IN THE CLASSROOM:

There was a snake in the auditorium Monday — and a tarantula and a desert tortoise and a chinchilla, among several other critters.

Bonnie McQuisten, who works for the Orange County Department of Education, held up a ball python longer than her arm and explained to about 20 youths how he can smell to the left and right with his tongue, swallow animals three times as large as his head, and slither out of a room at a moment’s notice.

“Ever been bit by a snake on the job?” one boy asked.

“No, but I’d like to!” McQuisten replied.

It was all part of TeWinkle Middle School’s Nature Academy, an after-school club that has youths meeting weekly to encounter new parts of the natural world. McQuisten was part of the education department’s Inside the Outdoors program, which brings live animals to students who may never have seen their kind.

“We always either have some kind of program or field trip,” said Pam Finamore, the academy’s faculty advisor.

For each animal, McQuisten explained its adaptations to special habitat — from the chinchilla’s ability to bathe its dense fur in dust to the desert tortoise’s power to live a year without water — then paraded him or her around for the students to feel with their fingers, one by one.

The most controversial choice was Rosie, the rose hair tarantula, which had chairs squeaking as kids inched backward to avoid having to touch her. She isn’t dangerous, McQuisten said.

“She would have to stand up on her back legs and hook her fangs before she bit me, and I could get away from her a long time before then,” she said.

Still, she wasn’t many students’ favorite.

“I liked the chinchilla, because it was so soft,” said Alyssa Nadashy, 13.

But animal enthusiast Jonathan Mendoza, 13, had a different take.

“My favorite was the snake and the red-tailed hawk,” he said. “Snakes, I have known for a very long time. But I’ve never seen a hawk with a red tail like that before.”

Next week for the Nature Academy?

McQuisten comes back, this time all with birds of prey.

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at [email protected].