All across the nation, in Americans’ backyards and garages and living rooms, in their beds and basements and bathrooms, wild animals kept as pets live side by side with their human owners. It’s believed that more exotic animals live in American homes than are cared for in American zoos. The exotic-pet business is a large industry. Some people say it’s not only dangerous to bring captive-bred wildlife into the suburbs, but it’s cruel and it ought to be criminal too.

Regardless of who you ask, one thing is for certain, exotic pets are pretty cool. The different interesting varieties that certain animals. I recently got to talk to Nathan Rios-Colon, a DeMatha student and exotic pet owner. He spoke about his two leopard geckos and two tree frogs. He said, “My leopard geckoes are my favorites, one is bright yellow with a brown spotted tail, and the other is brown with white and yellow spots.”

When asked about having any other peculiar pets, he said, “ I have two tree frogs and an anole, the tree frogs change color from green to brown and have white stripes on their faces, while the anole is light brown.” He talked about how he grew up seeing exotic colored lizards in his hometown of Miami. When asked about how he got them, he commented,” You know, a lot of people ask me that same question, and I always tell them I got them from Petco.

Each exotic lizard that Nathan owns has its own unique personality along with its own signature traits. While his anole likes to hang from branches in the shade, his leopard geckos like to stay in their dark enclosures. Overall Nathan wants to have exon more rare pets in the future but he just isn’t sure when.