17th January 2020

This blog entry is co-authored with Mia. Our day at Symbio Wildlife Park involved many reptiles in a reptile house, and a Reptile Extravaganza Show. Mia is fascinated by reptiles, especially snakes, so this was a great experience!

Australia has 20 of the 23 most venomous snakes in the world, and at Symbio we saw an inland taipan (photo 1), which is the most venomous snake in the world. But curiously, no-one has ever been killed by one – probably because they live in the remote outback. We also saw one of Mia’s favourite deadly snakes – the red-bellied black snake (photo 2). There are lots of these in New South Wales, especially wet, coastal areas. Do you know the difference between a venomous creature and a poisonous creature? Mia does. A venomous creature injects toxin into a victim, usually with their rear fangs; whereas a poisonous creature has to be eaten or touched for the toxin to get into a victim’s body. When she gets back from Australia, Mia is hoping to buy an albino western hognose snake as a pet. The hognose is mildly venomous because it has toxic saliva linked to a rear fang, but this is only strong enough to harm small amphibians: to humans, it is like a bee sting, with some itchiness and swelling. Other snakes also have toxic saliva, such as the False Water Cobra.

Some people are scared of spiders, but if you have a blue-tongued lizard (photo 3), there will be no problem for you – because spiders are a yummy and tasty treat for blue-tongues.

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The reptile house had several different pythons: an albino carpet python (photo 4); an olive python; a woma python, a black-headed python and a Burmese python.

All snakes have different ways of killing their prey – pythons use the constriction method. They wrap their body around their prey, and squeeze, until the animal is out of breath. Then they have dinner! Now you can watch a hilarious video of an olive python dancing – watch those moves!

The grand finale was at the Reptile Extravaganza Show when Mia was able to hold her favourite python, the Burmese python. Did you know the Burmese python can grow up to 23 feet and more! It was a cautious little Burmese python because it kept moving while we were holding it. Mia also had fun holding an American alligator. One of her favourite You-Tubers (Emily) rescued an American alligator, and this inspired Mia to want to hold an alligator – although the crocodilian family are her worst fear!

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