Whether it’s fleas or ticks, hookworms or heartworms, bedbugs or lice, a horrifying array of parasites lurk in every corner, ready and waiting for a suitable host. These tiny creatures are irksome enough, but what’s truly terrifying is the parasites that completely overwhelm their hosts’ bodies, turning them into zombified shells.
The headline in Sydney’s Daily Mirror on 14 March 1985 screamed: “Great mysteries of the world… Flying Rabbit hunt is on”.
The Joni Mitchell song “Woodstock” has the following, surprisingly accurate, lines: “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon”.
Regular readers know this column is partial to a ripping monster yarn. So, when I first heard whispers about the Monegeetta Monster, to say I was champing at the bit to find out more would be an understatement.
Surprisingly, rotting fruit can ferment and reach a level of 4 per cent alcohol – close to, but not quite, the 5 per cent of beer.
Although they’ve been around for millennia, atmospheric rivers were only discovered by humans during the past 25 years.
It’s rugged out Bungonia way, near Goulburn in south-eastern New South Wales. The tiny town is surrounded by forest and steep gorges and pockmarked with some of the mainland’s deepest cave systems. If a large new mammal species was ever to be discovered in a hidden valley, then it’s more likely to be in the wilds of Bungonia than in many other places in the county.
It’s amazing that in the 21st century there are people who believe Earth is flat!
If you live on Australia’s east coast and enjoy beachcombing, there’s a good chance that during the first half of this year you noticed lots of pumice stone at the high tide mark.
Sydney, it’s your time to shine, because this beautiful little frog has made its choice. Found nowhere else on Earth except a tiny pocket in the Sydney Basin, the red-crowned toadlet (Pseudophryne australis) is a rare sight to see, so it’s worth knowing what to look (and hear) for.