I'm heading over to Australia for the next couple of weeks — mostly to visit family, but if you're in Sydney on June 25 you can catch me at the SURF meeting. Hopefully my Australian accent hasn't faded so much that I'm at increased risk from Drop Bear attacks: a study published in Australian Geographic on 1/4/2013 suggests that the predators are more likely to attack victims with non-Australian accents.
Dr Volker Janssen, a research associate at the University of Tasmania, led a research team into Morton National Park, 120km south-west of Sydney, in search of drop bears.
Given that ordinary GPS tracking is difficult to apply to tree-dwelling animals, Volker came up with a new approach to study the animal’s behaviour. “It involves tracking the prey, rather than the predator. The location and timing of attacks is then used to map the animal population,” he says.
If you're not familiar with Drop Bears, they are a carnivorous marsupial similar in appearance to koalas, but with a habit of leaping from the forest canopy to attack prey. Australian natives are careful to point out the danger to unsuspecting tourists, so if you plan to walk in the Bush be sure to take a guide. This video of a drop bear taking down an unsuspecting victim is horrifying — don't watch if you're squeamish.
The blog will be back as usual on Monday: we'll be joined by several guest-bloggers and I'll have a few pre-prepared posts over the next couple of weeks as well. In the meantime enjoy your weekend, and watch our for Drop bears!
Hey, the link to "video of a drop bear taking down an unsuspecting victim" is actually a link to Rick Astley's song/video Never Gonna Give You Up!
This one, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
So this what you listen to.
Posted by: Suren | June 13, 2015 at 19:41
Absolutely great story
Posted by: Ovais Mirza | June 23, 2015 at 19:41