Penn Vet’s Karen Verderame has 17 tarantulas, vinegaroons (whip-tail scorpions), true scorpions, hissing cockroaches, giant cockroaches, three bearded dragons, a snake, hermit crabs, chinchillas, two dogs, and three cats.
It all started with worms. As a child, when her dad would buy worms for fishing, Karen Verderame would take them all, give them a home, and name them George. Caring for the squirmy little creatures roused a fascination with worms, insects, and animals, a lifelong passion she now imparts to and shares with students from grade school to college.
Assistant director for outreach education at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Verderame grew up in the Wissinoming section of Philadelphia. She did not have a garden at her home but began reading about the wildlife that inhabited her city block: squirrels, pigeons, and what Philadelphians call waterbugs (technically, she says, they are oriental cockroaches). She had the standard run of pets—a cat, a dog, a parakeet—but also kept a colony of hissing cockroaches in a tank in her closet.
“My mom wasn’t too happy about it, nor was my dad and my brother, but they knew I was very excited by it and I enjoyed learning about them, so I was allowed to keep them,” Verderame says. “I wanted to have a lot more animals, but my dad always said when I got my own place, I could have as many animals as I want. I think that’s to the detriment to my husband now, because I took that to heart.”
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