"Oh yes, yes, everything is poisonous. Even the trees. And all the snakes. Totally. And octopus. You shouldn't come, its awful." *leans back, sips cocktails on beach*
This is why the platypus-bear is a creature of utter and complete fridgehorror once you think about it.
Though to be accurate, the platypus and every other animal on the australian mainland is venomous, not poisonous. Only the koalas and all the other plants are poisonous.
they invent bungee jumping
Strictly speaking that's a polynesian/micronesian thing – an old fertility rite on quite a few of the pacific islands involves building a huge tower above crop land, and then members of the tribe take turns bungee jumping down in such a fashion that their hair drags along the soil as they dangle on the end of the vines they use as bungee ropes.
I always call my huntsmen "george". They are allowed to stay only if it's not the bedroom, cause they like to do things like crawling into your cupboard and hiding in your clothes.
I understand that my arachnophobia is irrational. I understand that my revulsion on seeing how spiders walk is not sane. I understand that dangerous spiders simply do not exist, where I am.[1]
These three understandings allow me to not lose my shit when spiders are around, and allow other people who care more about spiders than I do to remove them without harming them. Unless the spider is walking on me, in which case AGH AGH AGH SMASH SMASH SMASHSMASHSMASHSMASH why does my arm hurt oh right it was worth it.
[1]: Except that summer where I worked at the fruit store and encountered the Bird-Eating Tarantula (harmless but HOLY SHIT THAT SPIDER IS THE SIZE OF SOME DOGS) and the MULTIPLE Black Widows (do you people not CHECK your GRAPES before SHIPPING? I KILL YOU. TWO TIMES.)
I am still wondering about how I'm going to fix those few photos that I took in the rainforest when the guide went and found a tarantula, or something very similar, and Some People let her crawl all over them. She was more scared than any of us, she was trying desparately to make herself look big, or to jump off of people and escape, and yet I was still hiding behind other people, because see comment.
I am seriously worried about visiting Australia one day, even though I really want to, because one picture of the Clock Spider (huntsman) was enough.
I'm of the opinion that the visceral horror many people have of spiders, snakes, and various other potentially harmful critters is some sort of evolutionary defense mechanism.
I've been in a car with an arachnophobe driving when one of the fuckers ran down the windscreen in front of her. She swerved across three lanes of busy traffic into the service lane and leapt out and ran before I had a chance to scream.
As I always say: Welcome to Australia, where *everything* is trying to kill you. Even the harmless things are just trying to trick you into mistaking a deadly thing for them.
Even our *joke* monsters are real, too. Go on, ask me about drop-bears!
(For the record, I am also somewhat arachnophobic. And, yes, the Huntsmen are the worst. The lingering dread that the one on the ceiling is going to drop on you as you walk under it...)
The Shadowrun RPG has some fun things to say about Australian critters. Their drop bears are a carnivorous variant with long claws, fangs and Predator-like adaptive coloration.
My favourite creature from that book would have to be the wombrick, though: a kind of giant wombat that can weigh up to 400kg, and enough damage resistance ability to shrug off a collision with a good-sized truck.
Oh, and the number of poisonous snake variants had about tripled in that setting, too. As if they didn't have enough problems with the bunyips and the mana storms...
Ah... Shadowrun - the only game where it is physically impossible to have enough d6s.
As far as the Wombrick goes, it has nothing on the Diprotodon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diprotodon), massing in at near 3 tonnes. Tripling the number of poisonous snakes would be barely noticed by most Aussies. Which brings me to Drop Bears.
They're a joke, right?
Wrong.
They were real.
Imagine a 150Kg arboreal pouncer, with massive gaping jaws, and enormous retractable thumb-claws. That was the reality of the Drop-bear, otherwise known as Thylacoleo Carniflex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupial_Lion).
Aaand just to complete the picture, there are persistent reports of their smaller extinct cousins, Thylacines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine) being sighted on the mainland.
I'll tell you folks something I've never told anybody before.
When I was living in Geraldton, Western Australia, I would've been pre-kindergarten age - 4ish I suppose.
Well, I'd been left in the bath by myself. Looking up I see a Huntsman on the ceiling. "Hmmm," I think, "I wonder if that spider will drop into the bath if I throw water at it."
What do you know, it did!
And in retrospect, I could feel the neurons forge connections. Today, we learn about consequences.
"You know," I thought "Maybe I shouldn't have done that."
"AAAAHHHH MUM SPIDER!"
Mum came and fished it out and removed it...she never asked how it got there, and I thought it was better not to mention it.
I suppose, by rights I should've become an arachnophobe, but no, I grew up to like spiders and to throw insects into the webs of the orb weavers in the garden. The only thing I learned from that early experience was not to throw water at spiders directly above me.
And I'm the one they come to to remove any that are around.
I have an excellent track record for this, except for white tailed spiders. They move too quickly, and I ended up squashing the last couple I tried to rescue, the postcard and glass technique doesn't work for me and them.
ha! yes it does, but you have to use a big glass. Although I am a spider whisperer, I still find the feeling of a huntsman's prickly feet on my skin very very creepy.
We have two orb weavers who tend to like casting their nets across the driveway. if you come home after dark, you have to wave your arms aka ' danger will robinonson' or you might end up with a juicy spider in your face.
While i'm not arachophobic, insofar as i dont mind looking at them, i dont want them on me and tend to scream and slap myself a lot if i walk into a web.
Here's a fun thing to do with those little brown jumping house spiders you get in melbourne: they have no depth perception. so if you get up close to thim, and wave your arms around your head, they think you are another spider that is really close to them. and they want you to rack off. So they wave back! you can have little waving matches with them. it's totally awesome to do!
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 07:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 08:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 02:44 am (UTC)(meanwhile, New Zealand is quite and friendly and venom-free and they're so bored they invent bungee jumping and black-water rafting)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 04:53 pm (UTC)Though to be accurate, the platypus and every other animal on the australian mainland is venomous, not poisonous. Only the koalas and all the other plants are poisonous.
they invent bungee jumping
Strictly speaking that's a polynesian/micronesian thing – an old fertility rite on quite a few of the pacific islands involves building a huge tower above crop land, and then members of the tribe take turns bungee jumping down in such a fashion that their hair drags along the soil as they dangle on the end of the vines they use as bungee ropes.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 07:56 pm (UTC)http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/australian/huntsman/Huntsman.html
I always call my huntsmen "george". They are allowed to stay only if it's not the bedroom, cause they like to do things like crawling into your cupboard and hiding in your clothes.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 10:16 pm (UTC)They tend to stalk me from room to room when I get them. They creep me the hell out.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 10:28 pm (UTC)I understand that my arachnophobia is irrational.
I understand that my revulsion on seeing how spiders walk is not sane.
I understand that dangerous spiders simply do not exist, where I am.[1]
These three understandings allow me to not lose my shit when spiders are around, and allow other people who care more about spiders than I do to remove them without harming them. Unless the spider is walking on me, in which case AGH AGH AGH SMASH SMASH SMASHSMASHSMASHSMASH why does my arm hurt oh right it was worth it.
[1]: Except that summer where I worked at the fruit store and encountered the Bird-Eating Tarantula (harmless but HOLY SHIT THAT SPIDER IS THE SIZE OF SOME DOGS) and the MULTIPLE Black Widows (do you people not CHECK your GRAPES before SHIPPING? I KILL YOU. TWO TIMES.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 10:36 pm (UTC)Not least cos, well, I live in Aus and we have lots of obnoxiously dangerous ones.
But Huntsmans are the worst for my phobia, though one of the least problematic for poison. But they get everywhere.
Where I said creep me the hell out up there? - panic attack and tears have resulted.
And *shudder* Those experiences would have left me a mess.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 03:49 pm (UTC)I am still wondering about how I'm going to fix those few photos that I took in the rainforest when the guide went and found a tarantula, or something very similar, and Some People let her crawl all over them. She was more scared than any of us, she was trying desparately to make herself look big, or to jump off of people and escape, and yet I was still hiding behind other people, because see comment.
I am seriously worried about visiting Australia one day, even though I really want to, because one picture of the Clock Spider (huntsman) was enough.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 06:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-22 06:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-16 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 05:44 pm (UTC)Then we couldn't find the fucker.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 12:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 12:41 am (UTC)Welcome to Australia, where *everything* is trying to kill you. Even the harmless things are just trying to trick you into mistaking a deadly thing for them.
Even our *joke* monsters are real, too. Go on, ask me about drop-bears!
(For the record, I am also somewhat arachnophobic. And, yes, the Huntsmen are the worst. The lingering dread that the one on the ceiling is going to drop on you as you walk under it...)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 03:05 am (UTC)My favourite creature from that book would have to be the wombrick, though: a kind of giant wombat that can weigh up to 400kg, and enough damage resistance ability to shrug off a collision with a good-sized truck.
Oh, and the number of poisonous snake variants had about tripled in that setting, too. As if they didn't have enough problems with the bunyips and the mana storms...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 05:42 am (UTC)As far as the Wombrick goes, it has nothing on the Diprotodon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diprotodon), massing in at near 3 tonnes. Tripling the number of poisonous snakes would be barely noticed by most Aussies. Which brings me to Drop Bears.
They're a joke, right?
Wrong.
They were real.
Imagine a 150Kg arboreal pouncer, with massive gaping jaws, and enormous retractable thumb-claws. That was the reality of the Drop-bear, otherwise known as Thylacoleo Carniflex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupial_Lion).
Aaand just to complete the picture, there are persistent reports of their smaller extinct cousins, Thylacines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine) being sighted on the mainland.
Have fun!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 05:47 am (UTC)I was pretty glad they had Australians writing that bit of the setting, as it could have been pretty dire otherwise.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 12:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 02:39 am (UTC)When I was living in Geraldton, Western Australia, I would've been pre-kindergarten age - 4ish I suppose.
Well, I'd been left in the bath by myself. Looking up I see a Huntsman on the ceiling. "Hmmm," I think, "I wonder if that spider will drop into the bath if I throw water at it."
What do you know, it did!
And in retrospect, I could feel the neurons forge connections. Today, we learn about consequences.
"You know," I thought "Maybe I shouldn't have done that."
"AAAAHHHH MUM SPIDER!"
Mum came and fished it out and removed it...she never asked how it got there, and I thought it was better not to mention it.
I suppose, by rights I should've become an arachnophobe, but no, I grew up to like spiders and to throw insects into the webs of the orb weavers in the garden. The only thing I learned from that early experience was not to throw water at spiders directly above me.
And I'm the one they come to to remove any that are around.
I have an excellent track record for this, except for white tailed spiders. They move too quickly, and I ended up squashing the last couple I tried to rescue, the postcard and glass technique doesn't work for me and them.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 01:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-17 10:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 10:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-22 06:45 am (UTC)We have two orb weavers who tend to like casting their nets across the driveway. if you come home after dark, you have to wave your arms aka ' danger will robinonson' or you might end up with a juicy spider in your face.
While i'm not arachophobic, insofar as i dont mind looking at them, i dont want them on me and tend to scream and slap myself a lot if i walk into a web.
Here's a fun thing to do with those little brown jumping house spiders you get in melbourne: they have no depth perception. so if you get up close to thim, and wave your arms around your head, they think you are another spider that is really close to them. and they want you to rack off. So they wave back! you can have little waving matches with them. it's totally awesome to do!