4th Annual Live Amphibian and Reptile Expo : Creepy, Crawly Things Invade Santa Monica

Creeping, crawling, slithering, sliding creatures of the sort you don’t want to meet in your dreams--some scaly, some slimy, some with fangs, horns and claws--on Sunday entranced hundreds of warm-blooded bipeds in Santa Monica.

Three-year-old Chuck Orliff of Santa Monica jumped up and down when he saw table after table with glass cages full of snakes.

“I only like poisonous snakes,” he announced, as he tried to outstare a nonpoisonous Coastal Rosy Boa, whose habitat is Southern California.

The youngster’s enthusiasm was shared by many at the fourth annual Live Amphibian and Reptile Expo, where a fast-selling bumper sticker read “I Brake for Snakes.”

“I love reptiles. There is something about them,” Manuel Vega, a musician, mused.

“People think they are dumb but they are not. They know what is going on. They mind their own business.”

Bob Finch, president of the Southwestern Herpetologists Society, sponsor of the exhibition, explained that reptiles have an important place in ecology. Snakes keep the rodent population down. Lizards eat insects. The society has about 200 members.

Members were occupied Sunday explaining about the care and feeding of reptiles to skeptical parents under pressure from pants-tugging children. But the meeting also attracted a number for whom keeping reptiles is more a way of life than simply caring for a pet.

John Nagel flew in from Hawaii just for the expo.

“It is one of the luxuries I can afford,” he explained. Keeping snakes as pets is outlawed in Hawaii, but turtles are permitted, Nagel said. He has 100.

Making an Inventory

Martin Feldner, 12, of Van Nuys, a student at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, was carefully making an inventory of the animals on exhibit.

“Mostly, I have lizards. I got about 50 to 60 lizards. My mom doesn’t like the snake too much but she doesn’t mind the lizards,” he said. He keeps them all in his room except for the tortoise. That stays outside.

Toni Caliva, 27, moved into her own house in Venice eight years ago and has since been indulging her childhood fascination with reptiles.

How many reptiles does she have?

Some ‘More Obsessive’

“I really don’t have a count,” she said. “Maybe about 40. There are a lot of people here that are more obsessive than me.” Her boyfriend “was a little amazed at first and then he learned to accept.” But even so, his tolerance would occasionally wear thin.

“Don’t bring another animal into the house,” he would order.

It was useless.

“I would sneak another turtle in,” she confided.