Fingers? I’ve never heard that expression. Now tongues, that’s a different matter, but fingers?
Depends on which set of cheeks. 
We live in such a literal world sometimes. “Tongue” is only appropriate if the person is speaking, n’est-ce pas?
Or whose? :eek:
I realise I’m a bit late in the piece, but here’s a few stats for one person - admittedly one with a higher exposure to the bush than most.
I live in the centre of Perth Western Australia. On my bike rides around the local lake I often have to avoid tigersnakes on the path. (tigersnake aka world’s third most venemous snake). I knew a local kid who was killed by a tiger-snake while trying to video it for a school project.
Going into the South-West bush I’ve sat on a dugite aka western brown aka second most venemous snake in the world - I discovered levitation was perfectly possible. I’ve also been charged by a humungeous dugite who didn’t appreciate me being there. I’ve seen a huge python of a species that lives in the bush very near to perth and that is perfectly capable of killing a small child. Usually they eat kangaroos.
While running in the bush (Orienteering) I’ve had to do a mid-air skip to avoid landing on a death adder. Also while orienteering I’ve been bailed-up in a tree by wild boar (imports that have gone feral, hairy, large, and tusked) and I’ve been attacked by emus - well more like I ran into them and we parted company on poor terms. Kangaroos - no probs.
Insects? They are much more of a problem. There are the usual swarms of stinging ants, but the really nasty ones are soldier ants (sometimes called sergeant ants) They are very large - maybe an inch - and very aggressive Their bite is incredibly painful and stamping on them with size-nine army boots just encourages them to swarm and bite continuously. There are also lots of scorpions but you never hear much about them.
I’ve also been bitten by a Western Australian relative of the funnel-web - I was sick for several days. Attacks by horse-flys are common and painful. I’ve been bitten literally thousands of times by ticks and have become extremely ill on some occasions from some bacterial infection of a tick-bite. Oh - and my auto-immune system is now screwed up probably as a result of the number of bites. Ticks also carry Q-fever and scrub-typhus, both potentially fatal.
I haven’t caught mosquito-borne ross-river fever yet - though I know people who have had it. It’s a bit like Lyme disease and is reasonbly common.
At my local beach there have been a number of white-pointer attacks including a fatal one in thigh-deep water. There are sea-snakes but no real problems (they only bite the webs on fingers or other thin skin as their mouths are so small.) There are also stinging jellyfish.
The real reason there are so few fatalities in Australia is simply lack of exposure. Most Australians are sedentary town dwellers. The majority probably have been in the bush two or three times in their life. There’s a minor increase in shark attacks mainly because there are more whales now so more white-pointers - plus more people.
Copperheads, in Australia? Wow. They’re one of the more common venomous snakes in the SE USA (as in Appalachia), and you’ve got them in Australia too?
Oh, okay – I just googled and found out there are two unrelated species of venomous serpents referred to as copperheads…you learn something new every day!
Cecil, I wish you had paid attention in Geography class. Ramree Island is in Burma, as you state. Burma and Australia are not anywhere near each other. The actual distance from Yangon to Darwin is 5,017 km or 3,117 miles. Heck, Los Angeles and New York are only 3,940 km or 2,448 miles apart.
The point was the deadliness of the crocodiles, not necessarily their location.
Yeah, but even so the story has the hallmarks of an urban myth.
Yeah, but they’re closer together than either of them is to the US, so that’s all that matters. :D:dubious:
Maybe Cecil will look into it.
Sometimes I’m glad I live in Canada. Here it’s only the weather* that kills people.
[sub]*Well, the weather, plus blackflies, deerflies, moose, bears…[/sub]
On the contrary, Brown Bear, Black Bear, Polar Bear, Mountain Lion and Bison
claim more than 20,000 lives in Canada every year.
One of the great conspiracies of all time has been perpetrated by the all-powerful
Canadian Tourist Bureau…
You should see the propaganda the US Tourist Bureau puts out. I hear Dick Cheney is in charge of it. And Gitmo is the next Club Med.
A Møøse once bit my sister…
Oh man, not funny. And not really necessary.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I bet she hates it when the full moon comes around.
I too am late in the piece, but have a few comments.
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Colonial, and Pinchester, funny stuff! LOL!
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As a Canadian, who grew up in Peru, and who now lives in Oz, I am definitely more anxious here than anywhere else I have lived.
To whit, I have never seen a bear or a moose in suburban Canada. Nor have I encountered any deadly spiders or snakes etc while living in suburban Lima, Peru.
Last year a 2m long Eastern Brown snake entered our backyard pool while my wife, my 3 year old and myself were swimming in it. It hesitated for a brief second, then dove right in and crossed the pool. I am grateful that my daughter was near enough to me that I could scoop her away and out of the pool in time.
2 months later, a Rough Scaled snake - also venemous - did the same thing.
I have seen numerous redbacks in my house - but am more worried about when I don’t see them. It was enough to make me get glasses - every little blurry blemish on the ground or wall was a potential threat until I got the glasses.
I never worried about going for a walk in tall grass with my kids before.
This is suburban Australia.
It is true that fatalities are rare, though, thanks to advances like anti-venin. I wish Cecil would address the morbidity, and not just the mortality of these creatures… How many people get sick? How many need Intensive Care? I understand that it sometimes takes weeks or months to recover. How many end up losing a limb? Surely many more people get ill from these encounters than die?
While I was a keen camper in Canada, I have yet to make a trip here in Oz. Who knows what might be lingering in your sleeping bag when you get back from a walk? Whereas, at least you have a chance to hear a bear or a moose… and maybe even scare them off.
I think that is the crux of it… In Oz, by the time you realize you’ve been bitten, it might already be too late…
I’ve been camping and bushwalking in Australia. The worst I’ve had while walking in leeches getting inside boots – you just have to carry a bit of salt to drop on them after you’ve taken off the boots. The blood is a bit messy, and where they took blood itches a bit, but it won’t kill you. And while camping the worst has been kookaburras hanging around trying to steal food from you: I’ve never heard of them killing anyone.
Yes – I’ve seen more dangerous animals in my backyard than I have out in the bush 
I saw a short article by him on Australia where he refers to Australian animals falling into three categories: Poisonous, Odd, and Sheep. Is this the same one? I’ll have to look it up.