The freezer
Frozen mice
Pinkie through XL. They stay frozen until you walk in. Size the animal first.
$2.49
Connecticut reptile specialty shop
Harris
in Wonderland
Snakes, lizards, frogs · Canton, Connecticut
Not a pet aisle. A working herp collection — snakes, lizards, frogs, and feeders — run by people who breed the animals and will talk you out of the wrong one.
Giant day gecko · looking glass · Route 44
Exhibits
Cases on the floor.
Walk-ins call it a small-scale zoo. Morphs you will not find at a chain, feeders priced for people who actually feed, staff who shrink a ticket if the setup is not ready.
Case 01
Snakes
Designer morphs and well-started animals. The next snake after you have held a corn or a king.
Case 02
Lizards & shells
The odd lizard that stops traffic. Not a first animal. A serious enclosure.
Case 03
Amphibians
The damp-room poster. Beautiful, nocturnal, not a first frog.
Field notes
Look closer.
The collection rewards a second glance: color, texture, tiny feet, watchful eyes. These are the animals that make the front room feel like a small-scale zoo.
Drag to scroll →
Floor notes
What they posted this week.
Live from the shop Instagram — pink-tongues in, tortoise hides back, electric blues.
Aug 28
The Pink-tongued skink, Cyclodomorphus gerrardii, is an amazing mid sized skink that I find most enjoyable to set up in a large, vertically oriented and planted terrarium. We currently have a nice group of these well-started captive bred babies available!
Open on Instagram
Aug 26
The Tortoise Hide Cave, one of our more popular items, as it is spacious and looks great in the terrarium, now back in stock!
Open on Instagram
Aug 24
Now that IS electric blue!! Lygodactylus williamsi, the electric blue day gecko from Tanzania is critically endangered due to habitat loss. Fortunately more people are keeping these, and captive-bred animals are available.
Open on InstagramPickup feeders
The locker, priced.
They raise their own feeders for the animals on the rack and sell the surplus. Frozen mice, dubia, mealworms, and the odd cup regulars drive for. Pickup at 364 Albany Turnpike — nothing ships.
Live insects
Mealworms
Singles through a thousand. Regulars grab a cup even when they are not adding an animal.
$2.99
Live insects
Dubia roaches
Small, medium, large. Count the mouths at home before you count the cup.
$12.99
The locker
Other feeders
Hornworms, silkworms, waxworms, fruit flies, soldier flies, earthworms. The weird stuff.
$7.99
The freezer
Frozen mammals
Rabbits, guinea pigs, chicks, and quail. Call if the size on the ticket is wrong.
$6.99
Frozen stays frozen until you walk in · live cups go home the same day
Live from Square
The rack, priced.
Live Square inventory. Animals and feeders ring through Harris’s Square account — pickup at 364 Albany Turnpike.
12 in stock · live Square feed · slide the rack
Corn and Rat Snakes
Corn Snake
Anerythristic Corn Male
$99.99
Corn and Rat Snakes
Corn Snake
Het Anery 50% het Motley/Sunkissed/Lav/Hypo Corn Female
$119.99
Corn and Rat Snakes
Corn Snake
Caramel Corn Male
$124.99
Corn and Rat Snakes
Corn Snake
Ultra Corn Female
$129.99
Ball Pythons
Ball Python
Fire Calico Female
$149.99
Ball Pythons
Ball Python
Fire Yellowbelly Male
$149.99
Corn and Rat Snakes
Corn Snake
Albino Reverse Okeetee Corn Male
$149.99
Corn and Rat Snakes
Corn Snake
Albino Reverse Okeetee Corn Female
$149.99
Corn and Rat Snakes
Milk Snake
Pueblan Milk Male
$159.99
Ball Pythons
Ball Python
Orange Dream Enchi Male
$179.99
Ball Pythons
Ball Python
Super Enchi Yellowbelly Orange Dream Male
$189.99
Ball Pythons
Ball Python
Lesser Nanny Black Pewter PH Clown Male
170 grams
$189.99
Beginner chooser
The right first animal.
Harris has always steered first-timers toward hardy species. Corn or king. Leo or beardie. Red-foot. White’s. Ask at the counter before you fall for the showy one.
Snakes
Corn or king
Easy to keep clean, easy to feed, a hide and a heat source. Ball pythons and boas are the next step, not the first ticket if you have never held a snake.
Open the sheet
Lizards
Leo or beardie
Leopard geckos and bearded dragons. Most lizards would rather be watched than handled. Budget the UV and the heat before the animal.
Open the sheet
Shells
Red-foot
Personable and long-lived. They eat every day and they are messy. Be honest about the maintenance. Russians are the other beginner tortoise they will name.
Open the sheet
Amphibians
White's
White's treefrogs for a first frog. Clean water is not optional. Horned frogs are the other beginner they recommend. Red-eyes, mantellas, and darts come later.
Open the sheet
House rules
Husbandry first.
Adam Harris has kept and bred reptiles for more than twenty years, with field time in Costa Rica, Thailand, Australia, South Africa, and the Bahamas. Seth built the original shop as a fish-keeper and taught high-school biology for 31 years.
Many animals are captive-bred here or by local people the shop will stand behind. They raise their own feeders for the collection and sell the surplus. Frozen rodents, crickets, and roaches are why regulars drive even when they are not adding a new animal. Ask for the care sheet that matches the animal on the rack.
Honest setups
Enclosures, heat, UV, substrate, plants, food. They size the tub before they size the receipt.
Rare on the wall
Reviewers mention animals they have never seen at a chain — morphs, odd colubrids, well-kept giants.
Parties that handle animals
About twenty creatures, a chance to hold one, a feeding demo if you want it. Birthdays, classrooms, libraries, scouts. Book ahead. These fill.
The Harris story
From a house of tanks to Route 44.
1940s · West Hartford
Seth starts with fish
A breeding hobby out of the house, then a shop on New Britain Avenue while he studied biology at UConn. Military service and 31 years teaching at Granby Memorial closed the first shop.
1999 · Bloomfield
Reopened next to a bar
October 1999: four hundred square feet adjacent to a bar, then 1,800 next door once the smoke got old. Six years of the modern shop.
Avon
Two village rooms
Old Avon Village downstairs for seven years, then street level a quarter-mile away for four. The collection outgrew both.
Now · Canton
364 Albany Turnpike
Parking, handicapped access, road frontage. Grey building attached to BreMar Rentals. The snake-handle door is the landmark.
Keepers
Biology, not scripts.
Founder
Seth Harris
UConn biology. 31 years at Granby Memorial. Fifty years of fish. He built the first shop as a house of tanks.
Reptiles
Adam Harris
Hartwick biology. Two decades breeding. Field time in Costa Rica, Thailand, Australia, South Africa, and the Bahamas.
Husbandry
Ashlee Carlson
The person keepers ask whether that animal is actually a good fit. She will shrink a ticket if the setup is not ready.
364 Albany Turnpike
Buy here. Pick up through the snake-handle door.