Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  They crawled and slithered, flicked their tongues, and stared at the children who stared back at them, either in awe, fear, or giggles. At first the kids were silent as the Dumerils Ground Boa wrapped itself around Karen Green’s neck and then slid alongside her neck, reaching its head toward the string of lights hanging from the ceiling.

Once the children realized Green was not in life-threatening danger of being strangled, they laughed and laughed at the sight of a snake on a woman’s head. Karen Green is the executive director of the Zoological Discovery Center, A Hands-on Approach to Wildlife Conservation.

Being wrapped up in a boa is an everyday occurrence for Green, who brought her reptilian menagerie to the Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center. She had a huge audience who were engaged in her stories from the first, which was Cody, a 15-year-old Tiger Salamander.

Cody had been rescued from a parking lot where his friend had been run over by a car. Green instructed the kids to wash their hands before and after handling the reptiles, for everybody’s health.

The next exhibit was Leroy, a beer-bellied North American Bullfrog who emits an enormous bass croak and can hear other critters from a quarter mile away. Although bullfrogs don’t actually belong in Colorado (nor are they reptiles – they are amphibians), fishermen have used them for bait; and after all, said Green, “It only takes two to make 1,000. Anything that fits in the mouth, goes in the mouth and sometimes it is each other.” You can tell a male bullfrog by the circles behind its ears.

Maybell, the Box Turtle, spends her life on land but can swim like a turtle.

The Western Hog-nosed Snake has a nose like a shovel and digs up box turtle eggs. When Green showed the children the Bull Snake, she told them he had just eaten—three mice and three rats—thus the bulge in his belly.

Corn snakes were brought to eat the mice in the corn storage bins.

And then Green brought out Professor Quigley, a Blue-Tongue Skink native to Australia. When Green stroked his nose, out came the lilac blue tongue. She said that when the lizard is in danger, he lets his tail fall off and wiggle around, distracting the predator.

The last cool living exhibit was the red-footed tortoise with the fancy, bright patterned shell. As it wandered randomly around the room, it was carefully petted, a rock star in their midst.

After meeting all of the reptiles, everyone had a chance to touch most of them.

The Zoological Discovery Center is a hands-on approach to wildlife conservation and education. In the most recent post on its website, it was reported that two species of venomous frogs have been discovered in Brazil. They are poisonous amphibians, which means they secrete the toxins onto their skin, but these guys have horns to inject the toxin. ZDC says, “That’s cool!”

The Center also says that you should want bats in your house and you can learn how to invite them.