On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 09:30:28 +1300, Eric Stevens
eric.stevens@sum.co.nz> wrote:
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:30:37 GMT, The Highlander <micheil@shaw.ca
wrote:
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:08:38 +1000, "Adam Whyte-Settlar"
grawillers@westnet.com.au> wrote:
"Cory Bhreckan" <coryvreckan@NO_SPAM.verizon.net> wrote in message
news:fu%Ah.4268$E71.2479@trnddc04...
Adam Whyte-Settlar wrote:
"a.spencer3" <a.spencer3@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:skHAh.6966$fa.137@newsfe1-win.ntli.net...
"Adam Whyte-Settlar" <grawillers@westnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:45d33e61@quokka.wn.com.au...
Some friends of mine saw a full grown python dead on the road recently -
it
stretched from one side of the road to the other and was so thick they
had
to drive partly on the verge to get over it. They grow to 23ft long and
as
thick as a man's waist eventually. At that size they can swallow a man
whole.
A very small man.
And? Did I say a big man? I did not.
Any Dundonian and most Govanites would be fair game.
The longest snakes in the world, Python reticulatis (Reticulated python.
SW Asia) do not eat the biggest prey. Nor does the largest, Unectes
murinus (Green anaconda, South America).
Yes yes - I know all that (as of yesterday) Sheesh - there's always one
smartarse who thinks it's clever to spoil a good yarn with facts.
Got another Python story just off the press.
This was in a house in the bush near Atherton, about 10 miles from here,
sometime last week.
This woman wakes up in the dead of night to sounds of her spoilt little dog
(that sleeps in the bedroom - yuk) making muffled whimpering noises.
She reaches down to it's rug at the side of the bed and her hand comes to
rest not on something soft, warm and fluffy but on something thick, cold and
scaly.
She freaks out and screams - waking hubby.
She switches on the light and there's a sodding great 4M Python with the
face of her darling little Fido about to disapear down it's throat. She and
hubby leap out of bed and he grabs it by the neck and she grabs it by the
tail (still connected to the whimpering, now airborn, dog's face) and
between them they manage to unwrap the thing from around Fido and pry open
the snake's jaws. Amazingly the dog seems to be OK - at least not crushed -
and still holding the snake stretched one at each end they wrestle it
outside, across the garden, and it's one, two, three and heave the bugger
over the fence into the woods.
This all takes a minute or two as you might imagine and when they return,
somewhat weak at the knees, to the house to check on the dog.
But, dear reader, on the floor in the lounge they find ANOTHER 4M Python
waiting for them! Probably the other's mate.
Only this one has a large fat bulge in it's middle.
Thinking that this bastard has nabbed the dog while they were disposing of
the first one they run back through to the bedroom to check and discover
Fido is still alive and kicking.
It took them a while to work it out but it eventually dawned on them that
Fido's fluffy, much-drooled upon and dog-wreaking, stuffed, life-sized toy
is missing.
They can only presume that the Python could smell Fido on it, took it for
the real thing, crushed it and scoffed it.
I think that Python got the one, two, three treatment too.
No word on the health of the toy dog as yet but the prognosis isn't good.
Can't imagine the snake is feeling that great either.
And *I don't care* if that story is technically accurate.
I tell you it's a jungle out there.
Another little true story from just a couple of hours or so ago. I'm still a
bit shaky.
I was sitting here in my sparse little office checking my fan mail first
thing when I caught this movement out of the corner of my eye.
On the tiles, less than a metre from my bare feet was the first and biggest
real live TARANTULA I've ever seen.
Now I 'know' that tarantulas get a bad press and they are not really deadly
and they only rarely eat birds. However, I wasn't using the rational part of
my brain from that point on and merely relied on my primal instincts.
The books say: "...the bite is painful, as the fangs are large and as long
as those of many snakes. Severe illness sometimes results and nausea and
vomiting for six to eight hours have been reported from bites..." Which is
bad enough, but what they don't say is that certain lily-livered
arachnaphobe pussies would die of a ****ing heart attack if the bloody thing
so much as touched them. I believe I fall squarely into the latter catagory.
In fact I *know* I fall squarely into the latter catagory.
Take a look at this and I think most sympathetic souls will appreciate why.
http://www.outback-australia-travel-sec ... antula.jpgI searched out a suitable weapon - which turned out to be a plank of wood 4
inches wide and fully 9ft long. Damned if I was getting any closer than
that. As it happened it barely had time to rear up before I flattened the
poor thing.
It took me about another hour just to pluck up the courage to sweep the body
into the dustpan and chuck it outside. By that time I had managed to regain
some small measure of control over the rational part of my brain and figured
it probably wouldn't attack me.
I wasn't taking any chances as just last night we had another bloody great
wolf spider in the bedroom wardrobe (the press *they* get *is* justified)
and I missed it with the floor-polisher (which broke) and had to hop about
frantically trying to whack the big ugly sod with my slipper from the
relative safety of the bed . They can really move when they have to.
Fortunately so can I.
What is really worrying about the tarantula is I just can't figure out how
something damn near the size of a side-plate and with a body as thick as a
cigar got *into* the house in the first place. We are religious about
keeping the snake/insect screens closed at all times and I can't find a gap
anywhere.
Maybe they are already in the house somewhere and just waiting their chance
to pounce.
It's getting to be beyond a joke. My heart isn't a young as it was. I'm
thinking of moving back to NZ with the dear little redbacks and whitetails.
A W-S
You'd better think about that - some NZ fishermen have just caught a
humoungous squid which is apparently longer than a whale.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6385071.stmLet me offer a small prayer for the geographically deprived.

The fisherman may have been from New Zealand but New Zealand is not to
be found in Antarctic waters.
You must be a whizz at map-reading!