Reptiles Are Abhorrent? Not to this troper.

They are cute. I actually prefer them to geckos. And, you can find some true gems in that line of lizard, as it is. ^_^

Let's just say I trust an animal handler not to give a six year old kid a venomous snake. It also was the right size to wrap itself around just my forearm. Don't know that I'd have been as comfortable with a big one around my neck.

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

I love reptiles, especially snakes. Snakes are beautiful. I usually find garter snakes in my yard a few times each summer, carefully handle/pet/hang out with them for a while and let them go. If you stay calm and gentle, the snake stays calm and gentle too. A few times I've even been able to get a snake to sun itself on my lap without needing to hold it. It didn't feel I was a threat, so it didn't try to escape.

I like all sorts of "creepy" animals - spiders, snakes, scorpions.

Except cockroaches.

Fear is a superpower.

Generally neutral on snakes, but spiders are fucking metal. I think I might get myself a tarantula. I hear they're pretty low-maintainence, and she'd keep the parents out of my room.

Direct all enquiries to Jamie B Good

Indeed they are. Tarantulas are pretty much ornaments that bite if you threaten them, instead of pets as most people are used to.

edited 15th Sep '13 5:04:08 PM by peryton

Reptiles are actually pretty harmless. Sure, you got your venomous snakes, your alligators, your crocodiles, but the vast majority of reptiles are more scared of you then you are of them. Heck, depending on where you live, the only reptile capable of harming you is a snapping turtle.

I mean, it's not like we live in the Cretacious period or anything.

The most dangerous reptile where I live is the occasional rattlesnake, but they aren't common. I've never actually seen one.

Fear is a superpower.

Monitor lizards would like a word. Even the medium-sized ones that aren't much like their big cousins the Komodo dragons pack a wallop. And, you really don't want to be bitten by them.

Not exactly reptile, but there is a species of salamander that resembles small crocodile, and has temper of the big one. It won't kill you, but it is not recommended to stick fingers near its jaw.

My President is Funny Valentine.

You mean the Hellbenders? They are hideous in all of the best ways.

Smile for me!

True, but the ratio of reptiles that can harm you to those that can't is largely on the harmless side.

Fear is a superpower.

"I mean, it's not like we live in the Cretacious period or anything."

Even back then, it depends on what you describe as a "reptile"*. In squamates, there were appearently few snakes, a variety of terrestrial anguimorph lizards (aka monitors +), and in the sea there were giant killer mosasaurs. Only the latter are certified to be deadly, though many extinct and modern anguimorphs are poisonous.

If you consider archosaurs to be reptiles, it's not just dinosaurs, but killer terrestrial crocodillians and giant azhdarchid pterosaurs as well. And, of crouse, there's many in between things like plesiosaurs and choristoderes and turtles.

• "Reptile" is not a natural term because it's paraphyletic: the only way it would be "proper" is if you consider birds to be reptiles.

edited 16th Sep '13 2:55:29 PM by peryton

Dinosaurs are more like birds than "proper" reptiles anyway. Some were even feathered.

My President is Funny Valentine.

A friend of mine thinks reptiles aren't even a natural clade. It's holdover from before proper taxonomy. Like "fish".

But if you think dinosaurs were reptiles (for some reason), then birds should definitely count as reptiles too. There's barely any difference between birds and other dinosaurs, they're just smaller and adapted to flight. Hardly warrants putting them into a completely different category, especially considering how varied dinosaurs were to begin with.

edited 16th Sep '13 4:32:59 PM by CassidyTheDevil

Speaking of which, there's a fun fact that dinosaur and bird feet scales are possibly actually modified feathers.

This is why people need to pay attention to scales. Squamate scales are nothing like crocodillian scales for staters, and it's suggested that the earliest reptiles had scale-less skin with keratinous "warts".

I've always liked reptiles. Also, have no idea why the stereotypical perception of them is as cold and slippery. They are at least as warm as their environment (which is often quite warm) and their scales often have a nice and rather pleasant rough texture.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

So, would anyone else simply love to see a Kawekaweau? It's the largest gecko, now sadly only existing as stuffed museum specimens.

Eat pasta!

Personally, I preffer the living odd reptile of New Zealand, the tuatara. The last living member of Sphenodontia, the most conservative living amniote, and yet extremely derived from it's ancestors (AKA the tuatara is about as similar to it's Mesozoic cousins as we are to lemurs), an animal that has such a slow metabolism that it takes a full hour to exhale and inhale, that has a weird tooth-beak encased in gum tissue, that has a freacking third eye, and that eats birds much larger than itsef.

A creature so weird even platypi think it's fucked up.

Trump delenda est

Reptiles (including birds) certainly aren't abhorrent, they are just as intellectually capable as most mammals (we are among the exceptions).

A lot of reptile behaviour, especially predatory reptile behaviour, falls into It Can Think.

The most recent one was of tool-using crocodilians...

EDIT: Scratch that. A python figured out how to open doors.

edited 5th Mar '15 6:18:18 PM by Bk-notburgerking

I have little to no opinion of snakes, since the only ones around here are rattlers, which you definitely want to avoid but are easy enough -to- avoid.

There used to be coral snakes and gilas around but they've pretty much all died out. The former I'm glad to see go and they can absolutely burn in hell and never return. The latter... it's absolutely heartbreaking. I love gilas.

Geckos are adorable; tree monitors are fuckin' -beautiful-. But on that note, I would probably find reptiles abhorrent if I'd been born in Southeast Asia like I wish I'd been =P

I remember one time about a year ago, I was walking back from the store, and a strange little green 'snake' crossed my path. It didn't move like a snake, though, and was coloured this beautiful black-green. I kinda smiled and nodded, and it kinda nodded back at me and we both went on our way. I was really lucky to even see one.

VALENTINE. Cease toIdor:eFLP0FRjWK78aXzVOwm)-‘;8

Coral snakes are a lot less likely to bite than gila monsters.....

Only if you're intent on -trying- to handle the venomous reptiles, instead of leave them alone. =P

VALENTINE. Cease toIdor:eFLP0FRjWK78aXzVOwm)-‘;8

I know. Neither of them are that likely to bite in any event, but the different being that coral snakes are too small to bite people effectively, while gila monsters aren't.

Wouldn't consider either dangerous even when provoked though.

To play the devil's advocate, if I understand correctly nearly all reptiles are basically devoid of empathy. That, in theory, might render them a tad abhorrent.

Still, Lizards are awesome.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"