Van Horn -вЂ“ like his hero Haast before him -вЂ“ has accumulated the scars to prove his point about the defensive instinct of snakes when they are provoked or disturbed. вЂњLadies do not go pick up coral snakes,вЂќ he adds, prompting laughter and knowing looks in the crowd. They donвЂ™t want to be around you.вЂќДЄlmost all the people who wind up in the emergency room in Florida with coral snake bites вЂ“- or вЂњself-inflicted wounds,вЂќ he jokes -вЂ“ are men. вЂњSnakes donвЂ™t attack people,вЂќ he tells a gathering of about 12 parents, grandparents and children sitting in a U-shaped area waiting for the show to start. ItвЂ™s something heвЂ™s been doing since he fulfilled that boyhood dream that took him from a brief stint working with Haast as a teenager, through a bachelorвЂ™s degree in biological sciences and snake collecting trips in Central America and Asia, to here, where he opened the serpentarium on a 10-acre corner of an old dairy farm in the early 1970s. This is where Van Horn prepares to extract venom from the serpentsвЂ™ fangs to send to university laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. But the biggest attractions are the twice-daily venom shows on the other side of the building. Outside in the courtyard is a pond filled with turtles, a cage of iguanas and a family of American alligators, including a 14-foot father alligator and a 10-foot mama alligator protective of her recent hatchlings. Inside, past a rustic-looking gift shop offering weathered books on reptiles and iguanas, cottonmouth fangs for $2, snake toys and T-shirts and mounted snakeskin, they can turn right and walk into a dimly lit reptile section.Д«ehind the glass, coiled like ropes or draped around branches, dozens of the centerвЂ™s hundreds of serpents are on display: red tail boa constrictors black mambas a southern copperhead covered in diamond patterns of brown, tan and orange the poisonous eastern coral snake with its black, yellow and red stripes and enormous reticulated pythons with bodies as thick as a grown manвЂ™s thigh. They might zoom by without noticing his nondescript low-slung building on the side of the highway across from a horse ranch -вЂ“ if not for the 12-foot tall concrete cobra rearing its head and peering out at motorists ahead of a sign that reads Reptile World Serpentarium. 192 a little more than 30 miles southeast of both Orlando and Disney World in Central Florida. вЂњAs soon as I saw that, in my mind I said thatвЂ™s what I was going to do,вЂќ he says.Дecades later, visitors can find Van Horn in St.

At the young age of 6, after meeting his hero, Bill Haast at the Miami Serpentarium, a unique Florida attraction, he grew certain he could make a career out of it. But ever since he was a little boy and started catching garter and water snakes in the swampy Everglades surrounding Miami, he knew there wasnвЂ™t anything else he would rather do. George Van Horn isnвЂ™t sure why he loves them so much.

St. cloud gardens