As luck would have it, I was able to schedule a family vacation to Florida at the same time as the the big Daytona reptile show. I've been to this show before (about five years ago) so I knew what to expect and overall this show like many of the other bigger reptile shows has turned into a very large ball python and boa morph fest.



Since this is the milk snake forum I'll say that Don Shores was there with some very nice reverse albino Hondurans and some very nice hypo and extremes. It was great to actually talk with him face-to-face for a few minutes. Other than that, the Honduran scene was pretty much limited an assortment of morphs thrown on tables from pet shop and massive multiple species dealers. There were actually more albino Nelsons milks than anything else from the milk world and a decent selection of Pueblans if that is your scene. I did not see one black milk on Sunday when I was there nor any Andeans which is pretty sad. There was a two-headed albino Honduran, I think on Ben Siegel's table. I remember Ben when he had his little shop in Ocala. Glad to see he's still around.



A couple of highlights, some not milksnake related:

I was pleasantly surprised to see blue-tongue skinks making a comeback at a show of this size and priced higher than previous years. I've always had a soft spot for these.



There were a ton of leopard geckos there and a lot of vendors marking them down by 50% on Sunday. Lots of crested and gargoyle geckos that seemed t have pretty stable prices and some really cool patterns. I did not see enough Leachianus geckos. I miss keeping these.



If you like pits I only saw one table (Peace River Herps) that had any real selection of bull and pines.



Arboreal alligator lizards for $1,200?! They are cool and unusual and I saw a lot of them at the show.



Scale-less corn snakes for $7,000?!!!! I'll admit they look really cool but $7K for a corn just seems really dumb given how much they can reproduce within two years.



Which brings me to my ball python rant. Over the years I've seen the number of vendors selling exclusively ball pythons grow at each show to the point where the marketing and selling and quite frankly the pyramid scheme behind this species is dominating our hobby. I know it may sound hypocritical for me to say this after breeding recessive morphs in colubrids for so long (remember the great race for the first triple-homozygous Honduran?) but how is this furthering the hobby and how is this nothing more than a money grab? I understand that for many this is a business and it makes business sense to breed balls if you can find enough people to pay those prices but I am flabbergasted that the market is not saturated. Or maybe it is and that $3,000 lemon zinger bee balm super ball you bought a year ago is now only worth $1,500 so you have to find a way to blend in some new morph to make back your original investment.

I used to like to go to reptile shows, when I was not selling, to see some of the stuff in person I could only see photos of on the Web or in magazines. Now? I was done after three hours in Daytona where in years past I might have spent eight hours there and still not felt I had seen enough.

On Sunday there was still a lot of selling going on which is great for vendors even if a lot of the sales I saw were pet shops owners buying up lots for eventual re-sale. If anyone else was there , please chime in with your observations.



Photos are of th two-headed hondo, the crazy scaleless corn and a crated sulcatta tortoise (which just looked too sad but maybe it was a good warning to anybody buying the cute hatchlings nearby for $60).



Thanks,



Rob Haneisen

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