Oh can we stop this? we have no large land predators. Indeed Australia is so peaceful as to give rise to the quokka that fearlessly approaches humans.
Sure if you piss off a kangaroo or deliberately antagonise a spider you might get hurt but you'd have to really really try and odds are you would just get fixed up in hospital.
This land is peaceful, it's inhabitants kinds (well, except the humans).
NaevaTheRat? You're not really a rat are you? You're a Drop Bear. This is exactly the sort of thing a Drop Bear would post to entice more victims people to come to Australia.
Seriously though it's a country I'd love to visit one day.
I honestly get where you're coming from. I'm from the US southeast, and the internet had a whole moment with the phrase "bless your heart," and they are almost exclusively using it wrong, which is such a shame.
But getting mad about it just makes trolls appear and assholes will say the thing that annoys you just to annoy you. Best to just try to let it go.
I'm not mad, I just think it's boring. LLMs already have regurgitated speech sounding garbage bereft of meaning covered. Humans can be so much more rich and interesting.
Not anywhere near built up areas... there's one, the brown snake. he's a bit ornery but he'll leave you be almost all the time if you make some noise while walking and fatalities are ~2 a year and mostly in highly remote areas... don't walk in the tide pools without shoes on? you'll cut your foot on oysters at the best of times silly... just leave random critters in tide pools alone? it's not like they seek you out or attack you while you swim... yeah boxies are a nuance but only at the far north at certain times of year, you can swim when they're not around... never heard of them so they can't be that bad... what are you doing? naked bush bashing in FNQ? fucking relax, it's a random poisoned tree in some of the most remote regions of australia. Not like you'll get stung in any tourist region lmao... are you in the habit of disturbing bats? they fly up in the sky yo, just don't try ambush some sleeping bats? are you afraid of licking pidgeons or something?... white tails are not harmful https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2017/04/the-truth-about-white-tail-spiders/ and like all spiders you have to really really try to get bitten. You can handle them and they'll leave you alone... again are you naked bush bashing in FNQ? haha do you think our major cities are plagued by jungle fevers you idiot...
Man I live in Darwin, a kid I went to school with died from stepping on a stone fish, my cousin was taken by a crocodle. My brother was bit by a king brown and ended up in hospital for 2 weeks. My sister was bit by a redback spider.
My uncle caught Ross River virus and my other uncle died of meliodosis.
Your part of Australia in the blue mountain's might be good and safe, except for the incest mountain family.
My part of Australia is reasonably dangerous still
As opposed to FUCKING BEARS. No one ever brings up the fact that america gets BEARS. IN THEIR GARBAGE BINS. As opposed to 90% of our shit we don't encounter unless we go out of our way
As a Canadian living in Australia, I prefer the North American dangers. At least you can see most of them. I've nearly stepped too close to a tiger snake once and didn't notice until I put my foot down. Luckily it preferred the warm spot over me.
I usually don't go far in to the water out of fear of dark waters and rips. Seen the cute little blue dragons and jellyfish on beaches, but I leave those alone.
White tailed spiders under the covers, or in your closet or drawers are a joy, especially the baby ones.
If you can stay afloat for a good while you'll be right. They circle back to where waves are forming and the waves carry you back to shore. The key is not to panic and don't exhaust yourself fighting them. Swim sideways and relax, you'll get dragged out some but the waves will help you get back so it's going to be ok once you're out of it.
White tails are harmless, the victim of a libel campaign.
Fair fair. You'll want to avoid bulldog ants if you've got allergies. I know the natural inclination is to get close because they're so fascinating but they're particularly known for provoking anaphylaxis :(
Oh boy. Yes, I have come across those on some hikes. It's unnerving how they look up at you as if they are sizing you up, and walk backwards while still looking at you. Didn't know about the anaphylaxis, only know that the bites are very painful. Thank you!
I wasn't joking about wanting to approach them, they're fascinating. I object to people saying something is less evolved than something else as everything has been evolving and surviving the same amount of time, but they are primitive in the sense of preserving characteristics from an intermediate stage between wasps and ants. Really fascinating to see the solitary roaming/eyesight heavy foraging behaviours alongside eusocial grooming etc.
Gosh I love them, but I don't know how many stings I have left in me as it's starting to get extremely painful :p. They are just about the only animal aside from domestic cats that seem to go out of their way to do violence to you with very little provocation.
If you notice a mountain lion, it's not stalking you. If you notice paw prints following your footprints on the way back, that's the sign a mountain lion was stalking you.
They sneak up on way more sensitive creatures than you for a living.
Yes of course spiders and snakes are only scary if they're at least two metres high, noone would ever be worried about being bitten by a thing you didn't see or hear coming.
...you have very very fundamental misunderstandings about how spiders and snakes work.
They don't stalk people, they don't deliberately seek out human habitats - quite the opposite in fact - and you pretty much have to provoke them into attacking.
Around 3,000 snakebites are reported in Australia per year. We have a population of over 26 million. You're more likely to get bitten by a meth head
And everyone knows that only large predators can kill people! Also, Australians and tourists famously never go to the beach and swim in the ocean, so only LAND animals matter!
Anyways, I'd honestly love to come to Australia. I just hope I don't accidentally get killed
Says the guy with taipans and funnel-web spiders in his yard. You're also being very cheeky with that "land" qualifier. Your ocean is full of utter murder demons like sea snakes and stonefish.
There have been funnelwebs in my yard at times. Know what I do? Don't stick my fingers under logs/in suspicious funnel shaped webs in the yard and wear shoes. If I got bitten I'd just go to hospital and get the antivenom and have an unpleasant 2 days.
Taipans don't live near me, brown snakes do. Almost stepped on one once, know what I did? not do that and walked backwards slowly. The horror!
It's just boring. There are so many genuinely funny things to say about Australia but this is played out. Like if everytime someone mentioned the usa people were like "Oh are you afraid of being shot? bet you have to constantly watch out for being shot huh? shot?" or if when the UK came up it was just "Queen and empire right haha bet you eat shit food huh?" (actually people do this and it's also not funny especially when you can tease them for all the genuinely hilarious shit like the house of Lords and the London museum).
Like if everytime someone mentioned the usa people were like "Oh are you afraid of being shot? bet you have to constantly watch out for being shot huh? shot?"
Not really, in my experience, but also during new years my neighbor shot off like 15 shots into the air. I wasn't worried at being shot at, I was worried some drunk idiots stray bullet might come through my window. Also your statements about that was sorta my point. Some of the mildest American jokes are us being fat, then racism/mistreatment of natives, then shootings, then all the shit America has pulled in other countries. UK is bad teeth, royalty, then all the shit they did to other countries. Germany is dry or non existent humor and then Nazi.
Ooh, our animals are scary is mild, sometimes they do island of criminals, but you could be known for mistreatment of Natives also. If you gotta take an L, I think scary animals is way down on the list.
Yeah you got it. Make fun of our stupid accents, our ridiculous infighting politics, the horrible racism, how every Aussie thinks we're some rugged larrikin but we have fines and regulations for everything (welcome to Australia: fines apply on a sticker had me in stitches in an airport bathroom), the hilarious "this place was discovered in XXXX, by an expedition being guided by a local man to a sacred place" plaques, the sex pest tourism we inflict on our neighbours whatever.
I'm just so bored of people bagging on made up stuff about the wildlife. They're cool and interesting, and there's loads to crack jokes about.
read that page. You're unlikely to come across it without trying. No confirmed deaths in Australia. You can find videos of people stinging themselves, it looks unpleasant but not that bad. Not even exclusive to Australia.
"Bad things can happen to you if you deep into the forest/jungle and don't know what you're doing" is hardly uniquely Australian.
