How many people in the world can say they have been bitten and survived snake bits from both a Taipan and a Eastern Brown Snake? Well this teenager from Queensland can say he has:
A TEENAGER has survived two bites from one of the world’s deadliest snakes thanks to the quick thinking of friends who recently completed a first aid course.
It was the second time Ryan Cole, 15, of Mundubbera, about 390km northwest of Brisbane, has been bitten by a deadly snake in a year.
Ryan was bitten twice on the foot by a coastal taipan, which has the third most toxic venom of all land snakes, as he jumped into a popular swimming hole in the Burnett River on Sunday, The Courier-Mail reports.
“I’ve been attacked twice and bitten four times – that’s pretty unlucky,” the recuperating teenager said yesterday as he relived the ordeal with his friends.
“But then it is really lucky to have survived. I’m really grateful to my mates that they knew what to do and did it.” [Courier-Mail]
This teenager has to be the world’s luckiest, unluckiest man.
I had no idea pythons even hunted cockatoos:
IT’s a jungle out there – at least in the backyards of Cairns.
First it was a giant spider eating a bird, now a python has been snapped making a meal of a sulphur-crested cockatoo.
Artist and Clifton Beach resident Cindy Lane was painting in her studio when she heard a “couple of loud squawks” coming from the bougainvillea tree in her backyard.
She found the python coiling itself tightly around the bird high in the tree’s branches.
“I considered jumping in to save him, but his last breath was literally being squeezed from him as we approached,” she told The Cairns Post.
She said the python took about two hours to complete his meal after “one false start”. [AFP]
Well I think this python had a whole lot easier time trying to swallow this cockatoo then this guy had trying to swallow a wallaby.
Check out this picture on an Australian python trying to swallow an entire wallaby:
A PYTHON has been filmed trying and failing to swallow whole what looks like a wallaby. In the video taken by Tanja Stark and posted on break.com, people at James Cook University can be heard squealing as the python clamps its jaws around the creature and begins to swallow. But the snake seems to realise it is biting off more than it can chew and is forced to back away and regurgitate the upper half of the animal’s body.
Andrew Krockenberger, associate professor at James Cook University, said he ran out to watch the attack with some students after being alerted by a co-worker.
“Our lab co-ordinator came in from the car park and told us there was a python trying to eat a wallaby – so we all went out to have a look,” he said.
“While seeing sakes and wallabies isn’t unusual, it was very unusual to see a snake trying to eat a wallaby on the side of a road.”
Prof Krockenberger said the python made several attempts to consume the wallaby before the incident was caught on camera.
“It was a very small python and it gave up after a while. It had a good try but it was a little over ambitious,” he said.
“I don’t know whether it would have managed to swallow the wallaby if there hadn’t had been so many people watching. I think it got a little spooked. [News.com]
Video of the snake trying to eat the wallaby is available at the link as well. The python is actually pretty small compared to other ones I have seen in Australia, but it still came pretty close to being able to swallow that entire wallaby. Pretty incredible.
Another one of those only in Australia stories:
[Image taken by Greg Wallis]
ONE moment Megan McDonough was hot favourite to win an impromptu fashion contest at the Hamilton races in Victoria.
The next she was bitten by a venomous tiger snake and on her way to hospital.
Few things went to plan on Saturday at Hamilton.
Mid-way through the meeting, a couple of girls thought the day could do with a fashion parade.
A dozen women were plucked from the crowd of about 1800.
A group of footballers gathered to admire the contenders when one noticed a large tiger snake.
He leapt out of the way but Megan stood on the snake, which bit her on the foot then slithered down a drain pipe.
Megan’s wound was wrapped in a tourniquet before she was taken to hospital.
“She kept pretty calm throughout. The shock set in a bit when the ambulance arrived,” club secretary John Donnelly said.
He said Megan, who was recovering in hospital yesterday, was a legitimate winner of the fashions contest.
“She didn’t get it out of sympathy, no way. She looked lovely,” he said. [Herald-Sun]
You can always count on a story from the NT concerning some kind of wildlife attack and here is yet another one:
A GIRL in the Northern Territory woke when a snake slithered into her bed, wrapped around her neck and bit her on the arm.
Ashlee Findlay, 16, who is afraid of snakes, spiders and centipedes, spent two hours at a hospital after the attack, the Northern Territory News reported.
The receptionist said she would be haunted by the incident. “Everyone was a bit freaked,” she said.
Ms Findlay woke up in her Howard Springs home early on Thursday morning when the snake bit her.
“I thought it was a huge spider or something. I hate spiders. But a few seconds later, I felt something moving past my neck,” she said. “I turned on my light to see this huge slithering snake on my pillow.” [Northern Territory News]
Yes waking up to find a snake biting you in your bed would be scary, but I find this even more scary.
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