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Re: [OM] IMG: Thursday Butterfly

Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: Thursday Butterfly
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:52:45 -0500
Thanks for the rundown.

Chuck Norcutt


On 11/20/2011 9:21 AM, Brian Swale wrote:
> Chuck asked
>> Are there any nasty critters in New Zealand or did Oz get them all?  :-)
>
> Really very few at the beginning.
>
> There are NO land snakes of any kind. In the far north, venomous sea-
> snakes sometimes wash ashore. Most of these have a mouth too small to
> get a grip as far as I know..
>
> No other bad reptiles.
>
> No native land mammals except for 2 species of small bat, now very rare.
>
> Some of the sea mammals that come ashore should be left strictly alone;
> sea-elephant and sea-leopard come to mind. The latter is nasty.
>
> As far as I know only one spider that comes close to being lethal; the katipo,
> looks very like the OZ red-back, lives mostly under/near sea-shore
> driftwood. Bite usually not fatal. Some other spiders can give a nasty bite.
>
> One plant that can kill - tree nettle Urtica ferox.  If you wandered into a 
> grove
> of that naked and got a lot of stings you might die. I think some few people
> have already.
>
> Now we have german wasps another european wasp, and the Australian
> Polistes wasp. People who are super-allergic to their stings will die. I 
> forget
> the medical name of the condition. My fiancee always has a needle with
> ?adrenalin in it for fast prevention somewhere close as she is liable to be
> killed by the sting of honey-bee.
>
> Sand-flies (not as bad as the Canadian no-see-um's ) are a genuine
> nuisance, and we do have several kinds of mosquitoes including one that
> lives in cities and can breed in the water of house roof gutters down to about
> 5 deg G. The mossies that breed in the tidal saltwater pools on rock shelves
> around East Cape can bite through thick corduroy trousers. Personal
> experience. My flat-mates and I from my single years gave up (abandoned)
> summer fishing up there in favour of winter fishing because of them
>
> I don't think we have poisonous molluscs such as the cone shell.
>
> We may have one or two poisonous sea fish; mostly quite difficult to catch
> afaik.
>
> Sting-ray fish may cause your death if you stand on one. They are a kind of
> very flat shark with a whip-like tail that carries a barbed bone spear-point.
>
> We do have some sharks that will kill if you are stupid enough to get in their
> way. Mako, bronze whaler, great white and one other. Mako are very fast,
> and can be aggressive enough to try and get in a boat at you. Personal
> experience.
>
> Now, we also have: nasty domestic dogs, ferocious bulls ( but these mostly
> are not all that bad).
>
> That's about it, errors and omissions excepted :-)
>
> Brian Swale.
-- 
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