Just before visitors leave "The Power of Poison," a traveling exhibition from the American Museum of Natural History on view at the Arizona Science Center through Aug. 24, Zoë, a Gila monster on loan from the Phoenix Herpetological Society, approaches the glass dome on her enclosure and peers out at the group of children staring at her excitedly.

“She loves a camera,” says Kristina Celik, the center’s marketing director, unlike the golden poison dart frog in the lush Colombian Chocó forest walkthrough area at the exhibit’s entrance, who tends to hide in his moist enclosure.

“Fun fact,” Celik says. “When Gila monsters bite, they have venom, much like a snake. But instead of just injecting the venom through a bite, she saws her teeth into you. To remove a Gila monster, you need a crowbar

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