australia…land down under and home to skippy, hoges and steve irwin to name a few. such a beautiful land girt by sea…says so in the national anthem. anyhoo what it doesn’t say is some of the most beautiful sea cannot be entered due to the poisonous creatures that call it home. salt water crocodiles, box jellyfish, great white sharks to name a few. so if you are worried about swimming in the ocean stay home it’s sure to be safe there….not according to the very large snake crossing the road not far from here early last week or the redback spider hanging out on our toilet door at 5am this morning. it is fair to say that we have our share of spiders here. we cleaned the pool furniture last week and destroyed seven redbacks off one lounger. so they are not aggressive and to healthy adults will not kill but we now have a 16 month old dynamo who would feel the full brunt of a redbacks poison – it’s a chance we are not willing to take. I only know one person who has been bitten by a redback….so it’s fairly unlikely to happen to us. little boss is another kettle of fish….she plays in the garden beds, investigates under the barby and sticks her legs through the pool fence so I find myself dragging her away and telling her “no” much more than I like. they’re not aggressive but if a food source presents itself surely they’d have a crack….
the interesting fact about redbacks that we recently learned is that the daddy-long-legs spider is known to catch and eat the redback spider so that could explain the masses of daddy-long-legs spiders that we have hanging out in every nook and cranny of our house – inside and out – I just wish they would start feasting….come on daddy-long-legs get busy, I say, the more they eat the less I have to kill. at least we don’t have funnel-web spiders here….by far the most impressive spider in oz, just keep them on the east coast. while I was looking for information on the redback I stumbled across a website that had an article about our “lucky country” titled The Animals that make Australia the Death Trap it is….clearly not written by an Australian and an article that received more comments for its poor grammar than content…as a visitor I guess you would sleep with one eye open – just not your mouth – as an aussie you just deal with it….that’s why our national footwear is the thong…as I was heard asking Mr B Badger.com at stupid o’clock “pass me a thong will ya, there’s a redback on the door”
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/top-30-deadly-animals-in-australia.htm
barrybadger.com 