animals, coming to meet them, touching them, holding them, experiencing them. They're ambassadors, so they're all pretty friendly. They understand that people mean them no harm, and they can be themselves around us. Usually when we have puppies, we want to take them home, Chloe. I think you might have a new addition to the family here. This is my reveal. I'm telling my family on live television. This is coming home with me today. And it doesn't hurt that the color is matching your outfit absolutely perfectly. We're meant to be. It's pretty good. Okay. All right. See what you can do. See if you can work a deal. Guys, thanks very much. Please stop by if you're out in Manassas and you can learn a lot more. The one person who is not here is Jacqueline. For some reason, staying as far away from this part of the studio as possible.