Killer Kangaroos!

[Krieg]

What are anti-venenes?

It's plural for antivenen (or antivenin) which is an anti-toxin created from venom. Most people think "anti-venom" but the word is actually antivenin.

 

[devoblue]

Australias animals are only dangerous if you go up to em, poke em with a stick and say crikey! look at this fella!

At least they don't hunt you and chase you.

 

[Krieg]

At least they don't hunt you and chase you.

Jack jumpers may not hunt you down, but they will certainly chase you!

http://www.ento.csiro.au/science/ants/myrmeciinae/myrmecia/myrmecia.htm

 

[Daniel Knight]

Meh... Kangaroos have nothing on Drop Bears.

 

[demiurge1138]

I was wondering who the first person to mention drop bears was going to be. My personal favorite incredibly deadly Australian animal is, though, the blue-ringed octopus. When a country's octopuses can kill you (it has a very deadly venomous bite), you know there's something either very wrong or very right.

The carnivorous kangaroos were probably killed by a combination of climate change, overhunting by humans, and competition with dingoes. The dingoes also lead to the deaths of some of the other really cool predatory marsupials, like the thacyleo (sp?), the "marsupial lion". Instead of most predators, which have large canines, they had incisors as their killing teeth. Related to the wombat, if I remember properly.

Demiurge out.

 

[cidak]

There used to be carniverous kangaroos. They died out. I don't know why. Probably they were killed off by the eighteen gazillion poisonous creatures that live in that country.

Dangerous freaking place, Austrailia is.

Yep, if you are going to visit Australia, read Poisonous Snakes, Spiders, Fish and Sheep of Australia volumes 1 to 42.

Oh and watch out for the drop bears.

 

[Daniel Knight]

I actually heard that one d20 company was going to release the The True Blue Book of Aussie Monsters, but the CRs were so high that it could only possibly cator to the epic level market.

 

[Bauglir]

Did you know that in the language of the aboriginal australians, Kangaroo actually means "I do not understand your question?"

Just thought that might be interesting to some folks.

Sounds like it had similar origins to this:

The Forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the known universe to be called—in the local language—Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal translation of the word Skund.
The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterlands they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalized in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.

 

[Zappo]

Terry Pratchett has an entire continent modeled after Australia, and an entire book about it. Allow me a longish quote...

Death held out a hand. I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS -
Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.
After a while, Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT; I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.
Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them to allow his master to clamber free.
HMM... Death picked up a book at random and read the cover.
DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA, he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.
He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?
They waited.
IT WOULD APPEAR THAT -
'No, wait, master. Here it comes.'
Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up and caught the single sheet of paper.
He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.
'May I?' said Albert. Death handed him the paper.
'"Some of the sheep."' Albert read aloud. 'Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside'd be better, then.'
WHAT AN INTRIGUING PLACE, said Death. SADDLE UP THE HORSE, ALBERT. I FEEL SURE I'M GOING TO BE NEEDED.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I number of years ago Zelanzy (I am sure it was he) wrote a short short story for OMNI magazine about vampire frogs! The story was based on events that happened on a Florida golf course that had made the papers, it seems tree frogs had a mass population growth due to allagators and some birds being removed from the course, it was mating season...the frogs would jump from trees and land on golfers, many times this was on the head or neck area, whiched caused a panic of vampire frogs!