I own 2 Canon DSLR cameras and would recommend a Canon. The wife owns a Canon Sureshot which can easily fit in your pocket. They make 6-10 different Sureshots, so you can find one that you like and can afford. You can buy a Sureshot for less than $100 up to a couple hundred. My newest is the 50D. A great DSLR for the price. You can get it at Best Buy with a great 28-135mm lens for $1200. Then you can buy a compact flash card on eBay for anywhere from $50-300. I've got a 32 Gig and an 8 Gig card. Most of my pictures are in the 5-8 meg range, but if I go with the RAW format, they can be as large as 15 meg.

Determine your budget, got look at the cameras you can afford. try them out. Look for features that you're interested in. A Macro lens can be important if you want to take close up shots of your reptiles.

Good Luck!
Jim Smith