Between the funnel web spiders that can hide
in your boots and the snakes that can slither into your house, Australia can be a pretty
scary place. Well, you don’t even know the half of it. Because odds are, you’re not going to stumble
across an inland taipan or a saltie on your bike ride to work, while you’re relaxing
at the beach, or when you’re out hiking with your friends. And that’s exactly where you’ll find the
terrors on this list. Turns out there are plenty of horrifying plants
and animals living in Australia, even when the usual suspects are excluded. So we’ve rounded up seven that you might
want to keep in mind if you’re going to spend a lot of time down under. ♪ If you hang out in the suburbs along the coasts
of Queensland, New South Wales, or southern Western Australia during spring, you might
meet an Australian magpie. You could be just walking or biking along,
minding your own business, when one of these 40 centimeter long black and white birds swoops
in out of nowhere. It might even grab onto your shirt with its
sharp claws and start stabbing rapidly at your eyes like a scene from Hitchcock’s
The Birds. But this isn’t a movie—this is a real
thing that happens, in real life to real people, and it happens a lot. In 2017, there were more than 3200 attacks
and 520 injuries from magpies in Australia. These birds are highly territorial, and their
aggressive swoops are their way of defending their chicks. But less than 15% of magpies attack people,
usually ones with nests close to cycling paths. And that’s because human attacks are actually
a learned behavior—the product of a sharp mind that likely arose because the birds are
really social. Scientists have found that magpies who live
in big groups do better on problem solving tests and have more of their eggs hatch, showing
that brain power is linked to their reproductive success. And that might be because that brainpower
allows them to learn things like how to hurt a human! Magpies can even remember faces and attack
the same people over and over again each season—and these are birds that can live for 20 plus
years. So just expect... decades... of this! Human attacks do seem to be on the rise, too,
which is probably because they work! People avoid the areas where attacks happen,
which reinforces the idea that this behavior lets them raise their chicks in peace. If you want to try your luck around Australia’s
magpies anyway, locals recommend turning a helmet into a porcupine with a bunch of zip
ties. Ticks are found all over the world, and they’re
not exactly anyone’s favorite animal since the whole thing that they do is attach to
your body and suck your blood. But along Australia’s eastern shores, one
species of tick—the paralysis tick—can do something much creepier: it can make you
allergic to meat. Like pretty much all ticks, these spider-like
creatures leap off blades of grass onto mammals like ourselves in search of a tasty blood
meal. They’ll plunge their sharp mouth parts or
chelicerae into flesh and inject a concoction that ensures they can slurp up blood without
interruption. And that’s where it all goes wrong. Along with the toxins that prevent blood from
clotting, the tick injects a cocktail of other chemicals and anything else hanging out in
its saliva. That can include the pathogens behind things
like Q fever and an Australian version of typhus. And it also includes neurotoxins, which normally
just numb the area, but in extreme cases, can slowly paralyze you completely if the
tick isn’t removed. Hence the name “paralysis tick”. But strangest of all is that this tick’s
saliva contains galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose -- a carbohydrate also found in many red meats. Get too many tick bites, and you can become
sensitive to this carbohydrate. And that means you can develop what’s known
as tick-induced mammalian meat allergy, even though it extends to all mammal products,
including milk. So your time down under could make it so you
can never enjoy Aussie cheese fries or a juicy steak from Outback ever again. The giant centipede is so fearsome it’s
even known to take on some of Australia's scariest snakes. These 16 cm long centipedes are found pretty
much everywhere Australia but also in parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Indonesia,
Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Like other centipedes, they’ve turned their
two front legs into menacing hunting tools called forcipules that not only pack a powerful
bite but also inject venom into their victims. That venom contains dozens of toxins, and
is so powerful that it can easily bring down small lizard or snake. It’s not clear what all the different components
do, but researchers have found that the venom contains cystatin, a protein which fights
against our immune defenses. And it contains glycoside hydrolase, an enzyme
which helps it spread throughout the body. Bites from these centipedes aren’t usually
lethal to beasts our size, but they do hurt. A lot. Sometimes for days. And that’s likely due to special pore-forming
toxins which mess with neurons and can even kill cells. The biggest danger, though, is that some venom
components are similar to ones in bees and wasps, so people with allergies to those animals
can go into anaphylaxis if bitten. Thankfully they’re nocturnal and pretty
easy to spot, so bites aren’t too common. But you do want to know they’re there so
you can watch out for them! The strychnine tree found in Australia’s
southeastern temperate forests might look pretty harmless with its beautiful, fragrant,
white flowers and small, orange-like fruit. But those alluring flowers and appetizing
fruit house the dangerous, nitrogen-rich compound that gives the tree its name. Strychnine is an alkaloid like caffeine and
nicotine, and it had been used in traditional medicines for centuries. But it’s also the key ingredient in some
kinds of rat poison and many Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries. Strychnine acts on the central nervous system
by binding to glycine and acetylcholine receptors, particularly those on motor nerves in the
spinal cord. Glycine and acetylcholine calm neurons down,
making them harder to trigger. Since strychnine lessens that calming ability,
the neurons fire more easily. Symptoms start with muscle soreness and stiffness,
but can escalate quickly to convulsions and seizures. If the toxin affects your heart or lungs,
then your odds of survival go down fast. And you only need to ingest 60 to 100 milligrams
of the stuff to meet your unpleasant end—roughly the amount in the seeds from a single fruit. So yeah, you can’t trust Australian trees
any more than you can trust Australian animals, apparently. Speaking of pretty things that are way more
dangerous than you’d think. If you’re snorkelling on one Australia’s
many beautiful reefs, don’t touch any pretty conical snail shells you see. If you get too close, these predatory snails
can spear you with their venomous harpoons! The Queen Victoria Cone is endemic to Australia,
meaning its the only place in the world you’ll find these gastly gastropods. Although it is similar to the equally-scary
and more widespread Geography Cone, which is also found in Australia’s northern waters. Both subdue their prey by stabbing them with
venom-delivering, tooth-like things called radulas. Cone snail venoms contain dozens of different
conotoxins—short chains of amino acids that can mess with neuronal signaling in different
ways, ultimately paralyzing their victims. Those potent venoms allow these snails—which,
as you would expect, aren’t exactly known for their speed—to feed on animals that
might otherwise outpace them. Some species even take down fish! If you’re unfortunate enough to tread on
one of them, you might just feel a bee-like sting at first. Then, the stung area may go numb and turn
blue due to the lack of blood flow. The limb could become temporarily paralyzed,
and you could even experience blurry vision, feel faint or have trouble breathing as the
venom spreads. And big geography cones have killed people,
though deaths are super rare. So... maybe think twice before picking up
that souvenir from the ocean floor. If you already know not to eat suspicious
looking fruit or pick up unknown objects from the sea, great. But to be wracked with agony for months, all
you have to do is brush up against the wrong plant on a hike in the tropical forests of
northern Australia, particularly the beautiful Tablelands near Cairns. The Gympie Gympie tree is infamous for causing
some of the most excruciating pains imaginable. One researcher described it as burning like
acid while being electrocuted at the same time. And it packs such a painful punch because
its stem, purple raspberry-like fruits, and heart-shaped leaves are all covered with tiny,
silica-tipped hairs — the same stuff that makes up quartz. These easily pierce your skin then break open,
releasing toxins stored inside. The main pain-inducing compound is a linked
bundle of eight amino acids called moroidin—though how it causes such agony is not known. The hairs are so delicate and fine that your
skin can quickly heal over them, trapping them inside you. There, the hairs take years to break down,
and every time you move, they can release more of the very stable, very painful chemical. People have reported continuing pains for
up to a year after being stung. What’s more, the Gympie Gympie regularly
sheds its hairs, making them airborne where they can drift into your nose and cause nosebleeds. And while, compared to other toxins on this
list, moroidin isn’t that deadly, people have died from Gympie Gympie stings—either
from shock, or just because the pain became too much to bear. Curiously, some native Aussie animals have
learned to tolerate the toxin and can eat the leaves and fruit without having those
silica tipped spines explode in their mouth and cause excruciating pain! No such luck for us though! Last on our list is probably the most terrifying
creature Australia has to offer—and I’m counting the snakes and such when I say that. It’s tiny — only about 5 millimeters wide
— and practically invisible. But its stings are so painful, that it feels
like your insides are crumbling. The common kingslayer is one of the smallest
jellies known to harm people. So far, its range is restricted to northern
Queensland, but scientists are concerned that climate change will allow them to move south
to Australia’s more popular beaches. It’s tiny size and colorless body are what
make it so dangerous, because it’s hard to see even in daylight, which makes its meter
long tentacles that much more difficult to avoid. Unlike most jellyfish that only have stingers
or nematocysts on their tentacles, these jellies have them all over their bodies. And when they touch you, they can fire a thin
tubule into your skin that injects the animals’ potent venom. Like other jellies, their stings can burn. But they can also cause Irukandji syndrome,
where your body releases dangerous levels of catecholamines. These compounds, like epinephrine, ramp up
your sympathetic nervous system, causing rapid heart rate, nausea, and an overall impending
sense of doom. And that sense isn’t necessarily wrong—the
jelly was named after Robert King, an American tourist who died from its sting. Luckily, stings are rarely fatal, as doctors
are usually able to manage the syndrome’s more dangerous symptoms. In fact, before you cross Australia off your
list of desirable holiday destinations, you can take solace in the fact that none of these
horrifying things actually cause that many deaths. Neither do Australia’s snakes or spiders,
for that matter. You’re much more likely to die from falling
off a horse or being kicked by a cow than you are being pecked, bitten, or stung by
one of the terrors on this list. Will it hurt? Will it be excruciatingly painful? Absolutely. But you'll probably survive! And now that you know what to look out for,
you’ll be even better at avoiding them! Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow. If you liked this list of horrifying living
things, you might like our episode on 8 creepy animals that are actually harmless. ♪
