It's a lot like book knowledge and hands on knowledge.

You can read a book, or books, and know an awful lot about any given subject. You can speak of it intelligently, you can pass on information that others less read than yourself may not know, you can make yourself appear as an expert.

Until..... something comes up that is not covered in a book.

Someone who has years of experience with multiple animals and species, whether that person is well read or not, will just know things that a book only expert won't.

The way a snake holds itself, the way it looks at objects, be they food items or just it's surroundings, how loose or tight the skin, how it moves, why it may not be moving, all are discussed in many books but until you get your hands on MANY snakes exhibiting these factors, your expertise is very limited. That is not to say your knowledge has no value, just that it is of a different worth, which is not in and of itself, a bad thing.

Your real experts, from what I have seen, not only have a TON of hands on experience, but are well read and keep up on available information through word of mouth, books, internet, magazines, all forms of media.

There are a lot of people who know a lot of stuff but are far from being experts.

It's really hard to figure out who is and who isn't but as was mentioned in an earlier post, with time and attention, you can figure out who YOU think is an expert by keeping track of what and how people pass on information.