So... when watching TV today, I happened into a documentary about Australia's box jellyfishes and, especially, the irukandji jellyfishes. What are the irukandji, you ask? Tiny jellyfishes (1 cm)... with a poison so potent that it can kill a man!

After watching this doc, I really don't want to ever go to Australia... It's true: it's a land when death lurks everywhere!!!

I mean: killer jellyfish. That is *one centimeter long*. My God.

Dear Australians: how do you survive in a land like that? You must be utter badapples!

It's true.  I've been saying for years that everything wants to kill you in Australia.  But I also think that the danger of the place (or any place) can seem a bit exaggerated in our minds through documentaries.  Just about everywhere has its environmental dangers and people deal with them.  When someone dies or gets seriously injured or there's a big disaster everyone hears about it, but no one hears about all the times human ingenuity succeeds in neutralizing the danger.  For example I know that a lot of the beaches in Australia have nets in the water to keep the jellyfish out.  I still probably wouldn't swim there, but a lot of people do and don't end up dead from jellyfish stings.

The List

http://www.answers.com/article...tralia-will-kill-you

Fresh water OF DOOOOM!

Australian wildlife can make an impression tho.

I went to Aus for quite a while back in 2000-2001.  So I came off a 27-hour flight and arrived about 8 AM AEST time, and somehow made it to where I would be staying and fell promptly asleep.  I woke about sundown and staggered out on the balcony with a fresh orange juice only to nearly drop it because there were THE. BIGGEST. BATS. I'D. EVER. SEEN. RIGHT. THERE.  Aaaaaaaaa!  "Oh yeah.  Flying foxes.  Don't frighten them -- they're kinda delicate."

Yeah, sure, OK.  It was shortly thereafter that I took my breakfast croissant out on the same balcony and had a half-dozen bell magpies alight immediately around me and eye off that croissant.  You could tell they thought they could take me, and I backed back into the flat and close the door.  Not long after that, I ran into my first huntsman spider which also made a suitable impression.

So, a bit later when I found a bunch of ants all over a bit of parmesan cheese I'd dropped in the kitchen, and I was bending down to pick it up, the resident Aussie shouted, "NO!  Don't!  They're poison!"

I had to stop and think twice about that.  He thought it was hilarious.

Australian life, like playing an old dnd dungeon crawler, but with less chance of survival.

Australia has rocks that have a poisonous bite.

The Queensland cable snake can kill a grown man just by phoning him up.  Rumours that they can do the same via SMS are believed to be false though, since a snake doesn't have thumbs.

The worst one is the Sydney squinting spider.  Kills just by giving its victim a funny look...

Okay, okay, these are jokes. But the irukanji are real! And they actually are so small that they slip through those protective nets mentioned!

You go into the water... and can be killed by a tiny thing you have no chance of noticing!

I read somewhere that the funnel web spider lived in Australia for millions of years before humans arrived... so why the fruit cocktail does it have a bite which is lethal to humans (and other primates)?

Seriously, the spider bites anything else, and it gets sick, is in a lot of pain, then recovers.  Cats, dogs, kangaroos... all can survive the bite.  Humans... probably doomed unless you get medical help.  Make arrangements for a funeral.

It's bite isn't even fatal to its own prey, since spiders like to paralyse their food and feed on it while it's still alive and fresh.  It's only fatal to a group of creatures that it had never even met when it developed its venom.

Spiteful little bananas.

Do you need any further proof???

Australia is Hell.

Thankfully, I live in a place, where we have no dangerous fauna aside from a rare instance of a viper...

Here it is mainly black widows and those blasted crazy metal boxes of doom that zip around. And I have not seena  black widow in 10 years.

My guess would be the arms race around poison.
The animals built immunities against the poison, so the poison got stronger...

We haven't built ANY immunity, therefore = super deadly.