GLEN RIDGE, NJ — Captain Jack, an opossum, came visiting the borough over the weekend, courtesy of the Glen Ridge Public Library. With him he brought Glader the tortoise, and others, along with their exhibitor, Larry Apap. The animal menagerie came from Unique Creatures, located in Bergen County, and set up in the council chambers in Town Hall. An audience of 40 parents and children sat enthralled.
Apap said Captain Jack had a prehensile tail.
“It’s sort of like having a tail on your butt,” he said. “He can hold his entire body weight with his tail.”
Apap dangled Jack from his tail and let the critter climb over him — see Jack pee.
Apap was good-natured about the incident.
“He didn’t want to pee in his travel case,” Apap explained.
The parents and kids also found out that opossums will eat almost anything — fruit, mice, birds or fried eggs.
“It’s OK that he’s awake now,” Apap said. “Why is he awake during the winter? Opossums don’t hibernate.”
Next was Glader, who also released some bodily fluids.
“This must be a theme day,” Apap said while cleaning up.
He said if Glader was a turtle and not a tortoise, his feet would be better for swimming.
“He has elephant feet,” Apap said. “Good for digging. A turtle lives in the water and a tortoise lives on land. They are from Africa.”
Apap said a tortoise is not always a slow-moving creature.
“Under a heat lamp, he can go about as fast as you people just before you run,” Apap said. “He’s eight years. As an adult, he will be 3 feet in diameter. And he can build a hole big enough for your mom and dad to fit into.”
And Glader’s shell was not his home — it was his body.
Apap said he did not know how long Glader would live. It was pretty hard to determine that with long-lived animals, passing from owner to owner.
“He may live twice as old as people,” Apap said. “I got him because he got too big for his owner.”
Apap pulled another shirt over the one he was wearing. And for good reason. Up next was Beans, the skunk.
“If you pee on this shirt, I won’t be so angry with you,” he told Beans.
Apap said Beans, since he was being used for educational purposes, had to be raised in a zoo and descented.
“Skunks are colored black and white as a warning,” Apap said.
But if another animal does not take the warning, Apap said a skunk will do a handstand to further warn the intruder. After that, they become good shots.
“They are pretty accurate within 12 feet,” he said. “The only thing that gets skunk spray off is time.”
He put Beans back into his carrier and took out a red-tailed boa constrictor. All the animal carriers were covered by heavy cloth and were behind the council rail. Khalesee, the boa, drew gasps from the people.
“She pretty nice,” Apap said, the snake curling around him in what her DNA has probably programmed as a death grip.
“She doesn’t eat people,” he continued. “She eats what people eat. You like chicken? She likes chicken. You like it fried? She likes it with feathers.”
Khalesee uses her tongue to capture scents in the moist air, Apap said. She then rubs her tongue on the roof of her mouth where an olfactory membrane, the Jacobson organ, is located. The fork of her tongue will tell the boa from what direction the smell is coming: right or left. But she also has two rows of teeth in her upper jaw and four rows in the lower jaw.
A child asks to pet the snake but Apap said that cannot be done because New Jersey animal exhibition laws do not allow it.
And there was Dexter Morgan, a kokuboro, or kingfisher. Apap made the bird squawk by squawking himself first.
“I did a program at my father’s high school,” Apap said. “He recognized my father in the audience. Dexter looked at me and then my father again, and then at me. This kept on. I told my father to say hello to Dexter so we could move on.”
Apap said his father waved to the bird and the bird squawked back.
About the Author
