Wild Means Mild – Plain Means Pain

First Published in The Skinny – 01/02/09

The Australian bush is littered with a wide range of fauna; possums, wombats, animal liberationists and serial killers all roam the great outdoors, but here’s the thing – an animal’s name is in inverse proportion to it’s its propensity to kill, the rule of thumb being that the more benign the moniker, the more excruciating your death.

It has been suggested that the Brown Snake or Red Back Spider are so-called due to the fact that the early pioneers were apt to live somewhat in the moment and upon encountering, say, a snake that is brown or a spider whose back is red, stating the bleeding obvious is a far as they would get before joining the holy choir invisible. However, it is alternatively argued that these names have a deeper resonance and that the Stone Fish is named after a person’s state of animation following interaction with one, while the Box Jellyfish is so titled for the receptacle an interactor would be placed in.

Either way, steer clear of anything with an overly non-descript, poly-functional or downright practical title like Funnel or Salt Water, as its appetite for destruction will be on a par with the serial killer who just bought you a beer, the quite type who keeps to himself but who possesses the capacity to inflict death whenever the fancy takes him.

No, stick to the more colourful Kangaroo or Koala who are programmed to merely endanger the local flora and whose nutritional requirements and general levels of malevolence are no greater than the animal liberationist who so passionately handed you a leaflet – a tad grumpy but a threat to nothing more than a salad sandwich.