Reptiles

Kids and nature The lowdown -- Search through Leight Park on Saturday for souvenirs from nature as part of the program "Journaling in January." The items you find will become part of your own nature journal. The event is sponsored by the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center. If you go -- The 5-and-older event is 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. There is a fee of $3. The center is at 700 Otter Point Road in Abingdon. Reservations are required. Call 410-612-1688. or 410-879-2000 ext. 1688 or go to otterpointcreek.

A 44-year-old Glen Arm reptile dealer was sentenced yesterday in Baltimore federal court to four months of home detention and three years' supervised release for illegally buying and selling about $70,000 worth of exotic African snakes.Paul John Miles, who bred and sold reptiles through a business called Boa Barn in north Baltimore County, was also ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz to perform 500 hours of community service.Miles was arrested as part of a five-year undercover international investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service into smuggling of rare and endangered species of frogs, snakes and tortoises, authorities said.

For the diminutive Egyptian tortoise, the Reptile House at the Baltimore Zoo may now be a more congenial place than back home on Egypt's Mediterranean coast.Herders, pet traders, farmers and developers have wiped out the species in Egypt, and it is vanishing in Libya and Israel. In this decade it has become the most endangered of the world's turtles, and one of the most endangered animals of any species.But in Baltimore, the zoo crew has turned a closet full of plastic tubs and electric lights into one of the most successful nonprofit Egyptian tortoise nurseries in the world.

A lifelong romance with snakes and horned and leathery creatures may not seem to project the proper image to launch a love story.So this story will open, instead, at a gun show in 1991, when Tim Hoen, surrounded by machine-gun cartridges and small arsenals for hobbyists, heard a voice say: "Wouldn't it be great if these 300 tables had captive-born reptiles on them instead of guns?"It was as if someone had whacked him on the head with a hammer."This is a beautiful thing," he says.Few would understand.

" 'A Fish Out of Water' by Helen Palmer is about a little fish at the pet store. A little boy got it. Mr. Carp told him not to feed him too much. But he did and his little fish grew too big! I like this book because the fish gets in the pool."-- Danielle WoodardFountain Green Elementary"You will love 'Space Rock' by Jon Buller and Susan Schade for many reasons. First, the book is amusing because rocks really don't talk. Finally, the book is mysterious because you don't know if Space Rock is going to come back to earth."

Think of it as a sort of Cosmo for the scaly set. There are beauty tips ("Unravel the Mysteries of Skin Shedding"), health reports ("Constipated Iguana?") and a dollop of sex ("Start Your Own Rodent Breeding Colony") -- not to mention a centerfold of a naked green lizard.It's Reptiles magazine, a slithery pet pub- lication that just celebrated its fifth anniversary.Reptiles is actually a fairly serious, straightforward magazine for owners of coldblooded creatures. But it's dressed up with clever headlines, colorful graphics and even a few celebrity interviews, like with Guns N' Roses guitarist and reptile lover Slash and NFL linebacker Chad Brown, owner of a reptilei-ibreeding business.

With the reptilian heart as their guide, surgeons are using lasers to drill holes in the human heart in hopes of relieving chest pains that have no other remedy.The experimental treatment, which has its roots in the 1950s, is based on the way blood circulates through the hearts of reptiles -- through holes rather than discreet arteries and capillaries.Patients undergoing this latest form of laser surgery suffer from coronary blockages that are too extensive to benefit from conventional therapy such as bypass surgery, angioplasty and medication.

We had just walked through the turnstile, putting us inside Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp Park, when Younger Daughter gestured toward one of the rangers and whispered, "He's missing two fingers on his hand.""That's a good sign," I said.My daughter frowned and kicked me in the knee.Now before you, too, think me callous, let me explain. I was a man on a mission. My mission was to see an alligator. In the wild.Since you almost never hear of alligator sightings along, say, the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania, it was clear we were going to have to head south.

HOPING TO DEBUNK common misconceptions about reptiles, Michael Shwedick visited Mount Airy Middle School yesterday with his traveling entourage of cold-blooded companions.Shwedick, owner of Reptile World in Bowie, informed students that a bite by a venomous snake does not always mean death, and that an encounter with a reptile in the wild typically ends with the reptile fleeing, instead of biting.The 90-minute program, sponsored by the school's Parent Teacher Student Organization, was part of the organization's yearlong emphasis on providing cultural arts programs.

PHILADELPHIA -- Brain researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered strong evidence of what everybody already knows.In some important respects, men and women don't think alike. They literally use their brains differently.A study of brain use patterns in 61 Philadelphia-area subjects reported in the current issue of Science found a biological basis for long-noted behavioral differences between the sexes -- differences such as the fact that, for instance, men are far more prone to violence than women, or the fact that women tend to have a harder time with math.

A herd of goats coming to the rescue of a handful of imperiled turtles may sound like the plot of a Saturday morning children's cartoon show, but that's just what's happening in the Carroll County town of Hampstead. The State Highway Administration has enlisted the help of about 40 goats to devour invasive plant species in wetlands along the path of the soon-to-open, 4.4-mile Hampstead Bypass to protect the habitat of the bog turtle - a species listed as threatened in Maryland. State highway officials decided to give the goats a tryout as four-legged lawn mowers rather than to attack the unwanted vegetation with mechanical mowers that might have killed the diminutive reptiles or damaged their boggy habitat on the fringe of Hampstead.

The Savage branch library, 9525 Durness Lane, will offer "Welcome Back to Savage," a program for teens ages 13 and older, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 7. Participants will have a chance to visit with friends after the summer hiatus, have a snack and talk about what's happening at the library. Those who attend can also meet staff members and share ideas for books, music, activities and programs for teenagers. Registration is not needed. The library's Teen 'Zine, a new online newsletter written by teens for teens, will hold a meeting for those, ages 13 to 17, who are interested in participating from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sept.

Kids and nature The lowdown -- Search through Leight Park on Saturday for souvenirs from nature as part of the program "Journaling in January." The items you find will become part of your own nature journal. The event is sponsored by the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center. If you go -- The 5-and-older event is 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. There is a fee of $3. The center is at 700 Otter Point Road in Abingdon. Reservations are required. Call 410-612-1688. or 410-879-2000 ext. 1688 or go to otterpointcreek.

SNAKES ON A PLANE -- New Line Home Entertainment -- $28.95 The hilariously ludicrous Snakes on a Plane combines, as one might expect, two of humans' most common fears -- poisonous reptiles and flying -- and milks them for all they're worth. Which is not much. But Snakes manages to provide a remarkably varied roller coaster of slimy, repellent images of death by reptile, while attempting to engage its audience with a parade of cliche-driven personalities in peril. There's the no-nonsense FBI agent, who is given to pronouncements like, "It's my job to handle life-and-death situations on a daily basis, and I'm good at it"; the careless, libidinous couple, too absorbed in their steamy mutual attraction to notice the venomous snake about to bite the woman's exposed breast; the ditzy Paris Hilton type, complete with very small dog; the arrogant celebrity rapper, forced into humility by the flight's descent into chaos; and several more.

After waiting in a line of about 30 children to touch a black rat snake named Bugeye, Emily Dietz stepped right up and trailed her fingers down the reptile's scaly back. "I like to touch snakes," the 8-year-old said during a recent program at Marshy Point Nature Center in Chase. "I think snakes are one of the coolest animals around." Emily's reaction was an example of one of the two opposing inclinations visitors typically have toward snakes, said Bob Stanhope of the Marshy Point staff.

Sharp-eyed readers of The New York Times Magazine may have noticed a recent advertisement announcing the sale of the Kennedy family's historic Hickory Hill estate in McLean, Va. The 13-bedroom, white brick Georgian home and surrounding estate is being offered by Sotheby's International Realty in New York City. It sits off Chain Bridge Road on about six acres and has 12 fireplaces, stables for horses, a movie theater, tennis courts, a pool and cabana. The asking price is reportedly $25 million, but Sotheby's officials would not comment for this article.

Michael Francis Groves, a well-known Maryland herpetologist and former curator of reptiles at the Baltimore Zoo, where his career spanned more than four decades, died of cancer Sunday at his Eldersburg home. He was 84. Known to generations of reptile lovers as Frank, he was born in Baltimore and raised on Covington Street in Federal Hill. He spent his boyhood in pursuit of snakes, amphibians and lizards that inhabited nearby fields and streambeds. "When he was a kid, his boyhood room was filled with snakes.

THERE IS a strong human urge to lament the sorry state of things and point out to the dunderheads in charge how to make them better. Maybe nowhere does this find a purer voice than on the editorial pages. Always the bad news -- it's unrelenting. And yet, although you'd never know it from the tone, there's a kind of built-in, necessary optimism to this way of thinking. An editorial, by definition, has to have faith that problems can be fixed -- and, once fixed, stay fixed. But today is Saturday, so let's take a break from the belief in a brighter future in places like Iraq or the federal budget or the Baltimore City public schools.

Oops Designer Lloyd Klein attempted to add a touch of ballerina chic to his collection when he added criss-cross laceups to slender satin pants and stiletto heels. These, unfortunately, presented too much of a challenge for some of his models. One dramatically stumbled when her spiked heel got caught in the calf of her laceup pants, while another almost became fashion roadkill when her shoe fell off as the next model rapidly came upon her. She tried for several (excruciatingly long) seconds to untie the laces that chained her leg to the shoe before giving up and hobbling off the runway.

REBECCCA Williams (that's right, her name has 3 C's) enjoys what might seem like an unusual hobby: Learning about and caring for reptiles and amphibians. Although some children run when they see snakes, Williams as a young girl was fascinated. Next week, the 20-year-old Four Seasons woman will share her enthusiasm in a presentation at the Crofton Library called "Revealing Reptiles." Williams' first pet, Barnaby, was an African clawed frog she got when she was 5. Fifteen years later, Barnaby is a healthy, happy member of the Williams home.