Males of Lacerta viridis, the European green lizard, are an intense dark green with blue jowls.
Memories sure help keep us going. Initially I was going to blog about the first red Carolina pygmy rattler I had ever seen way back about 1956 or 58. Then I said no. Let’s talk about black rat snakes in the derelict houses along Rte 1 up in VA. Or maybe rainbow snakes along Rte 17 in SC. But then I happened across a photo of a western green lizard in Topeka, KS and got to thinking about Quivira Specialties Company.

Quivira Specialties was a mail order live creature and curio supplier. One of the first, it was owned by Charles E. and Mae D. Burt. I learned about the company after reading their ad in the magazine “Outdoor Life”. I was probably in one of the junior high (now middle school) grades at the time so that make the time period in the 1950s.

Mediterranean gecko. Note the transverse barring on the tail.
I’m not keeping as close of a watch on herpetological happenings as I once did, so when Jake mentioned to me “there’s a new house gecko in eastern Louisiana” I was more than a little surprised.

But when I indulged in a little research I found that this gecko, the small-spotted house gecko, Hemidactylus parvimaculatus, had been first reported from the viicinity of the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, about 5 years earlier in 2013. So I guess it can’t really be considered new, just newish. Just as a “by-the-way” this gecko is native to Sri Lanka, Reunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues, Comoro Islands, Maldives, Mascarene Islands, and India (Kerala). It has now been introduced in areas as diverse as Australia’s Cocos Islands and Louisiana (Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Tammany parishes).

Trachemys scripta elegans, the red-eared slider is brightly colored when a hatchling, less so as an adult, and may live for more than 50 years.
Let’s hearken back to the 1940s and 1950s. Despite those “old days,” in fact those “old years,” being the formative years for my interest in herpetology and herpetoculture, I’ll be the first to admit that they were among the toughest of times for the little turtles then referred to by the dealers (in those days dealers were as diverse as 5&10 cent stores and every town’s independent pet shop) as “baby green turtles.”

This is a "straight from the wilds of Okeetee" Okeetee corn snake.
The ad stated “This boy is stunning, pics do him no justice! He is a wild caught straight from Okeetee.”

Okeetee? What’s an Okeetee?

It’s not only a “what,” but also, rather, a “where,” and in this instance the ad pertained to the colors and patterns of the corn snakes, Pantherophis g. guttata, found there, in fabled Okeetee.

As to the where, Okeetee is a huge hunt club that is situated in Jasper County, SC.