Students on February break crowded into a room for a presentation, plastic bins and bags covering the table. It might have seemed like a normal enough afternoon in the Mattapoisett Library Children’s Department on Wednesday – until you realize the bags, or whatever was inside them, were moving.

Jeffrey Beatriz, owner of Cold Blooded Pets in Acushnet, spent the afternoon speaking to children about an assortment of reptiles. From tortoises and frogs to blue skinks and Argentine black and white tegus and everything in between, there was something for everyone.

“I think this one is a female, because she doesn’t have much of a beard going on – just a five o’clock shadow,” Beatriz joked while holding up a bearded dragon.

It turns out that bearded dragons, while not fans of other lizards, do like people and will spend their days watching Beatriz work.

“They always want to know what’s going on,” he said.

Beatriz also showed off a variety of snakes, from ball pythons to Burmese pythons, and explained that unlike most mammals, female snakes are generally larger than their male counterparts.

He added that snakes never really stop growing, even as adults.

“The growth slows down when they get older, but they still shed their skin once or twice a year,” he said.