A group of children try their hardest to look over those in front of them to get a better peek at what animal Jamie Hacker will show them next.

“What is it?” Jamie asks the children as he pulls a medium-sized reptile out of a tub.

“A dinosaur!” guesses one from the audience.

Although the dwarf caiman does have armored-looking skin, it is only the “funny looking cousin” of alligators and crocodiles. 

Jamie and his wife Leigh walk around a room in the Scottsboro Public Library as part of the animal show program. The couple operates 6th Day Creatures, a group that aims at educating children of any age about different animals. There were about 200 people in attendance at the library for the event.

During the program, they tell the audience different facts about the animals, like where they are from and what they typically eat.

The caiman Jamie holds as he walks around the room has a liking for crawfish, and underneath a taped-shut mouth there are many “razor-sharp teeth” that allow the animal to be carnivorous.

As Jamie puts the caiman away and pulls the next animal out, the children gasp with excitement—it is a kinkajou named Pikachu. Kinkajous are small mammals that are related to the raccoon, and they typically live in the Central and South America.

When Jamie let Nehemiah Baty touch Pikachu, he grins with excitement.

“It was fun,” Baty said.

At the end of the program, everyone forms a neat line to pet tortoises Monster Nugget and Big Mac. The children were laughing as they touched the shells, and walked away with smiles all around.


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