Barney
Barney the tuatara
Hungry Houdini
Other names
independent living, snacks
Hobbies
“We used to have a bunch of animals and I thought they were gone — because they were abducted, long story — but we have a tuatara still onboard whose name is Barney.”
- Ethan Alden
Barney is a tuatara in his 30s. Born on Earth, he was brought onboard MESS a few months before Ethan Alden arrived.
early life
Barney was born on a nature preserve in New Zealand, but was taken into captivity after suffering a near fatal injury in a wild pig attack. Barney was released back into nature after being nursed back to health. However, the rangers kept finding him in their store room eating the restock supply for the gumball machine. They got rid of the gumball machine, since they couldn’t keep him out, and the gumballs are not healthy for tuataras to eat. However, he still found a way into their break room to eat their Stevia, donuts, Nespresso pods, Werther’s Original Soft Caramels, and psyllium-husk-based dietary supplements — most of which are not part of a balanced tuatara diet. This earned him the nickname Hungry Houdini.
Lizard Apocalypse
By the time Barney was in his early 20s (tuataras can live up to 100 years), MESS was under construction, and scientists were looking for possible animal candidates to live in outer space for research purposes. Once MESS was self-sustaining, a team of astronauts and zoologists brought Barney into space to live, along with 19 other species of animals. When the Lizard Apocalypse began a few months later, Barney and the other animals were stranded in space with Ethan Alden.
A few years into the apocalypse, MESS came into contact with the Hyperaware International Space Station (HISS), formerly the ISS. HISS took all the animals off MESS by force, but Barney had escaped his habitat and was not found.
It wasn’t until years later, when Ethan started recording his podcast, that Ethan discovered Barney was still onboard MESS. He did not know how to take care of Barney, but then realized Barney had already been taking care of himself for the past 10 years. Ethan made sure to lock up or throw out any sugary human snacks Barney got into, which caused him to incinerate millions of dollars worth of highly collectible Red, White, & Blueberry Pop-Tarts.
Ethan and Barney are the same age.
Favorite movie
Barney’s favorite movie is The Passion of the Christ.
At least, Ethan says it’s the “only movie where he stayed in the room for the entire time, and also cried.”