this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Australian here. We aren't drowning in murderous wildlife.
We do have deadly creatures, but the average person will likely never encounter them.
... we did have to ban a peppa pig episode about making friends with random spiders because aaaaa dear christ no, but apart from that really it's fine here...
Nice try, we all know Australia doesn't actually exist
¿ʎɐs noʎ pıp ʇɐɥʍ
Nice try, murderous creature. I'm not falling for that.
Seriously, though, that makes sense. Lots of countries have dangerous wildlife but they're mostly far from the big cities where people live. Plus Australia seems to have a large amount of land that's not populated (I think? Never been there). What would be the most dangerous animal an average person in the big cities encounter? Venomous spiders?
Yep.
Redback spiders are relatively common, they're unlikely to actually kill anyone but very young children, but you're going to have pain and swelling like you've been hit by a very angry truck. There's antivenom available for serious cases. However, they're small-grape-sized, non-aggressive and just want to be left the hell alone and are unlikely to bite unless directly messed with - they hang out in little sheltered semi-outdoor spaces in your garage / mailbox / behind the lawnmower / etc, and they're the main reason you never put your fingers anywhere you can't see.
Funnelwebs are distributed right across the greater Sydney area. They're aggressive bastards, body the size of a man's thumb, look like a Firefly class transport designed by H. R. Giger, and a bite will absolutely kill you unless you get the antivenom. They live in holes in the ground, but they'll wander around and into your house if it's in their path. However, in over 40 years of living here, I've never ever seen one. Which is good, because they terrify the shit out of me.
Snakes, you'd honestly need to get out into at least semi-rural areas (or deep into a national park) to encounter. I don't think I've ever come across one in the wild, but then I'm a city-dweller. They're a fact of life out in the sticks, but that's only a small percentage of the population, and seriously dangerous snakes are a relatively small percentage of the varieties out there.
Cone shells and blue-ring octupus are only way up on the north coast away from most of the population centres, so it's mainly tourists that deal with them.
There's sharks in the ocean variously, but most places you'd risk encountering them, they net the beaches. There's probably three or four surfers encounter them a year, kind of thing.
The spiders people are going to get freaked out by, like I say, are hunstmen (which gallop across your ceiling, and can get huge) and orb-weavers which make big showy webs in trees, and look like something out of dark souls. However, they're no threat to anyone but cockroaches.
Also yeah, most of this continent is desert - it's only really habitable round the very edges.
Yeah. Huntsmen can get pretty big, and they move really fast. I know they're good guys but I get really creeped out by them. I don't mind orb-weavers, tbh. Some of them are beautiful.
Oof. Those are usually the people that touch everything they're not familiar with. Lol. JK. Thanks for the answer!
Edit: just looked up Funnelwebs and those bastards are mean af. Those are long fangs.