Yes!
Outdated: I forgot to ask you about the venomous snakes as cassowaries of Queensland, south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
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Koalas
- Thread starter Outdated
- Start date
Outdated: I forgot to ask you about the venomous snakes as cassowaries of Queensland, south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
Yes!
Outdated: I forgot to ask you about the venomous snakes as cassowaries of Queensland, south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
Cassowaries won't be seen south of the tropic, in fact you'll have to go a long way further north if you want to see one in the wild, and even then they're quite rare.
Snakes we have in plenty throughout the entire country, over 140 different species documented so far and of those over 100 are venomous. You'll hardly ever see a venomous snake unless you go looking for them though, they have no interest in humans and try very hard to not be seen by humans. The only time a snake will attack a human is if it feels trapped and in danger. 99.9% of all snake bites happen to people trying to kill the snake.
Pythons are a different matter, they don't have much fear of humans and anyone north of Brisbane is used to them coming in to the house. They're harmless to humans but they can sense rats from many metres away even if the rats are hiding in your roof cavity.
Some of our pythons are really pretty and it's always wonderful to see them.
You don’t have to go north of Brisbane - I had a 2m python living in my roof for quite a while. (One morning it decided to poke its head through the exhaust vent in the shower recess ceiling to have a bit of a look, while I was having a shower. Face to face with about 1m of python hanging down. It saw me and rapidly retracted.) My daughter kept chooks, the rats came after the feed, the pythons came after the rats. One night we heard quite a kerfuffle coming from the chook pen - found a large python chowing down on one of them. We took the rest of them indoors for the night.
When I was a young lad living in Newcastle, a red-bellied black snake decided to investigate the primary (grade) school tuckshop. A couple of teachers had to dispatch it. (For those OS, this is in the suburbs of Australia’s sixth largest city.)
When I was a young lad living in Newcastle, a red-bellied black snake decided to investigate the primary (grade) school tuckshop. A couple of teachers had to dispatch it. (For those OS, this is in the suburbs of Australia’s sixth largest city.)
215 pound female python in Florida.
This could probably fix your Koala problem.
Our biggest is the Scrub Python, but Olive Pythons and Carpet Pythons aren't much smaller.View attachment 148610
215 pound female python in Florida.
This could probably fix your Koala problem.
Directly north, yes. Go far enough NE and you get to us:
Weird we’re not expecting more rain. Massive flooding NW from here.
But @Outdated is right - here the sun is not your friend. Annual skin cancer checks are just commonsense.
Normally, the person in the shower would think "oh crap, a snake!" and run away. But the snake saw you and thought "oh crap, an Australian!" and ran away.
Australia is different.
If given the option all of them would choose flight rather than fight. I've seen plenty of snakes but the one that shocked me was only a Golden Tree Snake, big bugger though. I was climbing to the top of Robin Falls near Adelaide River, and as I poked my head up over the top of a big boulder the snake was doing the same thing from the other side. We met nose to nose so close that I had to go cross eyed to look at him, almost touching. Scared the hell out of both of us.
I started pulling back very slowly and he started doing the same thing. I didn't move very far, I didn't have to, my hands were still hanging on to the top of the rock. My body language was enough for the snake, I was no threat and he could safely escape. A slow count of 10 then I poked my head back up again and he was gone.
Gorgeous animal.
We have venomous snakes that can be aggressive. Cottonmouths, also called water moccasins, and some of the larger rattlesnakes.
We have a couple of different water pythons that are both venomous and aggressive but their venom won't cause you too much trouble, just makes you feel a bit woozy and a bit crook in the gut for a while. And they're not something you'll see outside of tropical rainforests.
Oh ..Yummzz.. gonna vaca in the outback, this spring. or fall overthere .Snakes .
Like Indie Jones, not fond of snakes . but then again , not fond of spiders either
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Have only encountered rattle snakes, Some seemed aggressive to me . But am still hoping that diamond backed coloured medium sized snake found near my home ,that I picked up in the desert in my yard, back about 15 years ago ,Was a garden snake I hope
.......
but did turn it loose about 10 mins later .It slid away very quickly .
Like Indie Jones, not fond of snakes . but then again , not fond of spiders either
.Have only encountered rattle snakes, Some seemed aggressive to me . But am still hoping that diamond backed coloured medium sized snake found near my home ,that I picked up in the desert in my yard, back about 15 years ago ,Was a garden snake I hope
.......but did turn it loose about 10 mins later .It slid away very quickly .
Cyber
Active Member
Oh dear. Koalas are in reality quite timid. Fun fact: the tree/leaf pictured with the drop bear is called a eucalypt. Eucalyptus leaves are poisonous to all other other animals because they contain a toxic organic oil called cineole. Koalas have the ability to eat eucalyptus leaves (infact it's their main source of food) but the trade off is they have to metabolise/detox cineole and in the process it slows them down and make koalas lethargic (like Sloths) while in trees. So no dropping or attacking from trees
Of course it means a food source with no competitors. When koalas need to move trees to source fresh leaves or find another koala, they stop eating to detox giving them a boost of energy to then clamber down and they can run fairly briskly while on the ground.
Having cineole in their blood system means some of the compound is accumulated in body tissue so eating eucalyptus makes Koala's inedible, so potential predators (mostly feral dogs/cats) leave the, alone. So in that respect yet another benefit of a eucalypt diet.
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