Animalogy Show at library highlights owls and snakes

After taking a break during the week of Juneteenth, the White County Public Library continued their Summer Reading Program with an Animalogy show. On June 26, with the largest turnout of any of the prior events, children gathered around as Bob Tarter showed off and taught the children about his variety of trained animals.

Bob started the show small, only getting bigger and bigger with each animal. The first animal was a small Tricolor Hognose snake. It fit around Bob’s hand like a bracelet, something he said his own daughter has done before. Bob’s strategy with the animals was to tell the kids a few facts about the snake, then engage them by asking questions while showing off the animal a bit closer.

Bob also showed off a much larger snake, named Rosie. A 29-year-old redtail boa constrictor, Rosie was the animal that got the most awe and a bit of fear from the crowd. The fear was mostly from the parents. Bob used Rosie to teach the kids the difference between lizards and snakes, as snakes do not have external ears or eyelids. He also taught them how to tell the difference between a venomous and nonvenomous snake, pointing out that oval, elliptical eyes on a snake designate venomous. Rosie stayed well behaved from the moment she came out to the moment she went back to her cage.

One of the other big animals shown off during the event was an owl named El. El was a Eurasian eagle-owl and stayed put on Bob’s hand glove as he showed the bird around. For a bird, Bob got to teach the kids about how relatively light they are, such as El who weighed only eight pounds. He also quelled the misconception that owls can spin their heads around in a 360. They can only go about 270 degrees around because of the extra neck vertebrae they have.

After Bob was finished showing off the animals, the library had a free lunch for the kids. The Summer Reading Program only has two more events left. There’s the Bright Star Theater, on July 3, and the Water Fun Day, as the last event on July 10.