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b"Thanks to Zachary, Enzo, and Oran for their suggestions this week! Let's learn about some interesting reptiles!\\n\\nHappy birthday to Vale! Have a fantastic birthday!!\\n\\nThe magnificent Gila monster:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe Gila monster's tongue is forked, but not like a snake's:\\n\\n \\n\\nThe remarkable green basilisk (photo by Ryan Chermel, found at this site):\\n\\n\\n\\nA striped basilisk has a racing stripe:\\n\\n\\n\\nI took this photo of a basilisk myself! That's why it's a terrible photo! The basilisk is sitting on a branch just above the water, its long tail hanging down:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe desert sand boa:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\nThis week we\\u2019re going to learn about three weird and interesting reptiles, with suggestions from Zachary, Enzo, and Oran, including a possible solution to a mystery animal we\\u2019ve talked about before!\\nBut first, we have a birthday shoutout! A very happy birthday to Vale! You should probably get anything you want on your birthday, you know? Want a puppy? Sure, it\\u2019s your birthday! Want 12 puppies? Okay, birthday! Want to take your 12 puppies on a roadtrip in a fancy racecar? Birthday!\\nOur first suggestion is from Enzo and Zachary, who both wrote me at different times suggesting an episode about the Gila monster. How I haven\\u2019t already covered an animal that has monster right there in its name, I just don\\u2019t know.\\nThe Gila monster is a lizard that lives in parts of southwestern North America, in both the United States and Mexico. It can grow up to two feet long, or 60 cm, including its tail. It\\u2019s a chonky, slow-moving lizard with osteoderms embedded in its skin that look like little pearls. Only its belly doesn\\u2019t have osteoderms. This gives it a beaded appearance, and in fact the four other species in its genus are called beaded lizards. Its tongue is dark blue-black and forks at the tip, but not like a snake\\u2019s tongue. It\\u2019s more like a long lizard tongue that\\u2019s divided at the very end.\\nThe Gila monster varies in color with an attractive pattern of light-colored blotches on a darker background. The background color is dark brown or black, while the lighter color varies from individual to individual, from pink to yellow to orange to red. You may remember what it means when an animal has bright markings that make it stand out. It warns other animals away. That\\u2019s right: the Gila monster is venomous!\\nThe Gila monster has modified salivary glands in its lower jaw that contain toxins. Its lower teeth have grooves, and when the lizard needs to inject venom, the venom flows upward through the grooves by capillary force. Since it mostly eats eggs and small animals, scientists think it only uses its venom as a defense. Its venom is surprisingly toxic, although its bite isn\\u2019t deadly to healthy adult humans. It is incredibly painful, though. Some people think the Gila monster can spit venom like some species of cobra can, but while this isn\\u2019t the case, one thing the Gila monster does do is bite and hold on. It can be really hard to get it to let go.\\nThe fossilized remains of a Gila monster relative were discovered in 2007 in Germany, dating to 47 million years ago. The fossils are well preserved and the lizard\\u2019s teeth already show evidence of venom canals. The Gila monster is related to monitor lizards, although not closely, and for a long time people thought it was almost the only venomous reptile in the world. These days we know that a whole lot of lizards produce venom, including the Komodo dragon, which is a type of huge monitor lizard.\\nIn 2005, a drug based on a protein found in Gila monster venom was approved for use in humans. It helps manage type 2 diabetes, and while the drug itself is synthetic and not an exact match for the toxin protein, if researchers hadn\\u2019t started by studying the toxin, they wouldn\\u2019t have come up with the drug.\\nThe Gila monster lives in dry areas with lots of brush and rocks where it can hide."