RobotBlogger

Brisbane has this large nature park called the Lone Pine Sanctuary, filled with kangaroos, koalas, wallabees, cassowaries!! parrots of all kinds and... my favorite... foxbats! AKA Flying Foxes, AKA omg those are so creepy!

Picture a flying cat sized thing with a wingspan the size of an ironing board. A bat that big. That's big. That's big, and that's creepy. Here's PROOF

Lone Pine is basically Australian nature all condensed into one park where you can roll around with kangaroos and have lorikeets swarm over you. Fantastic. The roos and wallabees are so tame and overfed they practically fall asleep while you're feeding them. Amazing photo oppertunities everywhere.

Weirdly, koalas are kind of grumpy, and they snort and bellow in this it-can't-be-them deep frequency that's very odd indeed. Don't let that cute face fool you. Inside each one of those things is half curmudgeony old man, half elephant seal. Koalas only eat eucalyptus, which is low in nutrition and they therefore have a really slow metabolism. This makes them appear pretty drunk and wobbly most of the time - not because they're stoned on whatever is in eucalyptus (which is what i previously thought)

Unfortunately i could not manage a good shot of the Cassowary they have there. This photo comes from another site about this crazy bird. I have a strange fascination with these things! (what is it with Australia having the craziest versions of animals?)

Here's a quote:

A cassowary's three-toed feet have sharp claws; the dagger-like middle claw is 120 mm (5 inches) long. This claw is particularly dangerous since the Cassowary can use it to kill an enemy, disemboweling it with a single kick. They can run up to 50 km/h (32 mph) through the dense forest, pushing aside small trees and brush with their bony casques. They can jump up to 1.5 m (5 feet) and they are good swimmers.

Oh, and here's another:

Another verified attack came when a careless zookeeper named Luke James, was brutally attacked and killed after not so subtly mocking the ferocity of the Cassowary at what was previously thought to be a safe distance.

Not injured, not maimed... This guy makes fun of one and it kills him. That's a badass birdy.

In another beautifully strange twist by Mother Nature: these peculiar monsters are vital to Rainforest survival. Over 21 tree species REQUIRE the digestion of their seeds by the cassowary before they can germinate.

There's only 1500 left in Australia.