An awesome read Zazzy, Steve was a good man indeed and I thoroughly enjoyed the read!

Thought I might add a couple more critters to the list as well.

Firstly an angry little blighter who unfortunately is slowly dying out due to disease and land clearing, the Tasmanian Devil.

And although a kangaroo may seem harmless, corner a big male and he will tear shreds out of you, as will many of our large lizards such as the goanna and race horse lizard.

I've seen a group of tourists circle a large goanna to take photos in the Kimberley a few years ago, the goanna had nowhere to go but up, tore the poor tourist to shreds! The wounds also get infected quickly too.
Very nasty.

Again, awesome thread zaz!

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
Another thing many people dont know is that the male platypus is venemous. It has a couple of spurs behind each ankle. Its is strong enough to kill small animals such as dogs or foxes, but the toxin is not lethal to humans. However it can be extremely painful if someone is "stung" by one

Cheeky little buggers arent they?

But theyre cute and in Blinky Bill Books, lol ive never heard that!!!! Gosh im a tourist here.

Hey great thread here.
It's so easy to forget just how many dangerous beasties we share our home with.
Even our birds can be dangerous, I nearly got torn open by an emu kick once. As for our snakes, I've been bitten by an Eastern Brown in Victoria and a King Brown in New South Wales. The latter had me in a coma for a day and a half.
Dingoes are not really a problem as they are fairly timid. I've heard of the occasional bitten tourist at Ularu or Fraser Island but it's usually just a nip from behind. I've slept out in the open with dingoes around and it wasn't a concern.
I find the red back spider everywhere around my place. Thankfullt I've never been bitten by the Aussie relative of the black widow though.
When camping the worst danger comes from the trees of course. The infamous drop bears take out more campers and tourists than all the rest of the beasties combined. Of course because of our National tourism policy we cant share that info with our overseas friends, but they find out soon enough after they get here.
Cheers, and stay safe! Crikey!

Excellent thread,my grandparents went over to oz to check the place out in the hope of emigrating in 50's,they only stayed a few weeks due to all the beasties ie spiders etc,i thought our horrible house spiders and daddy long legs were bad but those funnel webs would make me plop my kegs if i saw one in my back garden,thank god we don't have such nastys in uk unless you count scorpions and a black widow lookalike which came over as illegals from cargo ships.

Originally posted by Dragon33

Even our birds can be dangerous, I nearly got torn open by an emu kick once. As for our snakes, I've been bitten by an Eastern Brown in Victoria and a King Brown in New South Wales. The latter had me in a coma for a day and a half.

'

Yep, my sister had a emu kick and a roo kick on the same day...lol
poor bugger isnt good with animals nowadays.

Thank goodness your OK after the brown bite. Coma for a day and a half, sounds like they got o you in time.
Zazz

hehehe great thread
Just yesterday my 2yo lad nearly sat on a Redback Spider in the main st of Perth, But I think with the contents of his nappy at the time the poor spider would have come out worse off.. stopped him in time and put the poor spider in a tree..
(not with my bare hands.. that would have been silly, scooped her up on a bit of paper)