A blog? In 2026?

A blog? In 2026? 

Yes.  Unlike YouTube, Facebook and (very likely; we’ll see soon enough) so-called “AI”, blogs have shown themselves to be fairly harmless as far as technological tools go.  

Short, of course, for ‘weblog’, which Wikipedia tells us was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997, this nearly 30 year history of no noticeable negative societal impact makes this a pretty safe bet.  Although, Wikipedia also reminds us that tetraethyl lead was first added to auto fuel in the early 1920s and wasn’t effectively recognized as the catastrophe that it is for about 50 years.  So perhaps comfort with this bit of technology is premature.  

But until we figure this out for sure, I’ll offer here short and rough outlines of my thoughts about herpetoculture, and probably about other issues too.  

Today I’m thinking about the common question “What herp should I put in this enclosure that I have?”  This is often, though not always, asked by someone new to herpetoculture.  It usually comes as something of an initial idea search — hoping to elicit a list of candidate species that will “fit” in the enclosure at hand.  

It is a bit like standing in front of the refrigerator, knowing that you’re hungry but not knowing what you’re hungry for.  Once you find that thing, though (cheese, right?), if someone asks why you’re eating cheese, you can say ‘because I was hungry, and cheese fills me up’.

It is also a bit like sitting around with the family and everyone is a bit bored, and so you suggest a game and someone makes a motion that you all play Uno.  Then if someone asks why you’re playing Uno, you can say ‘because we were bored, and Uno is good when you’re bored’.

So, when someone asks why you have a tortoise in an old aquarium, you can say, ‘because I had this old aquarium, and something needed to fill it’.   And the thing about tortoises is, you can give that answer for the rest of your life, since that tortoise will, ideally, outlive you.

Everyone will have different answers to whether cheese is good for filling a vague hunger, or Uno is good for staving off boredom.  I think, though, that a tortoise — or any other herp — has value over and above just filling an old aquarium.  

And I also think it is possible to tell something about a keeper by the factors that play a role in their choice of what herp to keep — perhaps the species is intellectually engaging, or has a friendly community of keepers associated with it, or is beautiful beyond compare, or is just a cute ray of sunshine in a sometimes dark world.  You can tell a bit if the keeper leans toward the intellectual, or is outgoing and friendly, or is aesthetically appreciative, or is hopeful.

All of those factors, and the implication about the keeper, are of different sorts than the idea that ‘it fits in the cage I already had’.  I think that’s important for our animals, and for us.