Reptile & Amphibian Forums

There is a new episode that premieres tonight on the Discovery Channel for Dirty Jobs. It's entitled "Texas Snake Farm."

8pm central time, check your listings.

Greg

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to check that out. I saw last weeks episode of Dirty Jobs, and they had a segment on Kristin Stanford (Ohio State University)and some of her research projects pertaining to the Lake Erie water snake. A must see if you haven't checked it out already.
Steve

>>There is a new episode that premieres tonight on the Discovery Channel for Dirty Jobs. It's entitled "Texas Snake Farm."

8pm central time, check your listings.
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SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

Caught the show just in time to see the part where they are cleaning out the gator pool. Mike seemed pretty put off by the big male gator. Guess I can't blame him. Anybody else notice there was a croc in the tank? It was the only one to snap (besides the turtles).

Saw the Erie Watersnake episode too - great suff. Now there's a woman!

John D

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I am so not lesdysxic!

0.1 Creamsicle Cornsake "Yolanda"
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake "Steely Dan"
0.1 Desert Kingsnake "FATTY"
0.1 Black Rat "Roberta" RELEASED!!!

That Lake Erie episode is hands down my wife's favorite episode ever, and we watch damn near all of 'em. She cant stop laughing when Mike gets bit. Sorry Mike!!

I saw the entire snake farm episode too. It was a bit campy, and I dont know if all the bite pressure facts were accurate**, but overall it was good exposure for us herp folks. Makes me want a snake pit in my house, but with waaaay fewer snakes in it.

The show started out with the caretakers/owners holding a piebald ball python, and one of those other expensive color morphs I'm not attracted to. Caramel butterscotch something.
The three retics were cool too. A normal, an albino, and a tiger.

** Gators have 3000lbs/sq inch bite pressure. They have the highest rating in all the...world? I think he said.
Alligator snappers have 1500lbs/sq inch and are the #2 strongest biters in the world?

If he said the US, then I could agree with it, but I think he might have said world, because I remember thinking "Where did he get THAT info from? What about hyenas and sharks?"

Maybe he said strongest bite of all the REPTILES in the world.... that must have been it.

The gator pool bit was kinda neat, and kinda gross at the same time.

I really like Dirty Jobs and wish I could drum up something for Mike to come and do. He seems like a cool guy to hang out with.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

>>** Gators have 3000lbs/sq inch bite pressure. They have the highest rating in all the...world? I think he said.
>>Alligator snappers have 1500lbs/sq inch and are the #2 strongest biters in the world?
>>
>>If he said the US, then I could agree with it, but I think he might have said world, because I remember thinking "Where did he get THAT info from? What about hyenas and sharks?"
>>
>>Maybe he said strongest bite of all the REPTILES in the world.... that must have been it.

Dr. Brady Barr did a show that measured bite pressures from various famous biters, including a pit bull, lion, hyena, great white, aligator snapper, and a nile croc (it may have been an aligator)...

The results were fascinating - I think the pit was around 275 psi, the shark and lion in the 300's, the hyena was in the 600's, the aligator snapper was 1000 (not 1500) and the croc was over 1900 lbs.

I've heard several times that gators have the strongest bite - at around 2000 psi, but not 3000. And thats not just reptiles or the US, thats the highest bite pressure ever measured, period. And the guy on the show was way off about T. rex - the paleo-guys think Mr. T had a bite force upwards of 20,000 psi - that's 10 tons of bite force.

Cheers,

John D
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I am so not lesdysxic!

0.1 Creamsicle Cornsake "Yolanda"
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake "Steely Dan"
0.1 Desert Kingsnake "FATTY"
0.1 Black Rat "Roberta" RELEASED!!!