[thatBilly]

I have bought and sold hundreds of invertebrates around the world, all transported by standard mail services.

I've sent probably 40 parcels successfully and received around 80 in the past 15 years. We avoid sending them in winter, if it's not the height of summer (depending on species) we enclose heat packs. They are always extremely well insulated, ventilated and padded. Poor packaging and mailing is heavily criticised in the pet invertebrates hobby, people are ostracised if they continue to endanger livestock or potentially cause injury to mail workers.

I had one parcel containing dozens of centipedes from China damaged, with centipedes escaping.

I had a parcel from Germany containing tarantulas sat at the post office for days because the postman on foot thought the parcel was too big and the one with the van disagreed. Tarantulas died.

I have some limited experience of mailing reptiles in the UK from around 15-20 years ago but it's heavily frowned upon, probably illegal and reputable dealers will only use pet couriers. I could imagine a small snake could be mailed safely but I'm also horrified at the thought of mailing a bearded dragon or chameleon.

[bbarn]

I was quite the tarantula enthusiast at one time, and also sent and received a lot of spiders in the mail. I once had an Aphonopelma species - a desert dwelling tarantula - arrive completely frozen solid when the shipper said it would have heat packs (and was only a 1 day trip from AZ).

I'll skip the boring part of the story, but it thawed, and lived.

[linuxps2]

USPS/FedEx overnight is the go-to method for shipping snakes in the US. There is special packaging to maintain consistent temps. That's how I got my carpet python

[imglorp]

According to the article, snakes and turtles are not allowed in USPS. I wonder why? I'd rather a 20 inch python escape than a 20 inch baby alligator.

[linuxps2]

I should correct my statement, I meant to say UPS/FedEx - not sure why USPS cares about snakes but until I hear more I'm going to blame Samuel L. Jackson

[wavefunction]

>>one parcel containing dozens of centipedes from China damaged, with centipedes escaping

It sounds like between the parcel services and y'all, there's a hell of a lot of irresponsible behavior going on.