Don't be sitting on the Dunny with these around!
Deadly Animals of Australia
Pretty much every animal in Australia will want to take your life from the second your plane lands on Terra Australis. You may know a bit about the sharks, crocodiles, snakes and spiders that roam around down under, but the following comprehensive list will give you an insight to the animals which you have to watch out for if you visit the red continent.
At the top of my list is the Saltwater Crocodile, this croc is the infamous creature which attacks about 30 people annually, of which 15 are fatal. They mainly reside at the north shores of the Northern Territory (NT), Queensland (QLD) and Western Australia (WA). The way these creatures attack is by grabbing a part of you, a limb such as a leg and then they take you for a death roll. A death roll is when they submerge themselves with you in their mouth using 1600 kg worth of force in their jaws, then they keep rolling you until you stop kicking and then leave you under a rock to tenderise.
Next is the Box Jellyfish. Its venom is the strongest of all jellyfish, 2 metres of tentacle is enough to kill you within 2 minutes. Its stings are so overpoweringly painful, that victims have been known to go into shock and drown or die of heart failure before even reaching shore. The Box Jellyfish have 800,000 stinging organelles per square centimetre on their tentacles. These stingers can fire their toxins at 60 kilometres per hour. About 100 people die yearly but may be higher as fatalities may be misdiagnosed to be other jellyfish.
The Blue-ringed Octopus is the most feared creature in Australian rock pools. Only a handful of people have died from the bite of the blue ringed octopus, but that doesn’t mean that they aren't deadly. They don’t produce their own toxin but use bacteria which is then hidden in their salivary glands. When it bites you, it uses its bird-like beak to chew a hole in your body and spits the bacteria filled saliva into your blood stream. The bacteria in the saliva then secretes the toxins which causes your voluntary muscle system shuts down, become completely paralysed, so you can’t breathe. You die within minutes after being bitten.
Heading to land may not be much safer for you as Australia is packed with snakes, the deadliest, the Eastern Brown Snake. It is found throughout Australia except in the jungles. Their length averages at 1.5m. Their Strike speeds range from 0.25 to 1.80 m/sec. Its venom causes progressive paralysis and stops the blood from clotting, which may take many doses of antivenom to reverse. Victims may collapse within a few minutes. And within 15 minutes of collapsing, they usually die. The Eastern Brown Snake causes more deaths than any other Australian snake.
Magpies. Magpies are every Australians largest fear. True Aussies don’t fear spiders, they don’t fear snakes, they don’t fear crocodiles, but magpies are feared by all down under. The way the Magpie attacks is by spending most of their time on power cables and treetops and when someone goes near their nest they swoop down and peck at the eyes and neck. Swooping season is between August and mid-October but can lead on into November. Last season, there have been an estimated 3,000 swoopings, resulting in about 400 injuries. This year there was even a fatality. An elderly gentleman was killed after a magpie attacked him while he was riding his bicycle. He lost control after a swoop and was thrown off and into a fence. He suffered fatal head injuries. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-16/magpie-swooping-attack--man-dies-near-woonona/11515246 There’s a wikiHow page on how to defend yourself against these blood thirsty devilish creatures. https://www.wikihow.com/Keep-Safe-from-Swooping-Australian-Magpies This bird must be one of the devil’s agents, its sole duty is to find you and consume your mortal soul. The evening news has maps with alerts showing where these evil beings will be striking hardest against us. There is a website dedicated to show where the killers are, and is updated 24/7. https://www.magpiealert.com/
It is a page which all can access and report attacks, just reading some of the comments of some of the victims sends shivers down your spine;
“Magpie attack on Cyclist - 101 Argyle Ave, Chelsea VIC 3196 - November 10th, 2019 12:15 PM Cycling through Bicentennial Park (unaware of its reputation) saw the warning sign but before I could stop to read it, I was immediately attacked, drawing blood from my nose. The magpie then attacked my son, drawing blood from his nose too. The relevant section of path really should be roped off. Reported by: Michael B”
