Is Australian wildlife really as dangerous as parts of the internet and popular culture make it out to be, and if so, does anyone have any idea why?
It's kind of hard to say. We certainly like to play it up a bit to reinforce our image as macho frontiers-people who wrestle crocodiles daily before breakfast, but as long as you take a few simple precautions (when outside don't stick your hand anywhere you can't see, don't go walking through long grass in shorts, etc.) you'll be perfectly fine. I guess the difference is in many parts of the world you don't have to take take
any precautions at all.
Our wildlife is a bit more dangerous than that in other western countries, but it's still wildlife. It prefers to stay away from people, and will only attack if cornered or provoked. Spiders, snakes and other gribblies aren't trolls, they don't leap out of the bushes at you, they don't lay cunning ambushes and they don't sneak into your house to wait for you to let your guard down.
Fun statistics - no one in the entire country has died of a spider bite since 1979 and snakes only kill about two people a year. Sharks also kill about two people per year, as do crocodiles. Jellyfish kill about 1 person every two years. For a population of about 23 million that's pretty darn good!
(Horses on the other hand kill about 20 people a year. They're homicidal maniacs!)
As for
why our wildlife is more dangerous, I don't know. It's probably
something to do with the continent wandering off into the ocean and doing its evolution in private for several hundred million years. Also we're the most sparsely inhabited continent (apart from Antarctica - but that doesn't count) which means we've got a lot more untamed/semi-tamed wilderness giving the wildlife plenty of room to hang out with minimum human intervention.
As for childhood fears, I have a terrible phobia of needles in my mouth. I have a
very vague memory of a dental nurse slipping and scraping a needle right across my gums as a kid, but I can't be sure if it's a real memory or something I've fabricated to explain the fear. In any case, I've gone through numerous fillings and other dental work without anesthesia as a result, which is not something I would describe as
fun but is reasonably bearable. And it also has the advantage that I'm not dribbling on myself and talking like a drunk for hours afterwards
