Ray Anderson, known to kids all over Ohio as Outback Ray, made his annual appearance at the Brookfield Branch Library of the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library on July 12.
The wild animal collector and showman presented to about three dozen children a blue-tongued skink, a silver fox rabbit, an albino milk snake, a Paraguayan golden or Southern armadillo, an African spurred tortoise, a mosaic chinchilla, a crested gecko, an albino dove and, his signature animal, an albino Burmese python.
Anderson, who lives in Bath, allowed the children to touch each animal, and some
were lucky enough to hold an animal or have one perched on his or her head or draped over them.
Anderson talked about the habitats where each animal would live in the wild – all of his are captive-bred – what they eat, when they are active and how he cares for them.
While most of his animals are from exotic places such as Australia, Africa and South America, silver fox rabbits, one of the larger breeds of rabbit, were initially bred in the early 1900s by a farmer in Canton, Anderson said.
