While most young girls want a puppy or a kitten to play with, 13-year-old Sophie couldn’t be more different. After falling in love with the scaly creatures she first saw in nature documentaries, she knew that she wanted to be a herpetologist.
“I watched a lot of Animal Planet and National Geographic growing up,” she explains. “My parents also gave me animal encyclopedias, and the section on reptiles was always the first one I’d read.”
It came as no surprise to Sophie’s parents when her interest manifested itself into a desire to keep one as a pet.
“Mum’s not squeamish about reptiles, but she wasn’t pleased when dad and I suddenly came home from the pet store one day with our corn snake, Butter,” Sophie recalls.
Bought from a pet shop, Butter’s name comes from the range of yellow tones that adorn his scales. Corn snakes are the most popular species of pet snakes due to their non-venomous nature and gentle temperament.
“Also, they can grow up to four feet,” Sophie adds, describing how she has already upgraded Butter’s enclosure once since bringing him home.
“He’s grown a lot longer and chunkier now, which is kind of surprising considering he only eats a couple of baby mice a week.”
At three years old, Butter is a curious creature who loves to explore Sophie’s house, though he can be quite timid when it comes to humans. Far from the vicious serpents popularised on the silver screen, Butter used to love hiding away in empty toilet rolls, curling himself up into a tight spiral.
“Butter also loves wrapping himself around the gym equipment in my house,” Sophie shares.
“I guess it makes sense that he likes working out – snakes have over ten times the amount of muscle humans do, and the scales on their belly are adapted to help them climb things.”
Soon after, Sophie added two leopard geckos, Mango and Sago, to her reptilian collection.
The aptly named Mango is a pale yellow at her head, which graduates into sunset orange by the tip of her tail, while Sago is pale yellow with a white tail and brown spots.
Contrary to the popular expression, leopard geckos do change their spots, as Sophie reveals.
“Sago had such unique patterns when we first got her. She was brown and orange, almost in a camouflage pattern, and had a stripy grey, white and black tail. But as she grew, her appearance changed completely.”
The geckos’ diets consist of crickets, cockroaches or mealworms, though Sophie has expressed her dislike for feeding them crickets as their tendency to jump makes her nervous they’ll escape.
The geckos’ personalities are as different as their appearance, with Sago being the more skittish of the pair.
“Mango’s more chilled out, she’s quite happy to be held by people. But Sago’s always been a little nervous. On her first day home, she escaped from her enclosure and hid behind some picture frames. My dad panicked!”
They also get along well with Sophie’s other four-legged companion, Maggie the British bulldog.
“Sometimes she just sits in front of the glass and just watches them,” Sophie discloses. “But Butter has yet to grow on Maggie – I think she’s scared of him.”
Sophie hopes to grow her reptile collection in the near future, mentioning a crested gecko or chameleon as her next pet of choice.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR PET: FMT Lifestyle readers are invited to send in pictures (landscape format) and a short video (if any) of their furry, scaly or feathery friends to [email protected]. Don’t forget to include details like your pet’s name, age, breed and a short story about them.