Just like last year, the 2015 Canadian Reptile and Exotic Pet Breeders Expo took place in the International Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, on the 19-20 of September 2015.
Bengal Kittens.
I went to the event to stare at the animals and take pictures for my blog. Here are my first impressions without any semblance of completeness. Animals that I have managed to take good pictures of will be mentioned in the Critters section of this blog in due course.
It was a joint event — Canadian Reptile Breeders Expo and Canadian Pet Expo. As such it included breeders of various purebred cats and dogs as well as reptiles and amphibians.
French water dog. It had incredibly soft wool-like fur.
Neigenuveaux Barbet.
If there were any ponies to make it a real life dog and ponies show I must have missed them. There was a company though, offering medieval sword fights and tournaments as entertainment. They did not seem to have their horses on the premises, just swords and armour.
There were lots of various pet related businesses, I am sure if your cat needed a psychic you could find one there.
Lots of companies manufacturing and selling dog treats — in my opinion dogs prefer beef jerky, not dog treats, but perhaps I am not asking the right dog.
People were allowed to bring their own pets, and there was even an area set aside as a doggy bathroom of sorts.
Of course I was more interested in amphibians and reptiles so I have quickly moved on to the reptile breeders’ section of the expo and looked at both exhibits and animals for sale.
I was looking for frogs first but there was very little in terms of big fat frogs, except for this guy who was exhibited (not for sale).
One of the coolest animals, a Pyxie frog.
Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo.
I did see some nice tiny poison dart frogs though.
A poison dart frog (Ranitomeya imitator).
Understory Enterprises Inc.
Some modern Frankensteined animals are just simply bizarre, for example “glow in the dark” axolotls are becoming commonly available, yet I don’t think I will ever regard them as normal.
Axolotl glowing in UV light.
Axolotl Canada.
The good thing about going to a reptile expo as opposed to just your local pet shop is that a large variety of animals are available, although the more exotic color morphs can be quite pricey. Both the number of reptile and amphibian species offered for sale, and the various different colors variations of some of the popular species such as ball pythons and leopard geckos are enormous.
In a a big chain pet shop if you are lucky you might find half a dozen or so different ball pythons. In specialty reptile stores probably not much more at the same time.
On this expo there were hundreds if not thousands of ball pythons for sale. I did not even try to count the different color morphs — I am not into collecting pythons — but if I am reasonably sure there was over a hundred, if not several hundred different color variation for sale.
A ball python morph called the “Blue Eyed Lucy”.
Canadian Reptile Adventures.
The ball python in these pictures was an interesting specimen mainly because of its unusual eye coloration as well as delicate skin pattern.
Although a lot larger than ball pythons, and not nearly as popular, various boas of quite pretty coloration were also available for snake enthusiasts.
A boa by Boas4You.
For some reason snake breeders often prominently displayed the egg shells of already hatched eggs, sometimes in really large quantities.
Snake egg shells.
There were many lizards for sale as well, in particular the easy to keep geckos were offered in abundance.
Pre-packaged geckos (Rhacodactylus).
There were plenty of others, such as bearded dragons, and monitors for sale.
Yellow tree monitor.
Tails & Scales.
Apart from the usual reptiles and amphibians, other exotic pets were also available to would be pet owners. A large number of spiders and scorpions were displayed by several vendors.
Some full grown or nearly so reptiles were exhibited by the Reptilia Reptile Zoo. Here people could appreciate how a fully grown monitor lizard, red-foot tortoise or iguana looks like. They tend to be quite a bit bigger than the babies offered for sale.
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