About Us

When I was around four years old, my dad showed me a black racer slithering through the yard behind our house in northern Virginia. He said “That’s a snake, you don’t want to go near them.” And I, being the ever independent and stubborn person I am, ran after it trying to chase it down. Since then I’ve been fascinated with all herps, but especially snakes. I received my first pet snake, a ball python, as a birthday present from my mom when I was 9 and had him for 5 years. The purchase of Galadriel started the ball rolling and within two years I had five snakes, including my first two carpet pythons. Working at a snake farm just heaped more coals upon the fire and pretty soon I was starting to breed them to see what offspring I could produce. I've slowly proceeded to add a snake here and there over the next few years. I've tried to split my additions between boa constrictors and carpet pythons since those two species have piqued my interest. I appreciate the calm disposition of boas and the wide variability in carpet coloration and pattern.

I graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. I plan to pursue a Master's degree in the near future, but am currently searching for the right topic. I have a wide array of ecological interests including island biogeography, dispersal patterns and recruitment linked to gene flow in populations, invasive species interactions with native species, and community level interactions (ie - competition for resources). As an ecologist, I have an ever expanding Life List of animals I have to see in the wild before I am too old and senile to appreciate them. I've visited Costa Rica and Namibia on wildlife trips and I hope to visit Thailand, Indonesia, Papua, Australia, and the Amazon region sometime in the future. During my travels, I like collecting various animal parts: bones, teeth, feathers, skulls, tanned hides, and study skins. My favorite collection piece is a caracal skull I brought back from Namibia, Africa.

I am currently employed in the Florida Museum of Natural History division of mammalogy as a curatorial assistant. We are one of the largest mammal collections in the country with over 30,000 specimens. Mostly my job entails skeletanizing and cataloging the carcasses of Florida panthers we receive from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Additionally I am curating our Sciurids (squirrels), cleaning bobcat and river otter skulls, preparing study skins of other specimens to be preserved in the collection, and helping the collections manager with reorganizing the collection.

Kyle Finn, owner Ghostfish Herps