We always hear that us Australians have terrifying spiders when America has brown recluses, wolf spiders, black widows, etc.
Crocodiles? You have those too, and alligators.
Dingoes? Coyotes.
Kangaroo are about as common as deer are in the States.
You have rattlesnakes too.
Not to mention bears and mountain lions.
Yet, why is it so much rarer in comparison to hear yourselves or other foreigners cower in fear of American wildlife to the same extent it’s done towards Australia?
It just perplexes me because in that regard we’re quite similar, yet the attitudes are nowhere near the same.
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Issa joke
Hand sized spiders are terrifying. Simple as that. Ours at least have the decency of being small.
Your other wildlife is more cute than scary.
Just because something isn’t a meme doesn’t mean it’s not an idea in the culture.
Animal attacks and fear of them (reasonable and unreasonable) absolutely is a thing in America.
They’re just unknown to us, so we wouldn’t know how to react to one in person. Also, it’s become a joke, so people joke a lot more than actually being serious.
i’m sorry, you have a good point here, i’m just laughing at comparing kangaroos to deer 😭 deer will fuck up your headlights/windshield, every time ive seen a video of a kangaroo its looked like its about to fuck up an unsuspecting person
edit: wow, looks like i don’t know much about kangaroos (or deer outside of white-tailed deer), pls read the replies to see how the comparison is actually a fair one o: sorry for not individually replying, i just wasnt expecting it to blow up like that lol
We’re just having a laugh mate
Now do blue-ringed octopus.
We have snakes and stuff, sure, but Australia has CUTE animals that can still kill you.
Probably because Australian wildlife is so strange and unfamiliar to Americans, and because of the lethality of some of the poisonous ones; we don’t have box jellies or blue-ringed octopi.
We don’t have saltwater crocodiles, which are one of maybe 3 animals that will actively hunt humans for food (polar bears and tigers are the other two).
But yes, you’re correct: a lot more Americans die to animals than Australians, although that’s mostly from car collisions with deer, and bears can be a problem especially in grizzly country or if people feed them.
Mountain lions are one animal I’d love to see in the wild but only from a distance. There are also rare sightings of jaguars in southern Arizona and New Mexico, ranging up from the Sierra Madre in Mexico.
Are kangaroo/car collisions a problem in rural Oz?
>Kangaroo are about as common as deer are in the States.
ok but deer are terrified of you and have legs the size of toothpicks, and kangaroos will beat you up.
most of this is a joke, although the big ass spiders are scary. the biggest reason we don’t travel to Australia is bc of the extremely long and expensive flight to get there.
Steve Irwin that’s why. His worlds deadliest shows always were mostly Australian animals.
A. It’s a joke/meme, do you not have those down there?
B. Familiarity breeds comfort, the unknown breeds fear, we know we won’t wake up with a black widow under our car door handle, but we hear Aussie spiders are everywhere.
It’s mostly a joke. Although giant spiders and crocs (which we emphatically DO NOT have in Montana) freak me right out.
Most Americans live in urban areas where those animals are rare. Most urban Americans are afraid of gators, spiders, coyotes, snakes, and bears, too.
I’m not American but I am from the UK and we have the same perception of the land down under.
Comedian Steve Hughes did a great set when he visited Northern Ireland. All the locals were coming up to him and saying how anyone copes with all the scary wildlife in Australia. His reply was ‘you’re literally standing next to a mural of people wearing balaclavas and machine guns’. The wildlife in Australia doesn’t have fucking machine guns.
It’s not a real fear. It’s a kind of joking hyperbole.
Wolf Spiders, while huge, are not particularly dangerous, but they are the reason we have a pest control service… I found one in the laundry room and took it outside. Told my wife we don’t need an exterminator. She found one in the shower… we now have an exterminator…
I live in a state that’a cold 6 months out of the year, the bugs here don’t get very big.
It’s the size of the spiders down under that scares me – they ain’t got no business looking like that 😂
American dangerous animals are really pretty rare. Not something the average person has to really worry about. I have never seen a poisonous snake or spider in the wild in my life. And you only see gators in certain locations.
It seems like Australian dangerous animals are a lot more common?
Proximity. Most of the US doesn’t live near crocs/alligators and even if we did, they don’t break into our house. I’m not a person who’s scared of wildlife in general, but I still don’t want a venomous snake INSIDE my house. I live near venomous snakes but I have to go hiking to see them. We see a lot of slips of home invasions from your wildlife.
I hear a lot of people from outside North America express the same kind of semi-joking fear of our wildlife, including Australians, so I’m not sure it’s really that one-sided. You might just not notice it, or not hang out in spaces where it happens as much.
But just generally, people are more afraid of wildlife that’s unfamiliar to them. Even within the US I’ve had funny conversations with people from the Southeast who don’t think twice about alligators but are scared of mountain lions, whereas I’ve spent most of my life in cat country and find gators much scarier. 😂 It’s also just fun to joke about.
Your spiders are bigger than ours, and I’m a massive arachnophobe.
In my yard and house I’ve encountered – deer, coyotes, foxes, armadillos, coral snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, black widows, brown recluses, and tarantula hawks. Before they really started development west of our development, folks on that side would spot the occasional mountain lion. I live three miles from San Antonio city limits.
I’d rather come across a white tail deer on a hike than a kangaroo personally
Big spiders. That’s it.
I’m scared of American wildlife, too. That’s why I don’t live in the desert.
The United States is actually similar size to Australia, but significantly more populated. Like more than 10x more populated. La county itself is nearly half of the population of australia. So its true we have dangerous animals, but most people live in cities or hyper urbanized areas totally removed from nature, so they never see them. They’re just not as likely to find dangerous animals as an Australian is… also all of yours are venomous, only a handful of ours are.
As a Canadian, we (mostly) don’t have the deadly snakes and spiders up here. So no comment there.
But for the other stuff, deer, mountain lions heck even most bears just run away when they encounter you 99% of the time. I think that’s the big difference.
wait didn’t Australians start this meme with their drop bears shenanigans
Crocodiles? They live in a very small area in south Florida. And American crocodiles are not as big or aggressive as salties.
Coyotes? They are very skiddish, not a threat unless you’re a very small child.
Bears and mountain lions usually want nothing to do with people
Rattlesnakes are easily identifiable so they are avoidable
Spiders? Outside of a brown recluse, you need to do something dumb to get bitten
Australia? An eastern brown snake kinda looks like a racer…but is frighteningly venomous
Salties consider ANYTHING in their territory as a threat/food
Dingoes…similar to coyotes but smarter and more cunning
The scariest thing in Australia are kangaroos. They are deer that can kick your ass
The scariest things in Australia are salties and sharks, and they are around every water source
I’m more afraid of walking around upside down and falling off the earth.
it’s mostly just in fun, and a little bit of fear of the unknown.
But also, everything you mentioned in the US, not a lot of it exists in any one area (no idea if that is the case for Australia or not). But most of it is just your typical case of people being familiar with wildlife in their area so they know how to coexist with them and how to behave if they run into them. When you don’t know anything about an animal because it’s so foreign to you, then your imagination runs wild.
I live in northern MN. We have black bears (which are mostly harmless unlike grizzlies), wolves, coyotes, moose and some others. But the “scariest” animals here are really the ticks which spread awful diseases and increasingly so, mosquitoes for the same reason and we have a whole lot of both of those things.
Wolves are afraid of people and if you see one in the wild you’re lucky. Black bears generally don’t hurt people, so just give them their space as they mostly just want room to get away. Moose is the one thing I never want to run into in the woods because they are huge and will pummel you. Thankfully, in 50 years of being in the woods I’ve never run into a moose. I wouldn’t want to go to battle with a deer protecting a fawn either 😂Hooves gotta hurt. Coyotes also mostly don’t bother people. We have them come through our yard a few times a week, they make a lot of noise, that’s about it.
But because I’ve lived in the north my whole life, 100% I find the idea of scorpions that hide in your shoes and venomous snakes, scary. We don’t have either of those things here (only a few couple snakes and they aren’t venomous). My friends who live around those things think nothing of them, you just get used to living with them. But they are utterly terrified of bears which I find funny.
Crocs are pretty rare and only in the south of Florida. Alligators are only in a couple of southern states, also they tend to avoid things teenage size and up. Many people in Florida are happy to swim in water with gators in it. Wolf spiders aren’t dangerous. Black widows and brown recluses are pretty rare.
Coyotes rarely mess with people and are pretty small. Small enough to punt – though a pack could be bad. Mountain lions are dangerous but avoid us. Bears are the main dangerous thing but they also mostly avoid us.
Australia has shitloads of very venomous things. Their Crocs are hyper aggressive towards people, as are the great whites when they are in the area. There are just tons of aggressive things there. Even kangaroos!
Personally I think the people who are scared of the wildlife in Australia are afraid of wildlife in general. I’m visiting Australia next year and very excited to see the wildlife!
I don’t spend anytime thinking about Australian wildlife if that makes you feel better.
Crocodiles actually view humans as food, alligators do not. Kangaroos will beat the shit out of you. Plus I think we think of the unforgiving weather of the Australian outback as well