Re: Re:[OT?]Dangerous Alian Wildlife

----- Original Message -----
From: Alan E Brain <aebrain@austarmetro.com.au>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 9:15 PM
Subject: Re:[OT?]Dangerous Alian Wildlife

> Gotta be careful talking about poisonous beasties down here: the Yanks
will get the impression that everything's venomous. Not true. Neither
the
man-eating 20 ft Great White Sharks nor the 20ft Saltwater crocs are
poisonous (though some are a LOT bigger than 20 ft - though that's big
enough). Ok, so the spiders are poisonous, as are the scorpions, snakes,
jellyfish, seasnails, sea urchins, octopi, toads, even the (male)
platypus.
But not *all* the poisons are fatal. Or at least, not always. And you
may
die from infection from the bite of a goanna or parentie, but they're
not
poisonous either.

The Learning Channel just had a show titled ' Nine ways to Die' about
different toxins from animals and almost everything they showed was from
Austrialia - except for the Poison Dart frogs. Even the
cute-and-cuddlies
are dangerous: Platypuses!