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About us

Contact Information:
    Justin Julander - owner Australian Addiction Reptiles
    Cell: (435) 760-4739
    e-mail: justin.julander@usu.edu 
 
    Location: Australian Addiction Reptiles is located in Smithfield, UT

History:
    Australian Addiction Reptiles was founded in 1997 when I bought a gravid female bearded dragon from the local herp shop.  I had always kept various herps as a kid and had a lot of experience with keeping reptiles, but had never really considered breeding them.  I discovered Vivarium magazine and the first issue I got was the cutting edge of herpetoculture issue and saw some of the breeding projects people were involved with and was imediately hooked.  I was always excited about Australian herps and was always dreaming about the day I could get a frilled lizard or a perentie.  In that first Vivarium magazine, I discovered the dwarf monitors and began scheming how I could start on a project with them.  In the meantime I got more bearded dragons and had a nice little hobby that made a little money to fund the addiction.  I borrowed some money and sprung for a trio of red spiny-tailed monitors.  Later that year, I got some jungle carpet pythons, a few colubrids, and some veiled chameleons and began to envision all the babies I would produce. 
   
    For the most part my projects went well, partly due to help from Python Pete Kuhn and Frank Retes who got me really excited about Australian monitors and pythons.  I visited them and called them to squeeze all of the information out of them I could.  After one clutch of (failed) ackie eggs I was on the right track, but soon after moved up north to start grad school and soon discovered my schedule wasn't really compatible with breeding monitors, and failed to produce any more eggs from the ackies and ended up selling them off after my female died.  The pythons, however, did well and were more condusive to a graduate student schedule.  A pair of childrens pythons was soon added and it wasn't long until all my pythons started producing babies.  My facility overheated in 2001, killing my beautiful breeder jungle carpets, but luckily I had some babies that were too ugly and didn't sell, but had the ugly duckling syndrome and became screamers.  I met a local guy, Jim, and he sold me some smooth knob-tailed geckos, which got me in contact with Casey Lazik as I was searching for information on the little guys.  A visit to Casey Lazik's place introduced me to ball python morphs first hand, and then I caught the piebald bug from that visit as well as a resolve to add a group of bredli to my projects.  Centralians arrived in late 2002 and have captivated me ever since. 
   
    In 2002 I met Benson Morrill, and our common interest in reptiles led us to combine forces as partners in the reptile breeding business.  Ben had bred ball pythons and boas and was very interested in getting into some of the new ball morph projects as well as some carpet python projects.  Ben and I got a pair of het piebald ball pythons in the summer of 2003, and were thrilled to have the male breed with three females which laid eggs that summer.  In 2005, our female het pied laid 3 eggs, 2 of which turned out to be pieds.  That did the trick, and we were very excited about ball morphs.  Ben and I have continued to accumulate many different projects.  Things will continue to grow, and it is exciting to think about all the projects out there to get into.  It also helps that our wonderful wives are supportive of our addiction, and even participate in some of our reptile discussions.  Ben finished a BS degree in herpetology in 2004, and is currently working on his PhD.  I finished my PhD in Bioveterinary Science in the spring of 2005.  AAR became an LLC in 2007.

    After Ben finished his PhD, he took a job and moved to Virginia. Shortly thereafter, we split up the business. Ben has since focused primarily on ball pythons with his business Rare Genetics Inc. He has also started a service business that does genetic testing for various reptile species called Reptile Genetic Services. He has been making some great advances in herpetoculture and is putting his background in genetics to great use to help determine gender in hard to sex species. Check out his businesses, buy some ball pythons and send him some samples!

    I am excited for the future of Australian Addiction Reptiles, and hope we can serve you in your addiction as well.  Get Addicted!

Interests:
    I am crazy about Australian reptiles, especially pythons, monitors and geckos.  We are always looking to add the folowing species at some point down the road: