Scary Australian Animals

Australia is famed for dangerous animals; snakes, spiders and the like, but travellers are never warned about the other scary creatures to be found there.

Australia is famed for some of its dangerous animals, but visitors are never warned about the three most fearsome creatures of all and they are not deadly or dangerous at all.

The Possum

Imagine this; a beautiful camping spot, you put up the tent, have dinner and settle in for the night when suddenly you are awoken by a guttural growl, a screaming chatter, a crash in the trees, a scream and an old man’s snore.

The first time you hear a possum fighting for it’s territory, it can be quite terrifying. These reasonably small creatures can make one hell of a racket, they pound on a roof in hob nailed boots, they crash through trees and growl and snarl at invaders. The brush-tailed possum and the ring-tailed possum are the most common, and are found throughout most of Australia.

These argumentative native animals can give you quite a fright. I remember as a little girl hearing on in the night and being sure an old man must have come into my room and fallen asleep in a corner and was snoring. I was too terrified to move.

The Koala

Like the possum koala can scare the willies out of campers in the country. The sweet cuddly image of the koala is all very nice, but in an evening wild koalas can mark their territory with growls and grunts and yowls that would curdle you blood if you did not know it was just a harmless eucalypt muncher.

The Huntsman Spider

This spider is a nightmare to all arachnophobics: Big, hairy and very leggy. Australians are used to the house invasion of this large and relatively harmless spider. They often come inside during the spring and autumn months and after rain. There is no way to keep them out, but many people don’t even care when they wake up in the morning and find a hand-sized spider on the wall. It is part of living in Australia.

Many visitors wrongly call them tarantulas, but they are nothing like those chunky hairy beasts. Huntsman Spiders just sit on a wall mostly doing nothing at all. Visitors should just be aware that although big, they are not dangerous and they don’t attack.

It is simple to remove them from the wall. Place a glass over the top of the spider and then slide a piece of cardboard between the wall and the glass. This traps the spider in the glass. While holding the cardboard over the opening of the glass to prevent the spider from escaping you can take the spider outside and tip it into the garden. For the feint hearted you can always kill the poor defenceless things with bug spray, but they do take a long time to die. Don’t try and scoop the spider up in a tea towel though. The spider is an ancient throwback with big clunky fangs and can jab you through a tea towel. The spider is not poisonous, but the bite can really hurt and I speak from experience.