About Us

 Owner

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Matt grew up in the rural backwoods of Clay County, Florida, where he spent his days playing in the woods and enjoying nature.  With a passion for animals, especially reptiles, he studied everything he could find.  In his teens, he met Henry Kelly and Rick Lewis who helped fuel his passion for venomous reptiles and crocodiles.  After college, Matt went full-time into breeding venomous reptiles, developing contacts all over the world.  He has kept and bred hundreds of different species and traveled the world to study the animals he loves in their natural habitats.

Owner

Growing up a Navy brat, Paula spent most of her young life traveling around the world.  Everywhere they were stationed brought it's own unique outdoor experience which was perfect for an avid hiker, camper, and animal lover.  In the late '90's, the opportunity arose to purchase an existing pet store.  It didn't take long for her to realize that the reptiles and arachnids were her passion. Pairing Paula's business experience with Matthew's extensive reptile knowledge has brought Wild Things to the International reptile powerhouse it is today.

 Manager

Savannah spent most of her childhood in her family's Orange Park, FL Pet Store. Having always been attracted to the unusual, she spent much of her time learning about the different reptiles she worked with. After joining the Wild Things Staff, Savannah has continued that learning and is currently focusing her higher studies on Crocodilian. Along with pursuing work with these "living dinosaurs", she also breeds several varieties of Bearded Dragons and shares her home with her husband, 3 children and a Bengal Cat.

General Curator

Becky grew up in the woods of Keystone Heights. Her parents both had a love for animals and shared their passion with young Becky. Her Dad kept reptiles and her Mom was a Vet tech and was always bringing home injured wildlife to rehab. As a young woman Becky started keeping and breeding reptiles herself as well as rare breeds of K-9’s and chickens. As her obsession for reptiles grew and grew she started studying with Matt. As Wild Things Exotic Animals expanded there was no doubt Becky was going to be part of the team.  

Abby started her love of reptiles at a young age. Her family encouraged her passion, and she got her first Bearded Dragon at age 5. Then when she was 10, she got her first Ball Python named Snakespear. The love for reptiles and exotic animals grew fast. It all started with a lizard then a python, then 2, then 3 and a gecko here and a monitor there. Once she got her own place, the collection really started to grow. Then it was on to rare Anoles and Tegus. With a love and passion for Exotic animals like that, it is no surprise she ended up on the Wild Things Team.

Madison grew up in rural Green Cove Springs and always had a passion for nature and wildlife. As her love for wildlife expanded she found herself drawn to what she felt was the often misunderstood wildlife “SNAKES”. One day Maddie came across a Ball Python, he was a Champagne

 morph, she absolutely without a doubt had to have him. She named him Champ. In the quest for knowledge to provide the finest care for Champ she found Wild Things! That was it, Maddie was hooked. She spent all her free time in Wild Things learning everything she could. She became close friends with the entire staff, and well you guessed it, as soon as there was an opportunity she became part of the Wild Things family.  

Heather grew up in Northwest Ohio in a family who was passionate about exotic animals. She grew up with an amazing array of family pets like Snakes, Monitors, Iguanas and Ferrets just to name a few. Heather married her high school sweetheart and they started their journey in life of family and pets. They have three wonderful children that share their love of animals. Together they have a fantastic collection of Ball Pythons (specializing in Pied Morphs), Corn snakes, Crested Geckos, Tortoises and Leopard Geckos. With Heather's big heart, huge passion for animals and love for educating our youth, you know she had to join the Wild Things family!

The WT Line Axanthic crested geckos were produced several years ago at Wild Things Exotic Animals Inc. from a pair of our breeders. We first held back all offspring from the original breeding pair until we could prove we had a true genetic line of Axanthic Crested Geckos. We also crossed out some from the originals to add diversity to our bloodline. In the summer of 2019 we were producing Axanthic crested geckos from visual to visual pairing. The WT Line Axanthic Crested Geckos are a beautiful light gray with remarkably high white accents. When fired up they turn dark while retaining the bright white. 

This was the first WT Line Axanthic produced in 2018

This girl is what we thought just a nice looking girl and added her to the breeding group. Little did we know she held the key to unlocking the WT Axanthic Line gene.