"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
Des Higgins writes:

| It is very hard to have a sensible conversation about venomous animals
| with Australians in the room. They are apt to interject with
| statements like:
| "the ones back home are the size of a dog and will take your leg off
| clean at the knee as soon as they look at you."

Indeed. They do have a point that they do have some seriously venomous
animals, though not as much so as they often make out.

My experience has been a bit different, but then I live in Australia. I can
understand the expat/tourist hyperbole put on for an audience of
non-Australians, but the odd question from the listener should sort out the
genuine from the liars. I find it rather depends on where the Australians
live and what their experiences have been with our venomous wildlife.

I've found that Autralians born in large towns and who have never lived in
the country are far more paranoid about snakes than those who are country
born. I haven't yet come across any Australian who is more than mildly
observant about sharks or spiders.

And Des, they aren't as big as a dog, but the Brown snake I have living
somewhere in my garden is about 4 ft long (but we haven't managed to kill
him yet so we haven't measured - the mongrel has lived in my garden for at
least the last 6 years) and the Tiger snakes we've killed here have been
about 3 and a half ft long and the Red Bellied Black snake that lives under
our other house on our other farm is about 5 ft long but much less venomous
than the other two mentioned. So they are adults and the Brown and the
Tiger have enough venom to kill a Jack Russell in about 20 minutes but the
Red BelliedBlack would take longer. Also enough to kill a human if not
treated. The only person I have heard of who has been bitten by a snake in
this area in the last 20 years suffered no ill damage as the first strike
from the brown snake puctured his jeans and his skin but injected no venom.