Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Down under?

So I ended up looking at travel websites.This is the kind of things they put on Australian travel websites.I think it's pretty encouraging.

Box Jell Fish:
You have virtually no chance of surviving the venomous sting (hahahahaha), unless treated immediately. The pain is so excruciating and overwhelming that you would most likely go into shock and drown before reaching the shore (yay..so even if you are with someone, they might not be able to reach you before you die). So don't go swimming alone!

Stone fish:
The sting causes excruciating pain (well thanks for the details) and a great deal of swelling rapidly develops causing death to tissues.The symptoms of the venom are muscle weakness, temporary paralysis and shock, which may result in death if not treated.

Blue Ring Octopus:
One of the more deadly animals on the face of the Earth (Ok...that's interesting...) Although the painless bite can kill an adult, injuries have only occurred when an octopus has been picked out of its pool and provoked or stepped on.
Symptoms: nausea; hazy vision, within seconds you are blind (fantastic!) ; loss of sense of touch, speech and the ability to swallow; within 3 minutes, paralysis sets in and your body goes into respiratory arrest

Sydney Funnel Web: It is a large (6-7 cm), black, aggressive, ugly looking spider with massive fangs. These are large and powerful enough to easily penetrate a fingernail. During a bite the spider firmly grips its victim and bites repeatedly; in most cases the experience is horrific. The venom is highly toxic. The venom of the slightly smaller male spider is five times as toxic as the female. This is unfortunate, as male funnel webs tend to roam about, particularly after heavy rain in summer, and often wind up indoors. For some strange reason, human beings are particularly sensitive to the venom, whereas toads, cats and rabbits are almost unaffected!(Oh great...suddenly I wish I was a rabbit)

Symptoms: The bite is usually immediately painful, and if substantial envenomation occurs, symptoms commence usually within a few minutes:

  • Sweating, muscle twitching, salivation, severe hypertension.
  • Vomiting, airway obstruction, muscle spasms, grimacing, extreme hypertension.
  • Unconsciousness,widely dilated pupils, uncontrolled twitching, and death unless artificial ventilation is provided.
  • After about 2 hours the muscle fasiculations and most symptoms start to subside, and are replaced with insidious but profound hypotension, primarily due to severe cardiac failure.

Crocodiles, Red Back spiders, Tiger snakes, Brown snakes, and the Great White Shark are also kind of frightening.They seriously do not want you to come to Australia when they put that on a website

If you wanna throw up look at this:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/australian/Spidaus.html

2 comments:

Lana said...

"I wish I was a rabbit", you're hilarious!

Andrew Clarke said...

We're caught between being proud of our 'robust' wildlife and not wanting visitors to be put off by it. Seriously, you're fairly safe in Australia. The crocs in the north can be nasty, but much of the country is fairly safe if you just know what you're doing. Come again sometime, and try the inland of New South Wales. It can be spectacular. Happy travelling.