So Much Pingle

Ryan Borgmann and his daughter Hello everyone!  Welcome to Episode Twenty Eight!  I had so much positive feedback from the Origin Stories episode, I knew I would have to do another.  I started collecting interviews last May, and finished up the last one here in December.  Five stories.  Three hours.  I may have gone a bit overboard, but you all have been very good this year, haven’t you? PAT...

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Seven!  And we add yet another country to the list with this episode, a lengthy conversation with Belgian researcher / author/ herper Jeroen Speybroeck, recorded on Thanksgiving.  We had a lot to talk about during this episode, including Jeroen’s fire salamander research, herping in various places around the globe, and also his very good field gui...

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Six!   We’ve had shows coming from the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and now we get to add Australia to the list.  Last month I talked with Scott Eipper, who hails from Brisbane, up in southeast Queensland.  Scott and his wife Tie own and operate Nature 4 You , and though their company they are involved in wildlife demonstrations and educatio...

Hello again everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Five!   The episode where I experiment with a different format – 13 segments featuring a baker’s dozen of folks sharing their best and worst (or worst and best) experiences in the realm of amphibians and reptiles.  That’s twenty six anecdotes, if you think about it.  I have been collecting these tales of woe and woah for a few mo...

Hey there everyone!  Welcome to Episode Twenty Four!   Thanks for your patience, I had a lot of crazy stuff going on over the past couple of weeks!  I think I’m back on track again and I plan on releasing another episode next week for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.  This week’s guest is my friend and co-author, Josh Holbrook, and this past October I got to sit around a campfire with Jo...

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Three!  I like turtles, you like turtles, we all like turtles, so I’m very happy to have Carl Franklin on the show to talk about – turtles.  There’s Carl in the photo with a double-handful of Alligator Snappers. Carl is a very busy person, with an impressive list of accomplishments to date, and along with talking about turtles, we also...

Hello everyone!  We’re going to hang around south of the border for just a while longer.  Episode Twenty Two was recorded in September in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, at the tail-end of a two week visit to Baja Sur.  Tim, Bryan, Matt, Mack, Andy, John, Pat, Shaun, Brandon and Jeni agreed to hang around the hotel for an hour or so, with the notion of having a round table discussion about herping i...

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty One!   I recorded a bunch of material while in Mexico back in September, including this episode with Shaun, Jeni, and Brandon Vought.  I recorded our interview at the Casa Juarez bed and breakfast in La Paz (an excellent place operated by a lovely Italian couple), where we stayed before visiting Isla Cerralvo just off the coast.  Herping families are a...

Howdy herpsters! And welcome to Episode Twenty!   My guest is Steve Marks from Windsor, Ontario.  And at left we see composite photos of Steve engaged in tracking fox snakes.  Steve and I have been buddies for a long while now, and I am happy to get him on the show and talking about his projects and passions, which are often one and the same thing.  One of the things we talked about is the Herb Gr...

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show!  After a few weeks off, here we go with Episode Nineteen , which features Dr. Alex Krohn.  Alex and I have been friends for a decade, and we have visited some exotic places, and had many an interesting conversation, so I am happy to have one more conversation to share with you! Alex is the assistant director of the Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural H...

Hi everyone and welcome!  For Episode Eighteen , we travel to Arizona to talk with Michael Cravens.  Mike and I go waaaay back, and we’ve spent time in the field together in a number of cool places, and had a number of interesting conversations around various campfires (hence the episode title).  Mike and his wife Mary are from Missouri but have lived out in AZ for a number of years now, and...

Hello everyone and welcome!  Episode Seventeen features my conversation with Priya Nanjappa (photo courtesy of Kevin Urbanek).  Among other things, Priya spent ten years with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), and served as the state agencies coordinator for Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC), and she currently serves as one of the commissioners on t...

Hello again everyone, and welcome to Episode Sixteen!   I’ve been having a conversation with Daniel Dye for more than a decade, and for this segment, microphones were put into play!  Along with amphibians and reptiles, Daniel also has a great deal of knowledge and experience with insects, spiders, and other invertebrates, and fortunately for all of us, he’s crafty with a camera, and so...

Hello again everyone, here is Episode Fifteen , the second part of my conversation with Justin Elden on this Sunday double-fun day.  The main thrust of our conversation is Justin’s work in Guatemala with the Highlands and Islands Conservatory , which is centered around the pictured Guatemalan pit viper, Bothriechis aurifer , but of course includes other herps and more importantly, their habi...

Hey there herpsters, it’s Episode Fourteen!   What shall we talk about?  Let’s ask the triumphant dude on the left, the one with the little viper in a tube.  That’s Justin Elden, the viper is Armenian ( Montivipera raddei ), and guess where they are?  In this episode, I talk with Justin about his involvement with the St. Louis Zoo’s mountain viper conservation project , (be...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode Thirteen!   Lucky!  We’re talking about herps, herp trips, photography, and the overall coolness of the cosmos with Josh Wallace.  We’ve been to some places, and we’ve seen some things…..Josh also brings a strong herp meme game to social media, and we talk about that, and much, much more.  The fantastic photo at top left is representat...

Welcome to Episode Twelve!    In this installment, I talk with Dr. Emily Taylor, professor of biological sciences at Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University), and we cover a number of topics, including rattlesnakes and leopard lizards.  Dr. Taylor is pursuing some fascinating lines of research and her passion for her work comes shining through.  Now this episode comes with some homework...

Hi folks!  For Episode Eleven , we have an interview that I recorded last month, on location in eastern Colorado, with Tim Warfel and Hunter Johnson.  The main thrust of our conversation was the recently concluded COPARC Otero County herp survey, and we managed to cover a few other topics as well.  This was the eighth Otero survey and I was happy to participate, and to hang out with a lot of Color...

Hello again everyone!  Welcome to Episode Ten!   I like that double-digit number.  For this episode, we’re talking with Rob, AKA SmetLogik, a YouTube content creator par excellence when it comes to documenting herps and herp adventures.  Rob, Jennifer and son Nick recently relocated from the Denver area to Tucson, Arizona, and I caught up with Rob a few weeks ago in their new home. I really...

Hello everyone!  Episode Nine finds us both in and out of the water with photographer/herper Matt Sullivan.  Two shows in a row where we dip ourselves in the drink to visit with fascinating creatures!  We’ll have time to dry off before our next installment, but for the moment, we’ll talk with Matt about his experiences photographing both herps and cool aqua-creatures.  Matt’s und...

Hello everyone!  For Episode Eight , we take a deep breath and submerge ourselves into the world of the Hellbender via a conversation with Nick Burgmeier.  When it comes to cryptobranchids (hellbenders are in the family Cryptobranchidae, along with the Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders), Nick is a subject matter expert.  I enjoyed talking with Nick on the subject, especially since he and his...

Hello again everyone!  Episode Seven features a conversation I had with Bob Ferguson, recorded in the New Jersey Pine Barrens last month.  I got to spend some time in the field with Bob and he was nice enough to spend an hour or so putting down the interview.  In the photo, Bob is on the left with me and Nate Nazdrowicz, taken at Snake Road in southern Illinois (back in the days when we could be i...

Hello everyone!  Here in Episode Six we’re trying something a little different – we’re talking about origin stories.  How did YOU come into the world of amphibians and reptiles?  Everyone has a story, and on this show we’ve got five people telling us about theirs.  Four of the interviews were recorded in Peru in January 2020, and one just a few weeks ago. Some of these folk...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode Five!   In this episode I talk with Peter Mooney, a birder, world traveler, and herper from the era when it was called “snake hunting”.  A New Jersey native, Mr. Mooney served his country in Vietnam, and afterwards he spent time in teaching school in Jasper County, South Carolina.  Along the way he knew many of the old-school east coast herpers. I...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode Four!   My apologies for being a few days late, I was doing some out-of-state herping.  In New Jersey.  And it was great!  But that’s another story for another time. Back in January, I interviewed Bryan Hughes in the Peruvian Amazon, during a bit of afternoon downtime.  Brian and his wife Liz own and operate Rattlesnake Solutions, a Phoenix / Tucson com...