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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.
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If you found a snapping turtle crossing your driveway this spring and thought about keeping it in a tank, Vermont law says no — even though owning a turtle from a pet store is perfectly legal.
A red-eared slider from the local pet store is perfectly legal to keep in Louisiana, but pull a gopher tortoise out of a Florida parish sandhill and you could be looking at a wildlife citation.
You might assume a garter snake sunning itself on your patio is fair game to scoop up and dump in the woods down the road.
Can you own an iguana in Minnesota? The short answer is yes, but the state’s exotic pet statute doesn’t mention iguanas at all—and that silence is exactly what confuses so many prospective reptile owners.
A Harford County police officer once responded to a call that had nothing to do with a dog, cat, or stray deer — it was a live alligator sitting in a pet store parking lot in Bel Air.
If a snake shows up in your yard in Oregon, your first instinct might be to grab a bucket, a shovel, or a pair of gloves and handle the situation yourself.
If you’re picturing a ball python curled up in a terrarium, Colorado has no problem with that.
If you’re picturing a scaly green lizard lounging on a driftwood branch in your Providence apartment, you’re not breaking any state law by owning one.
If you’re wondering whether you can own a python in Minnesota, the short answer is yes, for most species, most of the time.
Green iguanas show up in pet store windows across New Jersey, but that doesn’t automatically mean you can bring one home without a second thought.
In April 2024, Waipahu police doing a routine wellness check walked into a house and found something no other state would treat as a felony-level emergency: a three-and-a-half-foot ball python coiled in a dead man’s home.
Turtles look like the easiest pet in the world to bring home, especially if you find a small one crossing a trail or basking on a log near a Maryland creek.
New York treats pythons the way it treats very few other pets: the legality changes depending on the species in the tank, the county you live in, and whether that county happens to be one of the five boroughs.
North Carolina is home to more than 20 native turtle species, yet most of them are illegal to keep as pets.
Spotting an alligator sliding through a bayou or golf course pond is common enough in East and South Texas that most residents barely blink.
Finding a snake near your porch or garden shed in Pennsylvania puts you in a legal gray zone more often than most homeowners realize.
Vermont bans permits for anacondas, restricts most exotic cats, and rarely approves private ownership of wild mammals.
North Carolina is one of only a handful of states with no single statewide law governing private exotic animal ownership, which leaves a lot of gray area for anyone hoping to keep an iguana as a pet.
If you have ever pulled a slow-moving painted turtle off a gravel road in eastern Iowa and wondered whether you could just keep it, you are not alone.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you can own an alligator in Massachusetts after seeing viral videos of pet gators in Florida living rooms, the short answer is no.
