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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