I started to get back into "herping" in the middle 1960's. One of the first animals I acquired was a rather ailing young iguana. I bought it from a pet store where it was being kept in a dark area and showed symptoms of respitory problems as well as having a broken tail. Purchase price, one dollar. I took it home and set up a large piece of driftwood in front of a window that admitted sun all day. That was to be its home. It never was caged. I then force fed it a 1/4 of a hundred milligram multivit pill. I did this daily for about week. One day the iguana descended from its perch and ate my wife's flower arrangement. There were no more feeding problems after that. The lizard ate out of a bowl in the kitchen, leafy greens and cut up summer squash. It began to grow and its tail started to regenerate. It even became "paper trained'. Sort of like having a long green cat. We had her for several years and she moved twice with us.

My wife and I moved to a two bedroom apartment and I began to become more deeply involved in herping. I discovered a store called "Hermosa Reptile" located in Hermosa Beach, California. It was the first reptile specialty store I had encountered back then. In those days pretty much everything was wild caught with the exception of turtles. You could also buy indigenous species over the counter. Hermosa Reptile imported from all over the world and reptiles were not the only type of animals. They were a major supplier for several zoos and sold wholesale to other pet stores. I bought lizards from Central & South America as well as my first poison arrow frogs from them. It was the first place where I found day geckos for sale. I made friends with a young black leopard at that store. The store also bought rattlesnakes to sell to collectors in Europe so one could do some trading. Did I mention they carried "hots"?

During this period I also became a member of Southwestern Herpetologists Society which at that time was located in Orange County, California. Most of the members were young and it was like attending a reptile swap meet. Not a whole lot of money exchange, but lots and lots of trading. My collection of indigenous lizards expanded hugely, many that I'd never seen before outside of a book. A few months later I became president of the society and one of the young members of our governing board was years later to become curator of mammals for the Los Angeles Zoo. Speaking of trading at that location I remember one evening when the owners of Hermosa Reptile showed up and traded even across juvenile boa constrictors for Calif. kingsnakes.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free.