What do you imagine when you hear the word
"Australia"?
Australia is a continent of marsupials. You may imagine kangaroos, platypuses or cuddly koalas. They are representative animals of Australia.
However, when I attended a sightseeing tour in Northern Territory, a guide said that there are lots of reptiles in Australia, but if they say so, tourists won't come so they don't talk about them much, and he laughed. Actually, I saw several lizards and snakes while I was on a sightseeing tour.
I live in a countryside of Queensland now, so I can enjoy clean air, lots of greens and wild animals, including snakes. The locals warned me "If you see a brown snake, just run!" I hadn't heard the name, 'brown snake', before. For example, king cobras and rattlesnakes are well known but not brown snakes.
I searched information about brown snakes on the Internet and found some surprising facts. The formal name is "eastern brown snake" and they are venomous, and their venom is a neurotoxin. I saw a website of "10 MostPoisonous & Dangerous Snakes In the World" and the eastern brown snake is on the list.
Last summer, I saw an eastern brown snake outside of the glass door of my kitchen. Luckily, I was inside of the house. It rose its head and looked at me. The distance between the snake and me was about 2 meters at first, so I could see it well. The eastern brown snake was brown in colour, exactly the same as its name. The snake I saw wasn't so big, but it was very aggressive. It got closer to me and hit its nose against the glass door. It behaved as if it wanted to attack me. While I was watching the snake for about 30 seconds or so, it went off somewhere.
After the snake left, I couldn't go outside, you know? It's a deadly poisonous snake and it still might have been somewhere around the house. The opportunity to go outside came when my husband said that he saw a mouse in the backyard. I was sure that mice have a keen sense and they wouldn't roam the backyard if there was a sign of snakes. I have never felt happy having mice around my house.
It impressed me with its aggressive behavior and I could understand why it is called a dangerous snake. My impression of poisonous animals is, (of course, it's not all of them), that they have warning colors. The eastern brown snake isn't colorful at all and it has a similar color to soil.
I would say they are unkind. This is because they don't warn us by their color like colorful Texas coral snakes or don't make a warning sound like rattlesnakes. If they were more colorful, maybe the incidents of bites by eastern brown snakes will decrease.
Well, I don't know whom I am complaining to.
I always think that nature is a genius artist, but it sometimes chooses designs that I cannot understand. I wonder if Darwin knew the reason?
Australia is a continent of marsupials. You may imagine kangaroos, platypuses or cuddly koalas. They are representative animals of Australia.
However, when I attended a sightseeing tour in Northern Territory, a guide said that there are lots of reptiles in Australia, but if they say so, tourists won't come so they don't talk about them much, and he laughed. Actually, I saw several lizards and snakes while I was on a sightseeing tour.
I live in a countryside of Queensland now, so I can enjoy clean air, lots of greens and wild animals, including snakes. The locals warned me "If you see a brown snake, just run!" I hadn't heard the name, 'brown snake', before. For example, king cobras and rattlesnakes are well known but not brown snakes.
I searched information about brown snakes on the Internet and found some surprising facts. The formal name is "eastern brown snake" and they are venomous, and their venom is a neurotoxin. I saw a website of "10 MostPoisonous & Dangerous Snakes In the World" and the eastern brown snake is on the list.
Last summer, I saw an eastern brown snake outside of the glass door of my kitchen. Luckily, I was inside of the house. It rose its head and looked at me. The distance between the snake and me was about 2 meters at first, so I could see it well. The eastern brown snake was brown in colour, exactly the same as its name. The snake I saw wasn't so big, but it was very aggressive. It got closer to me and hit its nose against the glass door. It behaved as if it wanted to attack me. While I was watching the snake for about 30 seconds or so, it went off somewhere.
After the snake left, I couldn't go outside, you know? It's a deadly poisonous snake and it still might have been somewhere around the house. The opportunity to go outside came when my husband said that he saw a mouse in the backyard. I was sure that mice have a keen sense and they wouldn't roam the backyard if there was a sign of snakes. I have never felt happy having mice around my house.
It impressed me with its aggressive behavior and I could understand why it is called a dangerous snake. My impression of poisonous animals is, (of course, it's not all of them), that they have warning colors. The eastern brown snake isn't colorful at all and it has a similar color to soil.
I would say they are unkind. This is because they don't warn us by their color like colorful Texas coral snakes or don't make a warning sound like rattlesnakes. If they were more colorful, maybe the incidents of bites by eastern brown snakes will decrease.
Well, I don't know whom I am complaining to.
I always think that nature is a genius artist, but it sometimes chooses designs that I cannot understand. I wonder if Darwin knew the reason?
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