It must be love if it means maintaining a bin of tropical cockroaches and letting them breed. But the love isn’t for roaches; it’s for what eats them.
Marcia Rybak has 150-plus mouths to feed in the basement of her Lake Forest home, a lizard kingdom. But she’s not just a hobbyist; she’s also president of the 2,000-member Chicago Herpetological Society, a not-for-profit group of reptile and amphibian collectors and enthusiasts and, she said, America’s largest regional herpetological society.
The objects of her fancy are those strange-looking creatures, distant relatives of the dinosaur, with scaly or slippery skin, that slither, crawl or hop.
“I absolutely love my animals,” Rybak said. “They have names like Iggy and Burnie, who was burned when I got him. Those who don’t have names have identification numbers. I spend five hours every day caring for them-feeding them, cleaning their cages. When my husband and I leave town, I have to hire a pet sitter.”
In a 1,000-square-foot portion of the basement in Rybak’s home dwell the reptilian recipients of her seemingly boundless affection and attention: iguanas, leopard geckos, Rankin dragons, bearded dragons, monitor lizards, chameleons and a variety of turtles, to name just a few of the resident species. There in their subterranean home they breed and flourish.
“Some reptiles lay eggs, some hatch eggs within their own bodies, and some deliver live births, depending on the species,” Rybak explained. “Amphibians begin life in the water with gills and later develop lungs. But I don’t have any amphibians.”
Rybak rigidly controls the environment her pets inhabit, maintaining temperatures of 85 degrees by day, 72 degrees by night. Humidity is closely monitored by a hygrometer and strictly maintained between 50 and 60 percent. The animals are housed in custom-built cages or tanks known as vivaria, some of which are three tiers high and most with an Astroturf bottom.
They bask in warm artificial sunlight provided by full spectrum Vita-Lite fluorescent lights operated by timers and rheostats to simulate the rising and setting of the sun. Also, by varying the temperature, Rybak tries to create two seasons, winter and summer.
The animals dine on well-balanced diets of the aforementioned cockroaches plus various worms, crickets and other nutritious foods.
“My food bill runs about $200 a month,” Rybak said. “I buy 5,000 crickets every two weeks. I buy 3,000 waxworms-larvae from the wax moth-every month. I also buy about 3,000 mealworms a month. I breed tropical cockroaches myself, just for variety in my lizards’ diet.”
Other amenities at Rybak’s deluxe herpetological hotel, based on the specific needs of each animal, might include either vertical or horizontal tree branches, a “hot rock” beneath a spotlight to bask upon, a place to hide, water to drink and water to bathe in, and congenial same-species company to share these pleasures with.
“They all have distinctive personalities,” Rybak said. “And when I walk into the room at feeding time, they always seem happy to see me.
“Different species have different character traits,” she continued. “Some are docile and shy. When they see you, they’ll run and hide. Others are curious. They’ll come right up to you or go exploring. Some are skittish. Some jump up like dogs. Some are trusting, or suspicious. Some are smarter than others and have different aggression levels. Some will go hunt, others just sit and wait until something goes by. There’s a big range of characteristics within every species.”
It sounds a lot like humans. But for Rybak’s husband, Steve Uhring, vice president of sales for Commerce Clearing House, a Riverwoods publisher of topical law books, they aren’t close enough to humans. He is not what Rybak calls “a reptile person.”
“We have an arrangement, Marcia and I,” Uhring said. “Marcia promised to take precuations to prevent the animals from escaping out of the basement and infesting the house proper. I’m not involved, but I do like them. I personally named two turtles, Soup and Chowder,” he said with a chuckle. “But this wouldn’t be my choice of hobby. Although Marcia could certainly have hobbies a lot worse-skydiving or ballooning, for example. Her work consumes a lot of her time, and she’s dedicated. It’s like having kids. She’s helping people, and it gives her a purpose.”
The couple, both in their early 40s, were married two years ago. They don’t have the same last names, Marcia explained, “Because I wouldn’t change my name to his, and he wouldn’t change his to mine.”
Rybak has a bachelor of science degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and was a computer consultant when she met Uhring at a subsidiary of Commerce Clearing House in Los Angeles.
Outside the lizard world, they do share interests in golf and travel.
Rybak’s interest in herpetology began about eight years ago when she found an injured lizard in the back yard of her Los Angeles home.
“I brought the lizard into the house, and two days later it died. So I went to a pet shop and bought two other lizards, a curly-tailed and a green anole. I’ve always been an animal person, with dogs and cats. But suddenly I got hooked on lizards. They fascinate me. As my interest in lizards grew, I started buying too many too fast-about one a month. I still have some from that era. When we moved to Chicago, we transported them all-about 100-in a rental truck for three grueling days.
“But they traveled well. I kept some species apart in sweater boxes so they wouldn’t fight. We stopped at truck stops because the babies required daily feedings and had to be taken out of the van. Turtles don’t require such care.”
In the process of caring for and learning about her reptilian pets, Rybak became a serious, self-taught expert herpetologist. She co-wrote a scholarly article on the subject in one professional journal, The League of Florida Herpetologists Bulletin, and writes regularly in the monthly Bulletin of the Chicago Herpetological Society.
Philippe de Vosjoli, founder and president of The Vivarium magazine in Escondido, Calif., a bimonthly periodical published by the American Federation of Herpetoculturists, with a circulation of about 10,000, met Rybak in California at various herpetological seminars and conferences and admires her work in the field.
“Marcia is great, very bright, very enthusiastic, with a great manner of communication and a great sense of organization,” De Vosjoli said. “She’s also an excellent spokesperson for herpetoculture.”
Herpetoculture, De Vosjoli explained, is a recenty coined word meaning the keeping and breeding of reptiles and amphibians. The word should not be confused, he cautioned, with herpetology, which means the scientific study of reptiles and amphibians.
“Reptiles and amphibians are the fastest-growing segment of the pet industry,” De Vosjoli said. “Maybe it’s because they’re so alien, such an unusual life form. They’re creatures of fantasy come to life.”
Phillip Samuelson, editor of Reptiles magazine in Mission Viejo, Calif., also asserted that reptiles and amphibians have become trendy pets. “Reptiles are the pets of the ’90s,” he said. “They’re perfect for working people. Most require little maintenance. They don’t have to be walked, they don’t take up much space, and most don’t have to be fed every day. They’re colorful and exotic, they don’t smell, and they don’t make noise.”
Samuelson also pointed out the distant evolutionary relationship between reptiles and dinosaurs and cites the popularity of last year’s hit movie “Jurassic Park” as another reason for the currently booming appeal of saurian pets.
Jeff Pauley, manager of Tropical Pets, a Waukegan pet store, reported that iguanas are selling regularly at the brisk rate of about 12 a month. This growing national interest in herpetoculture was reflected last month in the Chicago area’s first Reptile and Amphibian Expo, held June 4 and 5 at Triton College’s 13,000-square-foot Robert Collins Center.
Created and supervised by Rybak, who also did a large share of the work, the event was sponsored by the Chicago Herpetological Society and the institution with which the organization is affiliated, the Chicago Academy of Science.
Reptile and Amphibian Expo attracted about 40 exhibitors, who showed live animals and featured educational displays, vendors of animal care products, books, posters, T-shirts, greeting cards and stuffed animals. The event drew about 2,000 spectators.
“I was up all night making signs for the exhibitions,” Rybak said. “I wrote the Latin name for each species, its range, habitat, description and diet. People found it very educational, and the facilities were large, spacious, and comfortable. We also signed up quite a few new members for the Chicago Herpetological Society. Expo was a huge success, and we’ll do it every year from now on.”
Part of the reason for the expo, according to Rybak, was to make it clear to the pet-buying public that “these are not toys; they are animals with very specific needs.”
Reptiles should not be bought for a youngster who has no clue about how to care for it, she said. The animal will die.
For example, reptiles are cold-blooded. They don’t generate their own body heat; that’s why they bask in the sun, because they derive heat from external sources. “They can’t tolerate cold, so when it’s cold, their metabolism shuts down to conserve heat and energy,” Rybak said. Compensating for the lack of sunlight means using the electrical hot rocks and full-spectrum lights. A parent or child who acquires a reptile and simply keeps it in an aquarium with no special lighting and heat is killing it.
“I’ve known Marcia Rybak for about two years, and she’s very knowledgeable about herpetology,” said William Brian Jones of Chicago, an exhibitor at the expo. At the show, Jones, a Chicago Herpetological Society member and corresponding secretary of the organization, displayed several of his 50 reptiles.
Steve Barten, a doctor of veterinary medicine who practices at the Vernon Hills Animal Hospital, agreed with Jones about Rybak’s expertise. He and Rybak co-authored an article on how to calculate drug dosages for reptiles. The story appeared in the March 1993 issue of The League of Florida Herpetologists Bulletin.
Barten is a past president of the Chicago Herpetological Society and a nationally recognized authority on reptiles and amphibians.
“Marcia may sometimes be here once a week,” he said of her trips to his clinic. “She’s very aware of symptoms of illness in reptiles and brings them in at the first sign of sickness.”
“If one of my reptiles dies,” Rybak said, “Dr. Barten performs a necropsy-what for humans is called an autopsy-to determine the cause of death. If necessary, he’ll also do a histopathy, an organ and cell study. Then I’ll know if there was disease present, or if I wasn’t feeding the animal properly. My reptiles may be having heart attacks or suffer from cancer, and I want to know.”
Plans for the Chicago Herpetological Society are ambitious, although Rybak said her one-year term as president of the 28-year-old organization is up at the end of this year.
“I want to provide more services for members-more workshops and classes,” she said. “I also want to recruit more members.”
Rybak was recently elected secretary of the National Herpetological Alliance, a not-for-profit lobbying group with headquarters in Chicago. The organization seeks to protect and represent the rights of individuals to maintain, breed and sell reptiles and amphibians in a responsible manner.
Other projects of Rybak include her Leap ‘n’ Lizards line of reptile and amphibian food and other products, a new business in the start-up phase. She also is in the process of creating a software program to track reptile breeding, feeding and other data, plus a registry for breeding purposes of rare species, both males and females, that she intends to bring to the market.
Reflecting on her affinity for reptiles, Rybak said, “I can’t explain it. I don’t identify with them, although I guess I’m a loner, like most of these animals.”
What do others think of Rybak’s involvment with her reptilian pets? “When I tell people what I’m into,” she said, “they usually go: `Yuck!’ But when they learn how fascinating and intelligent reptiles are, they get interested.”
If reptiles are so intelligent, can you train a lizard?
Rybak laughed. “No. If you could, I’d be on the David Letterman show with a whole bagful of stupid pet tricks.”
