Arizona Herpetological Society, January 21, 2012

A photo was on display in the classroom of what can happen when bitten by a venomous snake. This image was of a bit finger on day six. Fortunately and amazingly this person's finger healed with medical treatment but obviously was never the same.

Here are sheded snake skins removed while cleaning the snakes' enclosures.

Nate is preparing the king cobra's meal.....dead rats sewn together with a piece of flesh from a dead snake at one end. King cobras normally eat other snakes so the smell of snake makes the meal more appealing.

I'm not normally interested in seeing things like this...I find them upsetting, frankly. But I must have been under this king cobra's spell from staring at it too long, because I just had to photograph its behavior as it got around to having its meal....remember the rats were not alive. I don't think I'll be putting this type of image on my site again any time soon.

And there were other animals besides snakes at the herpetological society.

Word to the wise, not all "smiling" faces are friendly. Here is a little belly biter.....someone lost their perspective of what they were handling. It's a baby Nile crocodile. It demonstrated just how quick a little guy like this can respond.

Less ominous animals like tortoises were not far way.  The children who attended found the real fun here.

And are these tortoises well fed! The above are from Africa, the ones below are Galapagos.

Good by for now......happy travels.