Sea squirts or ascidians are lovely little marine filter feeders. They have a larval tadpole stage, where the little guys disperse by swimming, and then they settle down, metamorphose, and spend the rest of their lives quietly sucking in sea water and filtering out small particles for food. They are soft, gooey little blobs that filter feed.
Except in Australia.
Everything seems to be toxic or dangerous in Australia. Newly discovered off the South Australian coast: carnivorous sea squirts. These creatures aren’t content with living on bacteria or debris — they function like a Venus fly trap, with a funnel shaped oral region on the end of a long stalk that snaps shut on small animals that touch it.
Do you guys think this is macho, or something? Does everything have to be trying to kill something else down under?
…in a sedentary state.
This is the analogy that one of my professors at Dundee Uni used to compare sea squirts with academics! (and PZ might be interested to know the Dundee University Biological sciences departmental museum is the D’arcy Wentworth Thompson museum)
Very cool story though.
cool, although unlike other nasty Australian lifeforms, this would actually be a reason to go visit.
though the dinner-plate-sized spiders pretty much guarantee I’ll never go to Australia
Venus fly traps of the sea. Why not. Genes take evolution in some funny pathways if there is the slightest advantage.
Not everything…
Off the topic, did anyone else see the Victorian glass sea-life at io9? Much coolness:
http://io9.com/5134196/a-rare-collection-of-victorian-glass-microbes
Drop Bears are the worst.
Except for Sea Drop Bears. Yikes.
Jadehawk wrote:
They’re not everywhere, only in the rainforest parts. Of course, everywhere they’re not has far more dangerous poisonous spiders – but they’re not so big.
Come visit South Australia. As long as you stay out of the ocean (where the sharks and the apparently carnivorous sea-squirts are) then you should be fine; it’s perfectly safe. Well, except for all the serial killers, that is…
What a continent! The deadliest animals on land and sea! It’s a wonder the cane toads don’t evolve to the size of kangaroos and really wreak havoc among the land animals and small humans. Is there a different kind of god down there that directs such deadliness?
I still stand by my assertion that the world would be a much more terrifying and bloody place if Celine Dion hailed from Australia as opposed to Canada.
I hear even some of the grass is nasty.
I remember Bill Bryson writing in his book SUNBURNED COUNTRY about Australia’s…
“…lethal seashells? They have lethal SEASHELLS?”
You can’t beat venomous octupi
Stay away from the 40 metre tall nettles
And the hoop snakes.
Don’t forget the hoop snakes.
One early explorer did make the comment that “even the grass has spears” which is a reference to spinafex.
After walking through spinafex it was almost 2 months before I managed to get all of the spines out of my shins.
I have also been bitten by a red-back spider. It was a very painful experience and I don’t recommend it to anybody. However, at least I have never had a bad experience with the stinging tree yet. I am told that it makes a red-back bite seem mild
from Jadehawk @2: “though the dinner-plate-sized spiders pretty much guarantee I’ll never go to Australia”
That’s a common misconception from our friends in the northern hemisphere. Dinner-plate sized spiders are extremely rare and even more rarely sighted.
It’s the frequently encountered venomous spiders that hide in shoes, drawers and under pillows that should be of a much greater concern.
They’re only bread-plate sized.
Some ascidians concentrate vanadium in their blood for no reason known to me or to Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanabins
If there had been we’d no doubt have hunted, shot, killed, eaten and made boots out of it by now.
Check out this travel advertisement for the truth. The fact is: Australia doesn’t want us here. We are not welcome. At all. That’s why everything here — the animals, the plants, the weather, the terrain — is trying to kill us.
This carnivorous sea-whotsit is just another example of the general trend. If you want an antipodean nation that isn’t blood-thirsty, you really can’t go past New Zealand.
“Do you guys think this is macho, or something? Does everything have to be trying to kill something else down under?”
(Doing my best Ronnie John’s impression of Chopper Read:) PZ, harden the fuck up.
A link on hoop snakes, for those interested.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Hoop_Snake
I’m reminded of Douglas Adams’ hilarious piece on the hazards of visiting Australia:
http://www.smedg.org.au/DougAdamsOnOz.html
Yeah, Australia sucks.
mmmm… sacrilicious
How tough can Australia be if rabbits are able to take over?
Does everything have to be trying to kill something else down under?
In a word, yes. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and what does makes you… er… dead. Every time you get bitten or stung by something on land or in sea you think “Fuck! I’m gonna die”. If you’re not dead or immobilised in agony after a few minutes you’re probably going to be alright though.
What is funny is when we’re overseas the semi paranoid scanning of long grass or tentative feeling of underwater rocks doesn’t go away.
Another thing that really shits me though is the tabloid media (basically all commercial media) in Oz at the moment is trying to beat up a shark scare. We average one, just one, shark death a year in Australia. It has been 70 years since a shark killed someone at a Sydney beach but the fucktards in the media are trying to cause a panic. Okay, there have been a few attacks the last few weeks but still. In the last 9 weeks though 18 people have drowned on New South Wales beaches. It isn’t what is in the water that kills it is the water.
It’s like asking how tough can the dinosaurs be if only the small feathered ones survived the meteor impact.
@Derek
Here is the Chopper Read Harden the fuck up bit…
Fracking hilarious.
C’mon. Bloodythirsty is fun – and such creatures provide our children with much-needed exercise and the development of skills for sports like tennis, cricket, soccer, rugby union* and Australian Rules football.
Besides, our parrots are much more interesting than NZ’s fat, stupid, flightless one.
*Yes, there’s only one true form of rugby. The other so-called ‘sport’ is more accurately described as a hobby designed for nightclub bouncers to develop their skills.
Don’t worry about the sea squirts, the sharks, the blue-ringed octopuses, the stinging trees, the huge spiders or our numerous dangerous snakes. We also have enormous goannas, whose venomous bite (distantly related to snakes) was discovered a few years ago. I even had a 1.5m long sample goanna freaking out my cats not too long ago.
If that makes you feel better about the sea creatures.
Posted by: Kel | January 19, 2009
It’s like asking how tough can the dinosaurs be if only the small feathered ones survived the meteor impact.
Are you saying that Australia is like a meteor impact?
British colonisation (invasion?) of Australia is. There was some huge mistakes made: rabbits, foxes, cane toads, and Russell Crowe.
Oh, Kel. You forgot one of the more malodorous results of that, Ken Ham.
I will be happy to take all of your rabbits if you will take him back.
Happy Trollop, #30
Hmm, that’s news to me. Probably a good thing I never caught any of the ones I chased. The biggest lizard I ever got my hands on was a frillneck that climbed up a tree to escape me. Unfortunately for it the ‘tree’ was only two feet high; it didn’t, however, seem too keen on jumping from that height. So it had to put up with me lugging it about and showing it to people for a couple of hours.
Buying bread from a man in Brussels, he was 6′ 4″ and full of muscle, I said “do you speak-a my language?” He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich, and he said “I come from a land down under where beer does flow and men chunder.”
Who can it be now?
Yes.
Yes.
South Australia. A brilliant blend… Of machismo and deadliness.
Ken Ham is not an introduced species, he’s one of our venomous products that has found it’s way off our shore. America really needs better quarantine procedures.
Don’t forget camels, water buffalo, sparrows, carp, cats, rats, mice, goats, pigs and about a gazillion other stupid things that no-one realised would screw up the ecosystems they were introduced to.
On the plus side (for us) we have exported people like Rupert Murdoch, Ken Ham and (for the UK readers) Peter Andrè.
A relative of Megalodicopia?
When I told my evolution professor, David Morafka (God rest his soul), he said that they were the rocket scientists of tunicates.
@22
“The second way the wombat kills people relates to its burrowing behaviour. If a person happens to put their hand down a Wombat hole, the Wombat will feel the disturbance and think “Ho! My hole is collapsing!” at which it will brace its muscled legs and push up against the roof of its burrow with incredible force, to prevent its collapse. Any unfortunate hand will be crushed, and attempts to withdraw will cause the Wombat to simply bear down harder. The unfortunate will then bleed to death through their crushed hand as the wombat prevents him from seeking assistance. This is considered the third most embarrassing known way to die, and Australians don’t talk about it much.”
What. The. Fuck.
this isn’t exactly helping, you know? plus, for this hopeless arachnophobic, the frequency, speed and size of spiders is a far more important factor than their venomousness.
@#1:Your Mighty Overload,
So, that archathiest Daniel Dennett did some teaching at Dundee Uni?
From his Consciousness Explained p177
“The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain anymore, so it eats it! It’s rather like getting tenure.”
There’s a particularly high diversity of ecosystems in the Southern Australian coastline and the biota is only now getting catalogued. Tunicates are very highly diverse there.
I can’t wait to find out about the vampire worms myself :-)
Isn’t the development of venoms and carnivorous traps an adaption to a low-nutrient environment? I thought we had more death-dealing creatures per sq.metre ’cause the soils are mostly old and infertile (and frequently dry), which also means the surrounding seas have fewer nutrients to go around as well, so the carnivors have to be more sure of their catch (it could be a while before they get another opportunity to eat).
now i’m going to have to go re-read Lost Continent.. thanks to whoever mentioned drop bears. Did Pratchett invent those or are those a local legend he happened to borrow?
Everything is Australia can kill you. Stay away or you’ll just be one more person that needs to harden the fuck up. Leave us to our own religion (sport), culture (sport) and arts (???).
Posted by: Kel | January 19, 2009 11:59 PM
Ken Ham is not an introduced species, he’s one of our venomous products that has found it’s way off our shore. America really needs better quarantine procedures.
He is white and christian. What could go wrong?
Well, aren’t the most commonly encountered deadly poisonous, one-bite-gobble-gobble-die-death spiders the funnelweb and the Sydney Redback, both of which are relatively small spiders about the size of peas?
Pretty much, yeah. Our wildlife can beat up your wildlife. :)
#41
I’ve never heard of that happening – it sounds a bit more like the product of Adams’ celebrated imagination than anything based on reality.
But you never know.
Stories about drop-bears have been around for a very long time. Sir Terry obviously heard the stories and decided to include them.
IST@45: Pratchett didn’t invent them; it used to be a common thing for Aussies to pretend that drop bears existed.
Not so much now, only Americans are silly enough to believe that, and they’re too terrified of our sea squirts to visit anymore…
I wish that were true. Too many introduced species have no predators and are causing lots of problems. We need to genetically engineer some super-animals, quick smart!
Filter feeding is for wusses.
@49
That may very well be, but Australia is already filled with nasty critters. I’ll stay here where the most dangerous animal is a tie between the odd bear and redneck hunter.
Wowbagger@53: Well, yeah, it’s mostly the little things that are highly deadly. Though I wouldn’t want to face a big red in a dark alley.
My personal favourite is the cone shell….venomous snails no less!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_shell
Spraying yourself with human urine before going outside will protect you from drop bears. (Only works for tourists)
Indeed. I saw one near my grandparents’ cattle station that I reckon was 2m tall. Absolutely amazing.
as opposed to the giant ones, which will give me a heart attack, resulting in about the same? :-p
seriously though, I’ve lived in an area with Black Widows without much problem. on the other hand, I nearly had a nervous breakdown hiking though a forest near Seattle in late September, because the whole area seems infested with fat, striped spiders which hang from every fucking tree branch. Phobias aren’t supposed to make sense :-p
I’ve always wanted a tarantula terrarium; however, nearly every one of my friends swore they’d never visit me again if I did…
Now I saw the signs for Drop Bears myself up in Bundaberg!
Why do so many deadly things start with the letter ‘s’?
Sounds like you were having an infestation of orbweavers…
But not to worry: they’re edible.
yeah thanks. i didn’t REALLY want to be able to eat dinner
I have personally had encounters with taipans, redbacks (in my kid’s sandpit no less), a coneshell, a blue ringed octopus,a feral pig and some stinging bastard fire coral that still makes my right knee swell with fluid five years after the event.
.. one day I’ll migrate to NZ where you only have to worry about killer sheep.
that reminds me of the time a friend of mine scared the living fuck out of a pair of Mormons by opening the door with a tarantula in her hair and a snake around her wrist :-p
Maybe now isn’t the time to mention that I once had a black widow spider as a pet. I kept her on my desk at work. Might explain why people left me the f alone and let me work in peace.
On spiders – my favourite is the bird-dropping spider – really cool from an evolutionary standpoint for 2 reasons – its camouflage which gives it its name, and the fact it only eats the male of a particular species of moth by releasing the same pheromone the female moth uses to attract a mate.
I grew up with a nature reserve over the back fence, so we got Eastern Brown Snakes in the backyard pretty regulary in the summer – they’re only about the worlds 4th most deadly snake though. So that was alright. Still clearly remember Dad belting one with a shovel back when I was a kid, but that was only because it had made its way around to the front yard and he was worried about it settling down there.
We also always had massive Redback spiders in the wood pile for the BBQ and in the garage, so I learnt from a young age to pick up wood carefully. It was too cold where I was for Funnelweb spiders, but I stumbled across a few down the coast a few times. They’re aggressive little buggers who’ll stand their ground rather than scurry off like most other spiders, even big Huntsmen and Wolf spiders take off if prodded with a stick.
In a conversation about gardening with an American friend of mine he asked if I had ever been bitten, and honestly I haven’t. So he asked why and I really couldn’t give him a good answer… I guess it is just growing up with an awareness of being careful where you put your hands and feet.
I’d rather deal with poisonous creatures of four, six or eight legs than the two-legged kind known as Baptists here in Texas. And I’d rather curl up with a pit of rattlers, too. The rattlesnakes are nicer.
Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian visited some years ago and went to a beach in North Queensland. Saw a sign “Be alert! Stingers.”[bluebottles]
The ultimate Australian beast has to be the Box Jellyfish. It’s not aggressive like the Taipan or toilet related like the Redback or the King Brown (sorry).
It’s the most toxic thing on earth and it kills people by cruising around minding its own business at the beach.
Relaxed. Sunloving. Deadly.
Nope. Funnel web spiders are up to 4 inches across and unusually aggressive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider
Bird-dropping spider?
Stupid spider! Doesn’t it know that birds can FLY?
;)
Mmm… South Australia is awesome. Best childhood memory is when my sister convinced our little brother to approach an old, blind, half-deaf male kangaroo. He flew about six metres, and still has the scars down his stomach 10 years later. That, and when we had to spade a tiger snake that had accidentally been badly burned in a petrol bonfire (it had to be killed because it was in absolute agony and would have been eaten alive by ants in its condition) but we first had to flush it out of the mouse/rat tunnels where it was hiding. That sure was one angry, death-resistant snake!
Some redbacks blew in on a hot gust of summer wind one year and built forts at the front of our house. That was scary. There were hundreds of them. Not to mention the dreaded white tips…
Aaaah!
Someone is WRONG on the Internet!!!1!
Jeremy Lee (aka Orinoco) wrote that, not Douglas Adams:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~ploke/Vines/vines4.html
(and also here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A53650
)
/pedantry
Last week’s “Best Job in the World” promo doesn’t sound like a hot idea if it involves handling critters like these on a daily basis. Yikes
As in, ‘white-tail’ spiders? I still haven’t been able to get a straight answer – everyone I know reckons they cause necrosis, but I haven’t been able to get what I would feel is a reliable, solid, answer on that yet. Anybody know?
“Someone is WRONG on the Internet!!!1!”
Didn’t sound like DNA anyway. Poor guy probably gets all sorts of stuff that doesn’t meet his standards attributed to him, just like George Carlin.
Redback’s okay, but a bit too boutique for my taste. Give me Murray mud and I’ll be happy enough.
Poor ol’ dropbears, sigh, they’re headed for extinction, I’m afraid. They don’t aim at all well and once they’re on the ground they’re pretty much helpless. I’ve been volunteering at a local park, trying to get ’em back into their trees, but it’s usually a race I lose to snakes or hopper ants. If they worry you, just dose yourself with aeroguard an’ whack your sunnies on arse-about, that’ll keep ’em off, no worries.
As for rabbits. Don’t get me started, please. The whole Maralinga cover up! The Womera project! What sort of peaceful rodent builds warrens with blast-proof entrances?
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/179_04_180803/isb10785_fm.html
“Conclusions:
Bites by Lampona spp. cause minor effects in most cases, or a persistent painful red lesion in almost half the cases. White-tail spider bites are very unlikely to cause necrotic ulcers, and other diagnoses must be sought.”
About the white tailed spiders. All the lab work that I’ve heard seems to be negative on that. I think they’re leaning towards the cause being microbial.
Yes, everything in Australia must try to kill everything else. To act otherwise invites certain death.
I mean, the Crocodile Hunter tried to be humane to his subjects and look what happened to him.
We’re holidaying in Adelaide at the mo – so far we’ve had a hand-sized huntsman walking around the outside of our car when we were doing 60kph. I’m assuming it hitched a ride when we were stopped, but it may yet have just leapt at us…
We also visited the Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Fossil Site on the way across from Melbourne. However bad it is now, 60,000 years ago it was a lot worse. Thylacoleo and some 1200kg monitor lizard, and giant carnivorous birds the size of moas. Yikes!
@69: I grew up on farms, so I too learned very early on to always check where you put your hands and feet. Never got bitten thankfully – the places we lived there would have been no point to call an ambulance as they were at least an hour away. Rule one was to always check your footwear for nasties – including your thongs (I found a redback or two hiding under them).
Personally I have seen all sorts of snakes, Browns and Tigers were fairly common where I grew up. Even had to stare down a Red-bellied Black snake – usually they try to get away but this one didn’t. Word of advice – never turn your back on a snake – keep watching it and back away slowly. Saw many a spider as well – my garage has plenty of Redbacks, as do many corners at work (included the comms room at work). Haven’t seen a funnel web yet, but seen one or two suspected nests (they are working their way out here). Have never been keen on going into the water, but I have seen a Platypus (even the cute animals can be poisonous), a couple of goannas, wombats, roos, koalas. I learned at a very young age to respect any animals – mainly because you never knew if it was poisonous or not.
As for native animals: the poisonous ones are a danger to people. However motor vehicles are also at threat.
Hit a kangaroo and you will have some major body damage in a car, and the bloody thing will stand up and jump away (I swear the bastard laughed at me as well). Roos are also that smug they will stand there and let you hit them – no moving outta the way for them.
Wombats are worse – hit them and prepare to lose something vital from the bottom of the car. By vital I am meaning say goodbye to a wheel if you are unlucky – not just the tire, the whole damned thing. They look cute and cuddly, but the things are made of bone and muscle – it is like hitting a rock. A rock that will stand up and get shitty with you for hitting it. Oh, and the buggers can run as well. They are also stubborn, once they have a route they walk then you have to be careful what you build on it. Put up a fence – they will make a hole so they can get through. Put up a shed – they will simply bulldoze through it, or dig a great big hole under it and possibly bring it down that way.
And the echidna – they look completely innocent, but run one over and they will puncture a tire. Although they have a modicum of self preservation – they will try to get out of the way first.
Re white-tailed spiders:
I see about one a week wandering about the house. I either kill them or, preferably, let daddy-longlegs spiders get them. (So far, I’ve seen 3 or 4 battles. Daddy-longlegs has always won easily.)
We cultivate all of those animals on purpose – just to freak foreigners out. :p :p :p
Another report about the “innocence” of white tail spiders: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s926733.htm
The interesting part is this part:
Ah, what a country I live in :)
Ah yes – my wife has just reminded me of an observation I made at Naracoorte – according to the paleontologist there, Thylacoleo is thought to have been an ambush predator, possibly using its powerful front legs and claws to climb trees. And then dropping on its prey from above.
Says I, “So that’s where the drop bear thing started…” to chuckles all around. :-)
Thylacoleo = Drop Bear. There you have it.
Death of the Discworld got it right – the only harmless animals are some of the sheep.
The poor Tasmanian Devils are having a hard time of it at the moment. There’s an infectious face cancer spreading through the population, which is exacerbated by the fact that the devils try to rip each other to shreds when they mate. The zoos and wildlife parks are trying to breed as many as they can in captivity, and are having some success.
I patted one once at a wildlife sanctuary – how hard core am I! :P
Late to the
partyPZ’s hateful intolerant and rude Aussie bashing it seems,just back from the beach…..jadehawk @ 2,
Its the finger-nail sized ones sitting in your outdoor loo or under the park bench or in your garage that could kill you until evil scientists came up with an antivenom in the sixties.
The big ones you just suck into the vacuum cleaner….
As to white tail spiders,they do not cause more ulceration or necrosis than any other infected bite from any other critter might.
Its a myth.
oops,major s tag fail…..
I had a friend from the States visit once when I was still living in Darwin. I played tourist guide and showed her around various places. Anyway, she remarked how she thought all the stories about how dangerous everything could be in Australia was exaggerated.
So for the rest of the day I pointed out all the dangerous things I’d steered her away from. Such as “don’t sit under that tree; there’s a huge green ant nest in it”. And “make sure you look under the toilet seat for redback spiders”. And “don’t walk through that patch of grass; it’s sharp and will cut your legs and stick in your clothing”. The best one was when we were walking along the beach, and I pointed out all the (nearly invisible) box jellyfish, and explained that if we were walking barefoot, the residue poison in the tentacles could easily cause you to collapse in pain (onto more tentacles…). Still, the box jellyfish kept the crocs away (and the crocs kept the sharks away…)
A friend of mine in Victoria grew up on a farm, and used to go swimming in a creek that ran through it. Until he accidentally disturbed a platypus. Lovely, harmless-looking creatures that have claws packed full of nasty venom.
Even today, living in Brisbane, I check the nooks and crannies near the doors and windows every fortnight for redbacks, along with the kids outdoor play equipment. And if I got into the storage shed to look for something, I start with the assumption that there will be redback spiders in there.
It’s just part of life in Australia. If I was in Arizona, I’d be looking for scorpions in my boots.
Still, despite all that – our native fauna and flora is losing out to the imported stuff. Lethality isn’t enough of an evolutionary advantage, I guess.
This land is my land…
I read the other day that more people die in Oz from ANT bites than snakes and sharks combined. And I can believe it: when we say ants, we don’t mean your tiny but ornery fire-ants (though they’ve recently become our thousandth invasive species problem, mainly in Brisbane), but species of Myrmecia (bull-ants, inch-ants, jumping jacks…) that are commonly over an inch long and pack a sting like those big spider-killer wasps. You’re walking along and realise you just kicked the top off a nest, and suddenly they’re all over the place (only a few hundred per nest, but that’s enough), cocking their heads to look you in the eye and waggle their jaws at you. Most of them just run at you, but some species really do jump to about knee height. So you run like fuck, but there’s always one or two that got between your toes or up the leg of your shorts, so after crashing through the bush for a few metres you have to stop and tear your clothes off. It happens all the time, and there’s a certain proportion of people with hyperactive immune systems that just go all anaphylactic. It’s natural selection in a big way.
And someone did mention the Queensland Stinging Tree. The big ones aren’t that hard to avoid if you know to look out for them, but seedlings a foot or two high can brush against your legs quite effectively. Now I’ve had a lot of snake bites, the odd scorpion sting, wasps and bees and bullants, bluebottles and whatever else, but with those things you usually know that the symptoms will be gone within a week or so, if not hours or minutes. If they don’t kill you, of course. But the Stinging Tree burns for about a year and a half, no shitting. Most of the time after the first few weeks, when the rash subsides, it’s just a dull ache, but every time the skin gets wet (we all live on the beach, and some of us also shower occasionally, or have to wade throogh a creek to get to the pub) it’s like a red-hot knife blade.
Macho? Not at all, my dears.
so I just looked up the Stinging Tree (because it’s pretty much the only thing on this thread that’s not likely to cause me nightmares upon closer inspection). Apparently, it only works on invasive species (including humans), and doesn’t actually do any physical damage other than the pain itself
methinks this is Australia’s way of saying GTFO :-p
I’m reminded of a scene from Lost Continent where Death asks for a list of dangerous animals on FourEcks (Which is defiantly NOT Australia) and is buried under a mountain of books. Deciding that it might be shorter, he asks for a list of animals where are not dangerous, resulting in single sheet of paper stating “some of the sheep.”
I don’t think anyone has pointer out
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyp0yNIjWmY
yet. See how many Aussie references you can pick up.
I second #94’s ants story. They’re about an 2.5 to 4cm long and pack a bite that’ll make you wish you hadn’t trod on their territory. Oh, and they can jump about a metre.
More people get killed by horses than sharks in Australia.
More people get killed by bees than snakes in Australia.
At least the venom of the snakes in Australia is just neurotoxic or anticoagulant, so that if you are bitten and get the antivenene quickly enough, you won’t suffer permanent damage, unlike with the tissue toxic venom of American rattle snakes.
It is true that Australia has pretty much the deadliest example of most different things – spiders, snakes, jellyfish, shllfish, fish, trees and more but that is half the fun. Personally I have experienced the ‘joy’ of the Queensland stinging tree (often called the Gympie bush) and it is not an experience I wish to repeat. I’ve also been bitten by a tiger snake though this was because I trod on it whilst it was asleep in the long grass. Luckily it didn’t puncture the wetsuit and overalls I had on at the time for a caving trip!
When I was in the army I had two colleagues who had to be resucitated after being bitten by brown snake and a funnelweb spider. By the way, funnelwebs are no 4 inches across, they are much smaller but deadlier – I had one outside my office in the corridor at work last year. I also had a student of mine bitten by one that had fallen into the laundry basket at her home – she was on life support for three days due to a severe reaction but fortunately she made a complete recovery.
My biggest ‘foot-in-mouth’ moment came several years ago when I used to teach physics and an outdoor education course. I knew I had a student with a severe snake phobia and much of the 2-year program involved bushwalking. A standard component of the course was relevant first aid, including how to treat snake and spider bites. To tray ane ease the student I made a comment, usually correct, to the effect of who had ever actually seen a snake, let alone known anybody who had been bitten by one or killed by one. At this point another student raised her hand. When I pointed to her she said that she had; her Uncle had been bitten and killed by one (conformed by her parents the following night at Parent-Teacher night)! Needless to say I never used that line again.
Let me point out though that my experience is atypical. Most people never have to worry. The fear is grossly exaggerated. A decade ago I was camping on Vancouver Island in BC on a sea kayak trip. There were several groups there and people were quite interested to find out I was from Australia. One of them asked how on earth I could go camping in Australia. On inquiring about what they meant they raised the issue of all the poisonous things. There was much agreement from other Canadians and Americans in the campsite. I then had to point out that the afternoon before we had had a very large brown bear come through another campsite looking for food and that afternoon had a cougar menace a couple putting up their tent 50 m from ours. As I replied at least in Oz we don’t have large mammals that will rip your head off!
Also from Pterry… “There are in fact very few poisonous snakes in XXXX… most of them have been eaten by the spiders.”
It’s our way of keeping the idiot-gene pool in check.
@Shane #26
Heh, it is funny to go walking in the NZ bush with a newly arrived Ocker. They will blanch, wave their arms about and shout the first dozen times you step blithely over a fallen log. Ditto walking/running through long grass. It’s sweet though how the benign wonderfulness of the NZ bush disarms their wary paranoia. Around the time they die from hypothermia while lost in said bush.
You see Australia kills their tourists in showy, fancy coloured ways. In New Zealand we are more subtle, you will die from hypothermia, from falling off mountains, drowning or from wondering too close to pretty glacier fronts . . . Our beer is also better, for a start we can spell beer.
Peter Ashby,
saying that cold poop is better than warm poop does not make the experience a pleasant one….(to stay away from Emmet’s recent urinal reference)
I am currently drinking Heineken here in Melbourne,and will maybe get some Beck’s tomorrow,or Stella.Any beer that gives me a headache after 6 is not worth my attention or money….
Muzz @ #72
You forgot to mention that they’re transparent, and thus practically INVISIBLE!!!
Australia – the land where natural selection just works a bit faster
Peter Ashby wrote:
I’d challenge you on this but I realise that I’ve never had any NZ beer – which is strange considering I’ve drunk a lot of beer from a lot of places in my time. Still, you’re going to have a hard time topping Tasmania’s finest, Cascade and James Boag’s – or SA’s Cooper’s varieties.
Which beers are from NZ? I’ll have to try some.
Oh, and just for everyone’s information, barely anyone in Australia drinks XXXX. Even the Queenslanders drink more VB than they do that vile rat’s piss – the only reason they stay in business is because the mid-strength they make (XXXX Gold) is pretty decent and is the standard beer at many sporting venues around the country. And there’s a lot of sport played here.
I’m really missing Aussie beer right now. I could go for a James Squire Amber Ale
You don’t encounter poisonous things here nearly as often as some people think. I’m from the suburbs in SE Australia. I’ve seen a Redback spider once under my letterbox. A blue ringed octopus once while looking at rockpools. That’s about all. That’s in my 23 years or so on this earth. Im more of a swimmer though, so jellyfish and sharks are more of a worry. I’ve been stung by jellyfish (the non-deadly type), but its generally too cold for sharks here.
That being said, funnel webs scare the bejeezus outta me. If I ever live in Sydney ill be in constant fear. I think its the aggressivness that worries me most.
Wowbagger,
My european palate does not mind XXXX at all,and neither does my head after I had a carton of it…..That makes it a good beer in my books…Boags yeah ok,but gives me bloating…
clinteas,
Fair enough. I’d have thought that Europeans would prefer lager to bitter; since most of the big name imported beers are lager I assume that’s what they drink over there.
A carton? Well, you have gone through Med school – and I know how much they like to drink.
Can’t argue with that.
For some reason the Americans and Europeans seem to think we drink Fosters and XXXX. Do you think we should let on that those are exclusively brewed for export/tourists?
Monteith’s is a good place to start.
It’s not a specifically Australian thing at all. Carnivorous, or more correctly macrophagous sea-squirts have been known in the deep sea environments. In bathyal and abyssal environments there’s no phytoplankton and just not enough fine suspended organic matter for an ascidian to make a living by filtering in the way that the familiar shallow-water forms do. Ascidians down there have evolved macrophagy as a strategy to take advantage of any-sized lump of organic matter that swims or floats by. The same thing has occurred in some of the deep-sea sponges.
Dave Hughes,
really now,
we are talking about beers here,tis important stuff,can you go bore someone else with all this thread-related sciencey stuff?
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned the Irukandji jellyfish. Far samaller than the box jellyfish and arguably more deadly.
We have most of the top 10 deadliest sankes in the world http://snake.fol.nl/Page2.html plus the saltwater crocs, spiders, sharks shell fish, posionous fish platypii, pissed of roos etc Many Aussie spiders have not been formally identified some entemologist friends assure me there are bound to be plenty more venomous little gems.
Just so you don’t fall into the trap of thinking our birds are just spectacular but harmless the North Eastern rainforests also have the Cassowary, smaller but more heavily build than the emu and more cantankerous, both are quite capable of gutting an adult if cornered.
Then of course there is the most unpredicatlbe and potentially dangerous creature of all, the Yobbo. Genrally found congregating around eskies at the football, cricket and the Bathurst Car races.
OK – so whitetail spiders don’t rot your limbs off. Good to know. They’re still gonna get flushed at my place though (although #86 mentioned daddy-longlegs, so now I’m thinking of setting up cage fights! “Two enter, only one may leave!”)
Speaking of ants I was once waiting in a line with a girlfriend who had recently spent some time in England and was just re-acclimatising to Aus. She looked down and freaked out at some passing ants, screaming “Why is everything in this country so damn big!??” I was going to say something appropriate, but it was a public area and modesty forbade :)
Oh – and lets not forget the Stonefish… they’ll take you down fast as well!
I’m now torn between two options. Bragging about all the drop-bears and kangaroos I’ve killed and eaten, and all the snakes and spiders I’ve personally trained to do my bidding. Or remarking that in reality, more people go to the theatre than the football in Australia. Hmmm. I usually favour reality, but bullshitting is definitely more fun.
Note to foreigners: Fosters is a practical joke. Nobody drinks it here.
Fosters is a practical joke?? It’s one of the best mass-produced lagers available here!
You see, instead of snakes ‘n’ spiders ‘n’ sharks ‘n’ crocs ‘n’ funny-carnivorous-sea-squirts, we have Carling. It serves pretty much the same function as your various dangerous animals – anything with any sense stays well clear of it.
But at least its not Miller. I once asked a barkeep for ‘any beer’. Big mistake – they must have been a sadist. I’d rather regurgitate the alcohol I’ve already imbibed and drink it again than ever have to drink Miller again.
Cath
What about Shrimp on the barbie?
/ducks
If those things ever make it to dry land we’re done for. I say take off and nuke the oceans from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure…
The only shrimps we throw on the barbie are dwarfs after they make smart arsed comments.
On Kiwi beers, Monteiths do indeed make a good brew. Better than half the mass produced swill we make in Oz. Coopers is the best of the big brewers.
Cannonball Jones,
LMAO……
You need to be a man’s man ( or a woman’s man) to survive the Australian wilds. But worry not. We are poisoning the environment with fertilisers so rapidly these threats will soon disappear (apart from the drop bears, which are flourishing with all the tourist scalps they get to eat).
Coopers does make some good beer. I can actually find it here in the States now. Expensive once it gets here, but pretty good.
John,
how’s the move going??
PZ is really enjoying making fun of us atm,we need to tell him how rude and intolerant that is….
As I recall from Last Continent, when Death asks his library for a list of the dangerous animals on the continent of Fourecks (XXXX) he gets buried under a pile of books. Having extracted himself he then asks for a list of non-dangerous animals and gets a single piece of paper with the line “Some of the sheep.” on it.
Don’t Mention the Move.
I don’t mind PZ offending Australians. We can take it, unlike those wussy Americans who sue at the drop of a hat.
I’m pretty sure that there are some non-dangerous animals native to Australia. Give me a few minutes and I’ll Google some up.
So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde,
And that’s it hangin’ on the shed…
You know you’re dealing with true Australians when the thread about toxic flora and fauna devolves into who makes the best beer.
…all together now (tie me kangaroo down sport).
But seriously,chezjake #22 said:
I saw him do that bit live at a Sydney pub in 1991. I loled.
I’m sure, though, that if you mention some, we’ll quickly find some absolutely horrendous habit that they have, and the Aussies will just wave it off with a “well, except for that, of course”.
Jadehawk #2 said:
Nah, those fellows are mostly harmless. It’s the little buggers you have to watch out for. But as others have mentioned, it’s not just the venomous arachnids that want to kill you. The plants are just as bad…
Lynnai #10 said:
check this out:
Beautiful ascidians… here we have
plenty of kinds, but unfortunately we only have
one single organism which uses venom.
So unless a puma eats you, which is highly unlikely
you can go whatever you want without a care.
When they metamorphose, they give up their rudimentary brain.
Old-timers might remember Lionel Tun from talk.origins, idiot extraordinaire, capable of nothing better than atrociously dumb one-liners. He got a nickname Lionel Tun-icate, as mentioned in the talk.origins glossary. For those not in the know, “tunicate” is a synonym for sea squirt.
Indeed not. The Giant Queensland Stinging Tree has been mentioned; I’m told it won’t kill you — even though you’ll wish it had.
That must be because the Tassie tiger and the marsupial lion and the giant carnivorous rat-kangaroos are extinct. The recently imported dingos just can’t cope, I’m afraid.
Probably less than half that. Some even estimate less than a quarter.
It’s still not clear if they were carnivorous; probably not.
I’ve seen the skull of one. Oh man. I can now tell you what the alleged crystals the Jedi use in their lightsabers really are.
Not claws — an extra spur at the heel.
Folkses…
How many species of Giant Queensland Stinging Tree are there!?! Here are two!
RHÂÂÂ !!!
Stinging tree – how well I remember collecting a leaf from a rainforest above Gerringong and just below the Barren Ground Escarpment about 30 years ago. A mate and I hacked through the colonising edge to get to the forest, picked off the leeches and collected a stinging tree leaf for my plant press – and found we couldn’t get back. I saw some mozzies on the leaves – they had adapted and had really long legs so they could walk over the leaf without touching the hairs on the leaves. It took all day to walk/climb down the river before we could hitchhike back up the mountain. I also collected a wasp nest, but we had to run and dive into the river when they attacked.
When I was in the Herp Society (Canberra) there was a talk from a herptologist that had been to Chappell Island (link is not to him):
http://www.markoshea.tv/series2/series02-10.html
he said you couldn’t take a step without having to push a tiger snake aside (and had photos to prove it). He had been bitten so many times previously he had to be careful cuz the anti-venene no longer worked and his system had become hypersensitive to snake-bite. Another talk had a list of the most venomous snakes – the first non-aussie was the King Cobra at #16. Thats the LAND snakes. When my brother was about 6 he picked up a sea snake on Avalon Beach (Sydney) after a storm. He had to kill it when it got aggressive (he thought it was drowned, but when he picked it up he forced the water out of its throat and it came to. It is 200 times more poisonous than any land snake (I still have it in a bottle).
Another society member was a local ranger that used to dump 5-10 tiger, brown and black snakes in his house when he went out (to deter burglars). One of the girls (about 8yrs old) in the group ordered pizza once. When the delivery guy turned up he commented on the pretty black and green ribbon in her hair. She pulled the young python from her hair to show him. Instant free pizza :)
When in year 12 a friend’s father was killed catching snakes for the serum laboratories (hobby, not professional). She said he was always stopping the car, taking off his pants, then catching a snake and tying it off in one leg. He was slow one time…
I’m quite proud of my “Alabama belle” wife, when a black snake was hunting on our front steps she just watched, fascinated. She was also good when I tried to catch the tree snake between our door mat and the threshold. I saw the flash of green as I stepped over it, realised what it was and grabbed for it. They are poisonous, but back fanged so you have to have to be half eaten before you get to the fangs (it got away). There is a tiger snake on one corner into town that rears up and strikes at the car like a dog biting at the wheels.
Goannas and lace monitors can bite badly and it will get infected. There was a 4m one at the local tip when I had a holiday job as a garbo and objected to us waking him on the morning trip to unload.
SCUBA or snorkelling off Gordons Bay just next to Clovelly (Sydney Beach) is a cave full of port jackson sharks (follow the underwater trail to about mid-bay and go down 10m). We would grab their tails and ride them while they tried to spin around and bite you. Wobbegongs can be a worry and hard to spot until you step on them (one 3 metre one gave me fright once).
About 8 years ago I went to the ground floor laundry in the apartment about 11pm. It was bare concrete. Clothes basket under one arm, I unlocked the door, walked through and grabbed the inside knob to close it. It was furry. The huntsman was as frightened as me. It ran to the back of my hand and I flicked my arm once hard and it was gone. On reflection I think the numbness was impact with the knob on the flick, not a bite. I stood there stunned. Then thought, in this bare concrete room – where was it? The only thing in the room (aside from the machines a good distance away) was the basket of dirty clothes. I rapidly picked each item out and shook them – nothing! Think. Oh shit! There I was, alone in the room, jumping, dancing and stripping all my clothes off. Naked, there was still nothing. I got dressed, took the basket upstairs and waited most of the night to die and hoping nobody had been watching. Hunstmen are good house spiders though. A friend had one fall off the ceiling onto her face one night. It frightened them both so much they became good friends and she often carried it around and let it crawl all over her. Too much for me, and I’m not phobic. They are normally more scarey than dangerous – like when my brother took his speedos off the line and put them on, hunstman and all – roflmao. A friend said he woke one night while staying with a mate (his room was a rock walled basement cut into the Sydney sandstone). He saw that the persistent scab on his friend’s ear was because a huntsman used to come each night and scrape at it, but that’s the only story I know of human predation.
The stories just keep springing to mind, but I will stop here.
Montieths is good, Macs is very good, Black Mac is my favourite. But as a good Southern Man I have to mention Mr Speight’s Sparkling Ale. One of my abiding ambitions is to taste their old dark. I haven’t been back to NZ since ’96 and they didn’t have it then. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of it here in the UK either.
I will admit, grudgingly that Cascade make some okay beer. Didn’t they get bought out by some kiwi outfit a few years back?
Peter, a couple of new boys on the block are Emmersons and Tuatara, well worth a drink., also does the Speights Ale House in london not do Old Dark?
@105:
Try Emerson’s if you can find it outside of NZ.
Most of the big “export” brands from both NZ and Australia are quite bland.
@136: Of Speight’s offerings, I prefer Distinction myself, or Old Dark (usually in winter, though, it’s a bit malty for summer). Not sure if Sparkling Ale is made any more. (Haven’t had a Distinction in a bit either for that matter.) I think Emerson’s do better beers, although the price is too hard on my puny budget these days (anyone need an experienced computational biologist???)
My favourite weird (but not deadly) creature here in Australia is the Giant Earthworm! There is even a museum devoted to it:
http://museumvictoria.com.au/DiscoveryCentre/Infosheets/Giant-Gippsland-Earthworm/
@137:
Emerson have been around quite a while, actually, it’s just that until relatively recently it was only distributed locally.
Australians don’t throw shrimps on the barbie. King prawns, maybe. Or Balmain Bugs. (I blogged once about what we eat)
A guy at work was bitten by a white-tip spider.
He spent weeks in hospital with his thigh swollen like a watermelon.
that reminds me of the time a friend of mine scared the living fuck out of a pair of Mormons by opening the door with a tarantula in her hair and a snake around her wrist – Jadehawk
And did she even think of the trauma she probably caused that poor tarantula and unfortunate snake ;-)
By the the transitive property of dinner-plate size, I declare the spiders to be giant-squid-eye-sized.
My grandmother was bitten by a poisonous spider while on holiday in Australia.
The spider died.
All this talk of hoop-snakes and drop bears and I haven’t heard a single mention of the sabre-toothed leeches…
Obviously, Australia was intelligently designed to strengthen species over time by subjecting them to constant danger.
Let’s just be thankful the giant wombat didn’t get into the ark.
In the immortal words of the Scared Weird Little Guys:
“Come to Australia, you might accidently get killed!”
Ack, I mangled my blogwhoring URL. What Australians eat.
Cath,
Great list – I’ve lived in SA for ten years now but it was only last week I had my first taste of Frog Cake; I couldn’t believe how sickly it was. Fortunately, all I had was a slice. I don’t think I could eat a whole one.
I’d rather have the reclusive creatures that usually try to mind their own business than bears.
We were cleaning the gunk and spiderwebs from under the outside table at my place a few weeks back when we found a redback that was 2cm wide in the body. Bloody beautiful, she was. She’s still in my yard somewhere.
As I understand it, Redbacks are closely related to Black widows, which we have in great abundance where I grew up in the southwest. But we don’t normally have to check for them in shoes, etc. that often. Normally they are just hanging out in old cabinets and the garage. Do Redbacks just move around more? Or is it that there are a lot more rural areas where they might wander into the house?
Because I don’t think it’s just an issue of numbers. Looking under trailers in Southern Arizona, you can find tons of them. They just don’t seem to like moving much.
I think you’re on the right track, Matt. Australia isn’t much smaller than your coterminous states, and we’ve ~ 1/15th of the population.
I remember, some years ago in Adelaide, watching on the news, a story about an office worker who discovered under her desk a young copperhead snake suspended in the web of a large (one supposes very replete) redback.
Another nasty lil’ critter is the paralysis tick.
And it seems one of our native poisonous frogs is actually able to synthesise it’s own alkaloids. Fascinating, have to look in to that one a little more.
Well,
Your chance of picking up Borrelia burgdorferi or Flavivirus encephalitis from a tick bite are much better in parts of Germany or Austria,actually.
There is some Dengue around in the Cairns/tropical Queensland area.
@”Borrelia burgdorferi or Flavivirus encephalitis from a tick bite are much better in parts of Germany or Austria,actually.”
There is danger only in the southern part of Germany. Don’t cross the line south of Frankfurt on river Main and you will be quite safe!
Even in a Oktoberfest-tent in Munich/Bavaria you won’t be biten by a tick (ticks disgust blood soiled by bavarian beer). :-)
Wowbagger, thanks. I agree on the frog cake, it’s not much to my taste. Now bugs, on the other hand… eat ’em up, yum.
jenli @ 156,
yes i know,i went to Uni south of the Main……in another life lol
I am coming to the conclusion that, as a North Queenslander, not only am I the general subject of derision from southerners( and rightly so) but, I am the subject of various toxic nasties that live only in the North. I hereby challenge any other Aus Pharyngulites to a toxic-off.
I have been personally been impaled/exposed/fucking stung by the dreaded stinging tree, a cone shell, a redback and some fire coral. Beat that you softies.
..except for Clinteas, I’m a bit in love with him so I wish him no harm.
Hey BoSOM,
how is ya ? Hope live is getting better for the family…:-)
I stay away from the sea when Im in the North,saves me from the evil critters lurking….
I grew up in the region of funnel web spiders, never bitten by one though.
Ah. it’s all getting better.I’m in Brisbane now doing the career thingy, getting some time up in the courts focussing on commercial stuff and avoiding anything medical.( I made a promise to my old cheese, an ENT, to NEVER do anything medical, I swear he would disown me)
I’m going to be spending a few times in your neck of the woods in the next few months. Would like to catch up for a Sydney Pharyngulite thing… maybe a Sydney Pharyngulite meeting?
Sydney is but a 50 dollar flight away these days,so yeah,Im all for it,just let us know a bit in advance….(Melbourne,remember lol)
Maybe some of the other aussie slackers would get off their bums too and expose their pale faces to some sunlight..:-)
Well,good to hear youre doing well !
There’s a reason I’m over in Finland during the Aussie summer…
As for a pharyngulite trek to Sydney, it’s only a $15 bus ride up the Hume for me to get there. If something happens I guess I’d be in.
Bugger, I for some reason thought you were in Sydney.
Actually going to be in Melbourne for quite a bit so we should do Pharyngulite Melbournian thing. I’m doing some intensive advocacy courses in March/April as part of my LLM but my brother lives in Melbourne so I’m always up for an excuse to hit the town and see my bro & my niece. Wowbagger can get his arse there as well as Kel and Deb. Being a luddite I have no idea how we should organise this getup.
Any Aus Pharyngulites got an idea?
It may well do, haven’t been in London in years. There certainly wasn’t any such establishment back in ’98 when we left. Must try the Oz bar in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh again some time. They do ordinary Speights (which has Mr Speight’s Sparkling Ale on the label), so may have branched out. i tried their Special Brew the other week and wasn’t impressed, too sweet by far and grossly under hopped.
BoSOM,
terminate111 at hot
See what we can come up with !
Ooh!!! Here in the UK, I was stung by a wasp once!
Coincide it with a “skeptics in the pub” meeting in one of the capital cities. Aside from that, I have no idea. Make sure it has beer facilities and I’m there. (As long as it’s after February 15th, I’ll be in Finland until then)
Kel,
yeah,lets grace those Melbourne skeptics with our presence lol,where’s Jeremy or whatever his name is,if they can host Shermer (in Footscray,of all places,if I remember correctly),they can host us !
What happened to a Sydney Pharanguloid gathering? I’m about 4 hours north of Sydney.
Personally I would gladly host a gathering at Gloucester, but I’m thinking it is a bit remote for most. When I get back from India around 28th Jan (late) I will turn around, hit the hunter for the weekend and then on to Canberra to spend a few days with my daughters. Then to Tathra and up the coast.
I don’t know how much time I will have free in ACT but Cath, the Canberra Cook, would love to get together – as I would with anyone else on the route.
send me an email – first initial then surname over at google mail service.
PZ – looks like you may have a number of local aussie pharangula chapters about to sprout.
Our town is next door to tiny stratford and we (Gloucester) are both on the Avon river. We have an annual Shakespeare Festival around March – all are invited. I have a few spare beds and land for camping (now I will need to break this to my wife).
My last letter to the local paper “The Gloucester Advocate” (for this weeks copy) – was not published but did lead to this statement from the editor:
“Letters must be submitted by 10am Friday and a maximum of 300 words. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor and must be signed by the writer and include a telephone number for verification.”
Parochial fucktards. I can post the letter I wrote if desired (related to trying to open Council sessions with a prayer and guidance – shelved for now, but too many councillors favoured it. I suggested the catholic church be turned into a combined IVF centre and Stem Cell Research Facility and the Jehovah Witless’s place be turned into a blood bank – and pay them $1 for the privilege). Guess the Mayor and editor got their heads together and canned it.
Heh!
As a famous impersonator of our most famous criminal, Chopper Read, would say: “harden the fuck up!” :D
PZ and Americans in general: creatures like this little guy are why we Australians consistently kick so much ass in the Olympic pool. 90% of everything wanting to kill or eat you is great inspiration.
This talk of $50 flights and $15 bus rides between capitals is making me sicker than a snake-bitten dog. Ever wonder how the airlines and bus companies can afford to discount like that? The smaller number of people travelling in remote areas get fucking SCREWED, that’s how. Consequently I haven’t been ‘home’ to Sydney for years… BUT I’ll be in Adelaide around the end of March and it’s almost no distance across the south-east quadrant. Make a place and time around then and I may be able to get there for once.
I used to collect funnelwebs from the backyard and keep them in jars, then drop them in at the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford when I got there every few months – this was back in the 70’s, before there was an antivenom, and I’ve got a book signed by Eric Worrell with ‘Thanks for the spiders!’ (signed on the same day he kicked me out of the place for leaning over a too-low wall to handle his friendly highland copperheads). There was some confusion in earlier comments about the size of funnelwebs: males are smaller, more toxic, and more often encountered above ground (wandering about looking for a mate), but still pretty big spiders. Female Sydney f-w’s are big spiders by any standards, around 10 cm [4″] across the legs and with fangs on the Rattlesnake of Puff-adder scale, but other species of Atrax and Plectrachne are mostly smaller and all inhabit less populous areas. A peculiarity of the venom is that it has little effect on vertebrates… other than primates. Nice one, ‘Designer’.
One more Melbourne chap happy for a pub meet…
Now how do we get to step two?
I can get over to Melbourne from Adelaide easily enough, and I may even be there in March for a couple of days for work – though it’ll be during the Fringe and I’ve got reviewing duties so it’ll depend on how busy I am as to whether I can stick around. Later in the year might be better for me ’cause I’m going back on stage and have rehearsals on weekends until May sometime.
Oh, and Bride of Shrek – well done on your list of bites/stings; my NQ period was 24 years and about the worst I got was a wasp. Got chased by a few venomous snakes while mountain biking but never got bit. Can’t say I’m too upset about that, though…
Clinteas
I think you’ll find that the tick itself produces a toxin. If you also pick up a disease, that’s just a bonus.
Bride of Shrek
I remember watching David Bellamy swearing after playing with a stinging tree. I wish they hadn’t overdubbed it because he’s got an interesting voice.
Went on a bit of a holiday to Qld, when I was a youn’n. I quite liked the place.
What’s that other prickly thing called, err, wait-a-bit? I ran into some of that.
I copped a bit of a hidin’ for not warning my sister about the shower frog. But it was worth it to hear her squeal.
Got laughed at by a local for asking why there were so many swimming pools when the beach was just there. Sea wasps, eh? Yeah, right.
I was disappointed not to find any stonefish, but managed to freak out my Mum with all the cone shells. I wouldn’t have shown them to her, except I thought they were pretty.
The only real bitey event of the trip was on the way home. I think we were somewhere in NSW when the little beach we were swimming at was invaded by hundreds of these miniature portuguese man o war type of things. They were no fun at all. Especially trying to rinse the tentacles out of your hair. Great red welts all over, ouch.
I intend to get up to Shark Bay one day, and see the stromatolites.
Not quite that big, but it doesn’t matter. The spider that causes the most fatalities is the huntsman. Huntsmen have a relatively mild venom, but they live with humans and love to get into small spaces, and they are big and spidery. Quite simply: they cause car accidents. Saw one, once, feeding on a Bogong moth that it had caught. Amazing.
I’m working in the National Botanical Gardens at the moment: sun shining, kids playing, brown snakes sunning themselves on the rocks. Signs up: “if you see a brown snake, don’t poke it or prod it: go speak to a ranger or ring this number.” *very* deadly.
I intend to get up to Shark Bay one day, and see the stromatolites.
Not quite that big, but it doesn’t matter. The spider that causes the most fatalities is the huntsman. Huntsmen have a relatively mild venom, but they live with humans and love to get into small spaces, and they are big and spidery. So they cause car accidents – you’re driving along, obeying all the road rules, when suddenly this m-f-ing spider about the size of your palm comes out of the aircon vent and runs across the dash. Saw one, once, feeding on a Bogong moth that it had caught. Amazing.
I’m working in the National Botanical Gardens at the moment: sun shining, kids playing, brown snakes sunning themselves on the rocks. Signs up: “if you see a brown snake, don’t poke it or prod it: go speak to a ranger or ring this number.” *very* deadly.
The drop bears are real – but they are not bears. Ceratin species of eucalypt handle drought by shedding entire limbs, so it is unwise to camp – or stand, for that matter – under gum trees.