Drop Bears

[KarlB]

Reference to the dangers from Drop Bears keep surfacing on the forum, particularly in relation to threatening creepies, crawlies and other nasties of the Australian bush. Any way, those with an interest in Drop Bears may like to have a look here: Drop Bear - Australian Museum (http://australianmuseum.net.au/Drop-Bear). It is always good to be well prepared when you take your Landies to those remote places we all yearn for.

Cheers
KarlB
:D

[Lotz-A-Landies]

I haven't seen any of these animals, or even evidence of them, on any of my more recent sojournes into the bush. Does anyone know about their current status? Threatened? Vulnerable? Plentiful?

More importantly than that have any protection programs been established to maintain their breeding status in the wild?

Would be very interested to know as zoology comes a close second behind my enthusiasm for Land Rovers and even before tanks, aircraft and steam engines.

:)

[VladTepes]

Lotz-a

do a search on crypto-zoology.

[stevo68]

Hmmm a drop bear to me is when you need to take a dump in the good old doors. First you find yourself a nice sapling......normally on a mound or angle.....drop the drawers.....hang onto sapling and lean back........and bingo.....a drop bear :D.

I had the shame when at cadets of unleashing a drop bear............and the sapling snapped. Sufficed to say.....I slept alone that camp :wasntme:

Regards

Stevo

[incisor]

plenty of drop bears breeding already diana..

no shortage of them envisaged anytime soon!

[GlenM]

I haven't seen any of these animals, or even evidence of them, on any of my more recent sojournes into the bush. Does anyone know about their current status? Threatened? Vulnerable? Plentiful?

More importantly than that have any protection programs been established to maintain their breeding status in the wild?

Would be very interested to know as zoology comes a close second behind my enthusiasm for Land Rovers and even before tanks, aircraft and steam engines.

:)

DEADLY.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

I had the pleasure of being in Prof Mike Archer's Vertebrate Zoogeography course during my science degree.

The first lesson of the course was one not to be missed (for reasons other than the course material). The lecture covered diversification of lifeforms on a remote archipelligo in the South Pacific. If the content of the lecture wasn't true, it should have been, every day living on one of those islands would have been treat where a smile would rarely be off your face.

I guess you had to experience the lecture!



I haven't seen any of these animals, or even evidence of them, on any of my more recent sojournes into the bush. Does anyone know about their current status? Threatened? Vulnerable? Plentiful?DEADLY.Yes but you can be Deadly and Critically Endangered at the same time - just look at the Great White Shark

[d@rk51d3]

Hmmm a drop bear to me is when you need to take a dump in the good old doors. First you find yourself a nice sapling......normally on a mound or angle.....drop the drawers.....hang onto sapling and lean back........and bingo.....a drop bear :D.




Would make for an exciting geocache. :D;):wasntme:

[Grumndriva]

Diana, I can't speak for them now, but they were very plentiful around Townsville back in the 70s whenever we had a British Army unit exercising with us!

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Diana, I can't speak for them now, but they were very plentiful around Townsville back in the 70s whenever we had a British Army unit exercising with us!That's my worry, particularly when you've scared off a few Britts with guns, they may have come back to make Queensland safe for backpackers.

I'd rather know that the bush was still full of drop-bears, than full of fair skinned, sunburnt backpackers! :o

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Does anyone know about their current status? Threatened? Vulnerable? Plentiful?


SNEAKY!

very sneaky.:mad:

[solmanic]

Had a near miss with a Japanese exchange student staying with us in the late 80s. The thing landed only about three feet to his right and shot off into the scrub. The student didn't see it at all and unfortunately it was too quick for us to get a photo. He nearly **** himself though (the student, not the bear).

[Lotz-A-Landies]

<snip>The thing landed only about three feet to his right and shot off into the scrub. <snip> unfortunately it was too quick for us to get a photo. <snip>.Don't you just hate it when you can't get the camera up quickly enough.

I'm wondering if the lack of the bears down here is the result of predation by yowie' in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Although that would be discounted by the belief that the yowie are herbivorous. However if they are omnivorous when under environmental stress, like many Macropods, the recent decade long drought would be a significant stress and may account for the low plummetus local populations.

[Bushie]

Back in 2005/6 I was travelling with the NPWS district manager for Royal NP. We were down stream from the Audley weir where an ad was being shot for Bundy Rum (IIRC). Not only did we observe a couple of cute girls in the film crew but also sighted an albino drop bear, from what I was told drop bears were not all that rare but an albino hadn't been sighted in Royal before. There were some fairly extensive studies done after the fires in 1994 as there were some very real concerns that much of the wildlife had been wiped out. Thankfully this proved to be incorrect, but I'm still amazed that so much of the wildlife survived and in fact has prospered since.


Martyn

[DeeJay]

Interesting site..
Whilst the section on reptiles only has a handfull of snakes I would have thought the dreaded hoop snake would have got a mention :(

[robbotd5]

When I was a young'n, my biggest concern whilst riding along in a car at night was the dreaded dropbear, reputeded to be able to slice open the roof of a car and mutilate its occupants. Then the other worry while camping were Gothadders and Pywie's.....but thats another story.
Regards
Robbo

[abaddonxi]

120Kg. :eek: You'd know you'd been sat on.

When I was a boy it was the Yowie at Crosslands North of Sydney.

But the Milat's lived there at the time.

[JohnR]

Hmmm a drop bear to me is when you need to take a dump in the good old doors. First you find yourself a nice sapling......normally on a mound or angle.....drop the drawers.....hang onto sapling and lean back........and bingo.....a drop bear :D.

I had the shame when at cadets of unleashing a drop bear............and the sapling snapped. Sufficed to say.....I slept alone that camp :wasntme:

Regards

Stevo

Thanks Stevo, I think Alison just wet herself :eek:

BTW were you wearing lepod skin boxes at cedts at the time of the sapling incident??

Cheers,

[87County]

120Kg. :eek: You'd know you'd been sat on.

When I was a boy it was the Yowie at Crosslands North of Sydney.

But the Milat's lived there at the time.

I think that locality (and this thread) is becoming known for its population of little creatures called gullibles

[windsock]

Would make for an exciting geocache. :D;):wasntme:

:eek2::Rolling: Not experience talking is it?

[d@rk51d3]

No, just my warped mind.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Those of you who have not viewed the site (http://australianmuseum.net.au/Drop-Bear)in the previous 24 hours need to revisit to consume the additional data presented in the comments.

"If you go back far enough in the literature, you'll see that the original vernacular term used was "drop pair" because there are actually two different predatory species involved. The ground-dwelling _Pseudohomo billabongi_ is a small creature distantly related to the kangaroo. Its habit of standing on its hind legs caused it to be mistaken for a small humanoid, hence the genus name. Also known as the marsupial jackal, it typically hangs around billabongs waiting for unsuspecting animals. It will suddenly jump into view, giving a shout that sounds like "Watch under." This causes the prey animal to freeze in confusion for just long enough to give _T. plummetus_ a still target for its drop attack. After the drop bear has done its work, the two animals then share the meal. The whole sequence is horrific to watch, ..."

[KarlB]

Those of you who have not viewed the site (http://australianmuseum.net.au/Drop-Bear)in the previous 24 hours need to revisit to consume the additional data presented in the comments.

"If you go back far enough in the literature, you'll see that the original vernacular term used was "drop pair" because there are actually two different predatory species involved. The ground-dwelling _Pseudohomo billabongi_ is a small creature distantly related to the kangaroo. Its habit of standing on its hind legs caused it to be mistaken for a small humanoid, hence the genus name. Also known as the marsupial jackal, it typically hangs around billabongs waiting for unsuspecting animals. It will suddenly jump into view, giving a shout that sounds like "Watch under." This causes the prey animal to freeze in confusion for just long enough to give _T. plummetus_ a still target for its drop attack. After the drop bear has done its work, the two animals then share the meal. The whole sequence is horrific to watch, ..."

The biologically literate should be able to tell us if this interesting relationship between the Drop Bear Thylarctos plummetus and the Marsupial Jackal Pseudohomo billabongi is an example of commensalism or mutualism or symbiosis.

Cheers
KarlB
:)