About the Author

Samuel W. Nolton, a.k.a. "Lucidum," is a beginning reptile breeder, owner of the soon-to-be company Lucidum Exotics and long time herpetocultural enthusiast. I, being him, currently own a total of five reptiles, and have had years of experience dealing with reptiles both in the wild and as pets. My first "pet" reptile was a garter snake that I caught when I was a child and kept for a few days. I've loved pretty much all animals with scales since I was very young, and still love them today. 

My current cavalcade of herps includes three desert reptiles- A Mali Uromastyx (Uromastyx Maliensis) named "Scute;" a Schneider's Skink (Eumeces Schneideri) named "Nuzzle;" and a Bearded Dragon (Pogona Vitticeps) named "Sola." The skink is about 2 years old, the uro is 15 months, and the beardie is 8 months old.

In addition to the lizards, I've recently acquired two Corn Snakes (Elaphe Guttata). The first, "Oro," is an Anerythristic morph and is less than 3 months old. The newest, "Shae," is just about a year old (born 11/08) and is a Flourescent Orange morph I believe. 

I care greatly about all of my animals, providing them ample space and large enclosures (not too large for the hatchling corn, as too large a cage stresses them out). All of them I feed regularly, the beardie and uro eat crickets every other day and vegetables (a mix of red and green lettuce, carrots, etc.) the days they don't eat insects. The skink eats pinkie mice (baby, newborn mice that are still pink and furless) every week or two, depending on her shedding cycle (often animals refuse to eat when shedding). Both of the Corn Snakes eat mice (pinkies for the baby, hoppers and fuzzies for the yearling), and eat regularly and well. I'll be providing care and husbandry articles for each animal presented here, and many others as well. 

In the future, once my business has taken off, I intend to breed the corn snakes, as well as the beardie and uro. Someday soon i'm going to add several other animals to my collection- most importantly an American Alligator and a monitor lizard of some kind, preferably a Nile or Water. I also wild-catch some animals from time to time on my herping (outdoor collecting) outings, come this summer I'll focus on captive-breeding Western Fence Lizards (Sceloporus Occidentalis), as well as, if I can locate any, Western Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus) and Common and Western Terrestrial Garter Snakes (Thamnophis Elegans and T. Sirtalis). While I don't normally recommend wild catching animals for conservation reasons (or, in the case of the rattlesnake, venom and aggressiveness reasons), I wild catch the animals only if they aren't vulnerable, endangered, or protected, and I always release my animals once they have laid eggs and the eggs have hatched. 

Keep a look out for new posts soon, we'll begin with our reptile care articles late this week or early next!