Reptiles Will Be the Cool Stars of the Show

“Eeeuuuww, snakes!”

That must be an adult talking, because kids react differently.

“Wow, snakes!” they usually say. And kids also like to reach out to touch the creatures.

This weekend in North Hollywood, kids will have abundant opportunities to do just that--at the Southwest Herpetologists Society’s 15th Annual Live Reptile and Amphibian Exhibit. It runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the North Hollywood Recreation Center.

“We have the snakes out so people can touch,” said exhibit organizer John Holmes. “Rarely are the kids stand-offish, but parents are.”

Holmes is a serious man with a serious purpose--teaching respect for one of creation’s most-reviled creatures and for its relatives. Nevertheless, he sounded almost Barnumesque in his appeal to families to “come to our show.”

Snakes will be on display as well as a wide variety of frogs, salamanders, turtles and lizards, including the show’s star attraction “Aristotle,” a 5-foot-long green iguana. This behemoth is the poster boy of the herpetological press--with full-page pictures in the movement’s latest magazine and his likeness on the cover of a recent CD-ROM computer program.

The North Hollywood group is California’s largest herpetological society and this annual event, they claim, is the oldest reptile and amphibian show “under one roof” in the United States.

It’s an educational, rather than a sales event. “We’ll tell you what the pet stores don’t want you to know,” said Holmes. “Some species have very special requirements that would botch a lot of sales if they were known. You don’t want to own one of them unless you know those requirements.” (Is this a veiled reference to some animal’s taste for poodle flesh?)

In a nice bit of scientific showmanship, and pursuant to the society’s goal of showing visitors “the place of reptiles and amphibians in the natural world,” the display is roughly divided into the geographical regions from which the animals originate: Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia/Oceania, South America, North America and California.

And, as kids pass from one “continent” to another, they can have get a little stamp in the “passport” that visitors are issued at the door.

This exhibit isn’t the only public activity of the society. Visitors are encouraged to attend the monthly show-and-tell meetings on the first Wednesday of each month at the same site as the exhibit. There are newsletters and journals and occasional presentations by members at local parks and schools.

Last spring, on none other than St. Patrick’s Day--when the lowly creatures were said to be driven out of Ireland--speakers from the society were featured at Placerita Canyon Nature Center’s Reptile Festival in Newhall.

“They are always very informative,” Frank Hoffman, recreation leader at the nature center, said of the society’s speakers. He went on to explain the choice of the date for their presentation: “We’re a bunch of comedians up here.”

But seriously, folks, the center also holds an animal show with reptiles and other native animals every Saturday afternoon to explain what should be done if one such creature turns up in your backyard.

His main point--and this will be stressed at this weekend’s North Hollywood event--is that it is illegal to sell California native animals. Period. “When you and I buy pets in the store, they are not native. When you find something [reptilian] prowling in your backyard, call your local animal control officer or the California Department of Fish and Game to come deal with it.”

DETAILS

* LIVE EXHIBIT: The Southwestern Herpetologists Society’s 15th annual Live Reptile and Amphibian Exhibit will be from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at North Hollywood Recreational Center, 11430 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood. Kids under 5, free; 6-13, $2; adults, $5; For information, call (818) 764-6124 or (818) 367-0864

* ANIMAL SHOW: At Placerita Canyon Nature Center, 1 p.m. every Saturday featuring snakes, tortoises, tarantulas. 19152 Placerita Canyon Road, Newhall; (805) 259-7721.