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Explore the world of reptiles — cold-blooded, scaly vertebrates including snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, and the tuatara, found across deserts, rainforests, and oceans worldwide.
676 stories
Michigan has no state statute that bans keeping an alligator as a pet, which surprises most people who assume exotic reptile ownership works the same everywhere.
If you’re picturing a green iguana lounging in a terrarium in your Sacramento apartment, you’re not breaking any state law by dreaming it up.
Michigan is home to eighteen snake species, and only one of them carries venom, yet removing the wrong snake from your yard can still land you in legal trouble.
Every so often a headline surfaces about an alligator turning up in a New Jersey pond, storm drain, or parking lot, and it raises an obvious question: can you own
Can you own an alligator in Wyoming? Wyoming actually shows up on lists of states with no blanket ban on alligator ownership, a surprising detail for a state better known for pronghorn and grizzly bears than reptiles.
Florida pays people to hunt pythons on public land, yet keeping the wrong python species as a pet in your own home can lead to criminal charges.
Alabama has more native turtle species than almost any other state, which makes the question of ownership more complicated than a simple yes or no.
If you’re picturing red tape and permit applications before bringing home an iguana in Nevada, you’re mostly picturing the wrong state.
Grabbing a shovel the moment you spot a snake in your yard might feel like the safest response, but in Florida it can also be the fastest way to break the law.
Scoop a mud turtle out of an irrigation canal in Phoenix and take it home, and you’ve likely just broken state wildlife law — even though buying a red-eared slider at a pet store down the street is perfectly legal.
You might assume that any snake in your yard is fair game, but snake removal laws in North Carolina say otherwise.
If you’re picturing a quick trip to a reptile expo followed by a python curled up in your living room, New Jersey’s rules will likely change your plans.
If you found a painted turtle sunning itself on a log and wondered whether you could take it home, the answer in Ohio depends on more than a quick glance at the shell.
Most Missouri homeowners assume that finding a snake in the garage or garden gives them free rein to deal with it however they see fit.
A full-grown green iguana can stretch past five feet from nose to tail, yet Colorado’s wildlife code cares far less about size than it does about origin.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you can legally keep an alligator in your backyard pond, the short answer for Tennessee residents is no.
If you’re wondering whether you can own a python in North Dakota, the honest answer is “it depends on where you live and which species you want.
If you’re picturing a green iguana lounging on a rock in your backyard terrarium, Arizona is actually one of the more welcoming states for that dream.
A python curled up in a Louisiana living room is not automatically breaking the law, but the path to legal ownership runs through more paperwork than most first-time reptile keepers expect.
Ohio treats alligator ownership as a matter of public safety, not personal preference, and the state’s answer to whether you can keep one as a pet is almost always no.
