TOM CRUTCHFIELD

The reason a lot of us are able to keep reptiles at all. His original price lists were the pipeline through which countless species first made it into the country. Called himself “the Mick Jagger of the reptile business” — and earned it. He bought the first documented albino Burmese python for $21,000 and partnered with Bob Clark to crack its genetics, captive-bred over 200 species, produced the first albino green iguana, and even supplied the snakes for Indiana Jones. A founding pillar of the entire hobby.