Urban Myths...

[Willow]

went up to the daintree the other week and I always remember to watch out for this stuff... it is no myth but some of the stories around it might be...

https://www.treehugger.com/gympie-gympie-plant-sting-can-madden-kill-4858680

Yeah, that's a bit extreme. I brushed some gympie weed years ago and the stingers can be painful but I found it was only if anything touched it. Wasn't much fun putting on a shirt or trying to sleep.

Went to the doctor the next day and he sprayed some plastic skin over the affected area and it created a barrier between the stingers (nettles?) and everything else. Solve the problem straight away. They eventually dissolve and the plastic skin eventually wears off by itself.

 

[Bazal]

At the risk of being pedantic, I would have thought an urban myth is more like the story every single student of my generation heard about the serial killer on the car roof with a blokes head on a stick...

Drop bears etc are a slightly different kind of folklore


Buuuuuut if you want to extend it to any kind of folklore I kind of like the idea that some people believe in that there's thylacoleo roaming around the Barrington Tops and that sort of area. Or out of place big cats.

Which, incidentally, were absolutely real at one time.

Also the Tassie tiger. Although that's probably not a myth as such

 

[Old tiger 79]

Mitchell Moses

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

At the risk of being pedantic, I would have thought an urban myth is more like the story every single student of my generation heard about the serial killer on the car roof with a blokes head on a stick...

Drop bears etc are a slightly different kind of folklore


Buuuuuut if you want to extend it to any kind of folklore I kind of like the idea that some people believe in that there's thylacoleo roaming around the Barrington Tops and that sort of area. Or out of place big cats.

Which, incidentally, were absolutely real at one time.

Also the Tassie tiger. Although that's probably not a myth as such

Happy to extend as you request... the more the merrier Baz.

 

[Coastbloke]

Jenny Dixon on the Central Coast (ghost in car)
Wakehurst Parkway Sydney Northern Beachs (ghost in car)
Flabbit (Hybrid rabbit/bird hoax) Colo River area

 

[Old tiger 79]

The myth that Clint Gutherson is a King.

 

[Twizzle]

The myth that Clint Gutherson is a King.

You do realize he is not a real king ?

 

[Reflector]

Test tube girl

 

[fightingirish69]

The Blue Mountains Panther.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mountains_panther

i've seen the otways panther

 

[Pommy]

There was a myth when I was a kid that there was a tunnel from the ruined abbey to a castle on an island just off the coast. We spent loads of time looking for that tunnel.
I hope kids are still looking for it 20+ years later.

A tunnel is said to run underneath the Abbey to both Piel Castle and Dalton Castle, allowing the monks to receive supplies and keep watch upon the local settlements. It has also been rumoured that the Holy Grail and King John's missing jewels are hidden somewhere inside the 'Ley tunnel'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furness_Abbey?wprov=sfti1

 

[SpaceMonkey]

it is the duty of every Australian to back up any other Australian who is talking about drop bears to a foreigner.

most kiwis will get in on the action as well in my experience.

I’ve already got my GFs daughter (American) convinced of them.

 

[Old tiger 79]

Mitchell Moses

 

[Nuke]

I was travelling Europe in mid 2016 (back in the old days when we could travel ... Remember them?!), and spent a few nights at camping grounds in Switzerland. One of my Aussie bus mates was telling another non-Australian traveller (american / Canadian I think) about drop bears. She was skeptical. Probably 60% believing, but no more. I chimed in, backing up my fellow Aussie (as we do!), and she started to believe us. Got her to about 80%, but serious doubts were there.

Then she got out her phone to google it. In my mind, I was thinking that the game was up. I was sure the first thing she'd see was a Wikipedia link, laying bare the fact it's all just a hoax.

Nope.

Google Images provided the first several things she saw. All mangy, deranged feral looking koalas with sharp teeth.

Now 100% convinced it was all true and in awe of these terrifying creatures, we had a great few more minutes of this until my fellow Aussie embellished just a tad too much and undid all our good work. He should have quit while he was ahead, but I think he had other intentions for our young female traveller that night and got swept up in the moment of having her attention and admiration. She vowed to tell all her other non-Aussie travelling companions to not believe any stories about drop bears.

It was fun while it lasted.

 

[Old tiger 79]

A common urban myth is that Mitchell Moses is a good halfback but in reality his just a big cat.
That’s an urban myth.

 

[The_Frog]

Also the Tassie tiger. Although that's probably not a myth as such

The thylacine (a marsupial much more like a dog than a tiger) was very real. Once they inhabited all of Australia, but the introduction of the dingo saw them confined to Tasmania. Bounties on them in Tasmania, where they were regarded as a pest by farmers (who have a lot to answer for in this country as far as conservation of fauna goes), saw them become extinct pre World War II.

 

[Willow]

The thylacine (a marsupial much more like a dog than a tiger) was very real. Once they inhabited all of Australia, but the introduction of the dingo saw them confined to Tasmania. Bounties on them in Tasmania, where they were regarded as a pest by farmers (who have a lot to answer for in this country as far as conservation of fauna goes), saw them become extinct pre World War II.

They roamed around for 2 million years. It took British colonists less than 100 years to wipe them out.

 

[The_Frog]

They roamed around for 2 million years. It took British colonists less than 100 years to wipe them out.

They were wiped out on the mainland long before the British arrived. The truth is they weren't suited to co-exist with humans of any race. They were an apex predator, without a predator of their own and once one appeared (in fact two, humans and dingos), they were doomed. They lasted as long as they did in Tasmania due to the extensive wilderness on the island and the absence of dingos.

The final extinction was certainly due to bounties on the animal by Tasmanian farming conglomerates and the state government, which realised its folly and declared the animal protected mere months before the last one died.

 

[Willow]

They were wiped out on the mainland long before the British arrived. The truth is they weren't suited to co-exist with humans of any race.

Thylacine co-existed with humans in Tasmania before it became a colony.

On the mainland, the thylacine fossils show that they were still on there until about 3000 years ago. That's well into human occupation. There are a number of theories as to why they became extinct on the mainland, and they cover a wide range of views. These include the arrival of the dingoes, climate change, food shortages, genetic diseases and human population increases.

The relatively new generic disease reasoning suggests the thylacine would have died out anyway. Sure, a species that evolved 2 million years ago was going to die anyway. Sounds a little too convenient for mine.

Bottom line is that there was a bounty on thylacines in the 19th century-early 20th century, an incentive to wipe them out. Plus the destruction of their natural habitat couldn't have helped.

 

[The_Frog]

Bottom line is that there was a bounty on thylacines in the 19th century-early 20th century, an incentive to wipe them out.

Yep. An absolute disgrace. The cane toad was another brain fart to placate farmers, introduced just about the same time as the thylacine became extinct.

 

[Willow]

Yep. An absolute disgrace. The cane toad was another brain fart to placate farmers, introduced just about the same time as the thylacine became extinct.

I had to look that up. 1935. I thought cane toads arrived more recently than that. They had great insight back then.

Yes, the last thylacine died in captivity in1936. Apparently he/she froze to death after the Hobart zoo keepers forgot to open its shelter. You'll be pleased to know that the thylacine finally received government protection two months before it died.