DEEPTI HAJELA
Associated Press
NEW YORK - They slither and slide, crawl and glide - and fascinate (or
frighten) every inch of the way.
From
iguanas and geckos to pythons and milk snakes, a new exhibit looks at
the amazing diversity in the world of squamates - known simply to most of us
as lizards and snakes. "Lizards & Snakes: Alive!" opens Saturday at the
American Museum of Natural History.
The show, featuring around 60 live specimens from five different continents,
hopes to educate viewers about a part of the animal kingdom that's labored
under a bad reputation since biblical times. (Apple, anyone?)
"They're innately fascinating," said Darrel Frost, lead curator of the show.
"These things are so unlike us; they exist in a sensory milieu that we
really can't relate to. ... They're pretty exotic."
The first thing the show tries to make people understand is that snakes and
lizards aren't separate categories; snakes are actually a subset of lizards,
just minus the legs.
The show groups them in different ways, starting with
iguana-type lizards
that hunt during the day and use their vision to track down their prey. It
proceeds to snakes that use their tongues as sensors to "taste" the air
around them and sense what's in their environment.
Along the way, different sections of the show examine how squamates move,
how they sound, how they hunt. An interactive module allows viewers to
pretend to be a snake on the hunt for a mouse.
The stars of the show are the animals themselves. The exhibit revolves
around the numerous glass cases containing re-created habitats, providing a
close-up view of squamates from around the world. Each case displays
information not only on the squamate inside, but also on its relatives and
its place of origin.
There's the Rhinoceros
Iguana that opens the show, a lettuce-eater that
seems to spend most of its time staying absolutely still.
There's also the Frilled Lizard, with a thin fold of neck skin that rises up
like a collar; it served as the inspiration for one of the dinosaurs in the
movie "Jurassic Park."
Viewers will also see chameleons, which can look in two directions at once
since their eyes move independently of one other; a basilisk that can
actually sprint fast enough to run across water; Gila Monsters, one of only
two types of lizards that are very venomous; a 14-foot-long Burmese python;
and even the fossil head of a giant snake that lived in Australia some
40,000 years ago.
For the more thrill-seeking, there's the chance to look at dangerous snakes
such as the Eastern Green Mambas and the Red Spitting Cobras. Different
types of snakes have venom that acts in different ways, Frost said. Some
venoms are toxins that destroy the heart and nervous system, while others
act as digestive agents, he said.
"You can find these hideous photographs where people have been bit and
essentially the meat just sloughs off the bone," he said. "It's not anything
you ever want to have happen to you."
The museum has put together a range of programming to coincide with the
show, including lectures, children's workshops and summer camp sessions.
After its run in New York, the exhibit will travel to the Fernbank Museum of
Natural History in Atlanta and eventually to the San Diego Natural History
Museum.
