The first things that come to mind when we think of Australia are man-eating crocodiles, deadly snakes, poisonous spiders, and the baking hot sun. We also imagine it to be a place full of rugged men fighting off deadly predators and having grand adventures in the outback. However, there is much more to Australia than what we learned from watching watching Crocodile Dundee. Join us as we take a journey through the land down under.

10 Abuse Of Refugees

Australia is one of the wealthiest and safest nations in the world, so it’s no surprise that people fleeing torture and genocide try to get there. In 2012, 15,000 people sought asylum in Australia. These are not illegal immigrants: Arriving in a country without documentation in order to seek refugee status is legal under both Australian and international law. Of these asylum seekers, 90 percent arrive by plane, and the government is cool with them. But the other 10 percent take the perilous journey from Indonesia in dangerous, unseaworthy boats which frequently sink on the way. What does Australia do with these boat arrivals, some of the most vulnerable people in the world?

Mandatory, indefinite detention (i.e. prison).

The UN calls Australia’s treatment of refugees “cruel, inhuman and degrading.” At Wickham Point Immigration Detention Centre, pregnant women reported constant bullying, including being forced to stand for hours in the heat and being underfed to the point of constant hunger. A woman whose newborn child is in hospital has been sent back to her detention center rather than being allowed to stay with the child. The father, also in detention, has not been allowed to visit the child at all. Remember that these people have not broken any laws.

Perhaps the saddest story of the Australian immigration system is that of Cornelia Rau. Cornelia was found on the street in a delusional state, muttering in German. Immigration officials, assuming she was a German who had overstayed her visa, locked her up in Brisbane Women’s Prison.

But Cornelia was not an illegal immigrant; she was an Australian citizen suffering from schizophrenia. Despite the fact that Germany could find no record of the woman she claimed to be, Immigration refused to consider the possibility that she was Australian. Of course, in prison without her medication, her behavior became even stranger, but the officials saw this as further proof of her untrustworthiness.

Cornelia Rau was never charged with any crime, yet she spent almost a year in prison thanks to “an inept and cruel system.”

9 World’s Longest Fence

Australia has 75 million sheep, kept for both meat and wool, and almost all of them are in the southeast of the continent. The export of wool in particular is very important to the Australian economy. The problem? Wild dogs called dingoes are also in abundance, and they consider sheep to be a tasty snack. To prevent their sheep becoming a meal for hungry predators, the Australians started building fences to keep the vermin out.

The fence was originally intended to be rabbit-proof, but in this it totally failed. In 1880, many different fences had been built by individual farmers, which offered a sort of patchwork protection. In 1946, Australia passed legislation that brought all the fences together into one enormous barricade. New fences were built and old ones joined together to stretch across all of Southern Australia including New South Wales and Queensland. While the Australian government does offer some subsidies to keep the fence up, the responsibility of maintenance usually lies with the landowners of the specific areas. An increasing threat to the fence is feral camels, who will smash down any section of the fence which isn’t electrified.

8 Kangaroo Meat

But without all those dingoes around, kangaroos have proliferated to the extent that culling is often called for. Kangaroo meat is very low in fat and has a rich, gamey flavor. It gets very tough when overcooked, but with a little care, it’s a delicious meat.

But until recently, most Australians wouldn’t touch the stuff. One reason is the much-talked about “cultural cringe”—the prejudice held by Australians that Australian culture is intrinsically inferior to others, particularly European. Australian music, art, and cuisine were held in low regard. Fortunately this is beginning to change.

The other, stranger reason is a kids’ TV show called Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which was incredibly popular. Skippy would make little kangaroo sounds, and the other characters would reply “What’s that, Skippy? Someone’s in trouble?” So many people have an emotional connection now that it makes eating kangaroo difficult for them. It’d be like eating Lassie or Air Bud.

However, with the increase in environmental awareness, kangaroo meat is gaining local appeal. Unlike cows, kangaroos don’t have hooves which churn up the ground, destroying the topsoil, and they consume far, far less water, which is important in a drought-ridden country like Australia. They also don’t produce anything like the amount of methane that cows do, so their impact on global warming is smaller.

Kangaroo meat has gone from being only fit for dog food, to being haute cuisine. Now most upmarket restaurants will have at least one kangaroo dish on the menu, while kangaroo sausages are commonplace at barbecues.

Bonus fact: Australia is the only country in the world that eats its national emblem.

7Discussion Of Euthanasia

Assisting people who are suffering from a terminal illness with their wish to end their lives has long been a contentious issue around the world. Some believe that suicide is wrong in all cases and that helping another person is basically akin to murder. Others believe it is cruel to force someone to stay alive when they are suffering and cannot be cured. In Australia, the law takes the former stance: Euthanasia is a crime.

Australia does not have a bill of rights, so although freedom of speech is a guiding legal principal, it is not actually enshrined. This has made it difficult for the country to even have a public conversation about euthanasia.

A pro-euthanasia group in Australia was going to air a TV ad using an actor to express the difficulties of terminal illness, including the quote: “I didn’t choose to starve to death because eating is like swallowing razor blades.” The ad was blocked by the censors, who felt that it promoted suicide. Of course, promoting assisted suicide for the terminally ill who desired it was the entire point of the ad, so that would make it sort of difficult to satisfy the regulatory agency.

Australia has strong laws against assisting anyone with suicide or giving them advice on the matter; despite this, polls have shown that most Australians are on the side of those who wish to voluntarily end their suffering. In the 1990s, the Northern Territory of Australia legalized euthanasia, but it was overturned by a bill passed at the federal level.

6 The Rum Corps

Most people know that colonized Australia began as a penal colony for England. However, there is much more to the story than just that.

First, England sent one fleet loaded with prisoners, soldiers, and supplies to get the colony started. Just a couple of years later, a second fleet arrived with another complement of soldiers. Things seemed to be going well under the leadership of the colony’s first governor, Arthur Phillip. However, Phillip retired from the post and one of his men, Francis Grose ended up with the position. It was after this that things began to take a turn for the worse.

The second fleet of soldiers, known as the New South Wales Corps, was now basically completely in control of the new colony, and began abusing their power. Rum became the main currency and was used to pay prisoners for menial labor. By keeping a tight hold on the rum trade, the newly nicknamed Rum Corps had control over swaths of land, supplies, and labor.

Eventually England had enough of this nonsense and sent Admiral William Bligh to destroy the power of the Rum Corps and its leader John Macarthur. Admiral Bligh had dealt with a mutiny aboard his ship the HMS Bounty only 15 years prior, but was still not quite ready for further traitorous behavior. The Rum Corps refused to go down easy, and after putting up with interference for a couple years, they staged a takeover. Bligh was found cowering under his bed and imprisoned. It was the only successful armed takeover of government in Australian history.

The Rum Rebellion was an ideological battle between the British government, which wanted to keep Australia as primarily a prison colony, and the new generation of entrepreneurs who wanted to open the country up into an independent economy. Although often overlooked, it was a pivotal event in the shaping of Australia’s identity.

5 Ugg Boots

Ugg boots were first created by Australian farmers, who used sheepskin to stay warm. As the years went by, many Australian surfers also cottoned on to using them for their warmth-giving properties. Although popular in America, most Australians consider them too dowdy to be worn outside the house. So how did they get the reputation for being fashionable in the US?

When the boots landed on American shores, a company named Decker decided to copyright them, and after a marketing blitz in which some celebrities endorsed the product, they became a runaway hit. Decker got greedy, and quickly started trying to shut down Australian manufacturers of ugg boots, for using the now-trademarked name.

To the Australian manufacturers the claim was ludicrous, as they had been selling the boots for many years already. The Australian manufacturers took their claim to court, explaining that “ugg” was actually just a slang word for “ugly,” and thus the trademark was invalid. Fortunately for the Australians, the court sided with them.

4 Crazy Cult Nuclear Tests?

It should come as no surprise that unanswered questions abound in all the vast nothingness of the Australian outback. With all that space to roam, there’s bound to be some dirty dealing going on—at least, that’s what one theory says about the mysterious events of May 28, 1993.

Some of the accounts of that day could point to a possible nuclear explosion. Now, if you have any confidence in the Australian government (though you may not after reading about their treatment of immigrants), you might not worry about this. Only problem is, the government had nothing to do with it. In fact, the group most commonly fingered for possible responsibility for the event is none other than the Aum Shinrikyo cult of Japan, famous for their 1995 sarin gas attacks on Tokyo’s commuters.

The disturbance in question was a measurable seismic event, detected by multiple government seismometers in the area. Several isolated eyewitnesses claimed to hear an extremely loud boom and said they’d seen one (or multiple) fireballs streaking down from the sky at the same time. The New York Times ran a story in 1997 investigating the possibility of Aum Shinrikyo’s involvement based on the cult’s ownership of 500,000 nearby acres of farmland and their alleged interest in nuclear weapons (they were said to have several members with a background in Russian weapons). However, critics point out that the reports and investigations were delayed several years from the time of the alleged test, that sightings of fireballs are somewhat common in this area (meteors?), and that the applicable seismometer readings pointed to fairly standard earthquakes. But some will always hold to the cult explanation, and even the Australian Geological Survey (the folks with the seismometers) said there wasn’t enough evidence to conclusively call it an earthquake-meteor combo.

3 Stadium Hijinks

Australians love sports, and due to their passion they punch well above their weight on the world scene. Australia was fourth in medal count in the 2004 Olympics (second per capita), and they are consistently among the top-ranked when it comes to cricket. While Australians take their cricket very, very seriously, they are not without a sense of humor when it comes to the matches.

At one cricket match against England in the 1980s, a group of fans brought a cooler with them that contained an entire pig. They told the security guards that it was soon going to be lunch and they were allowed in. However, it turned out that the pig was part of an elaborate practical joke.

To make it appear that the pig was dead, they had given it an anesthetic. Later in the match, when the pig had awoken, it was released onto the pitch with the names of two of England’s chubbier players inscribed on its sides. Everyone had a good laugh, but no one knows what happened to the pig.

2 Drop Bears

You probably know that Australia has some of the more deadly animals in the world, and the drop bear ranks among them. Drop bears are similar in appearance to koalas, but much larger. Unlike the herbivorous koala, drop bears are predatory, and have the powerful jaws and razor-sharp claws to match. They are known to drop from the trees and often take bushwalkers completely by surprise.

The most fascinating fact about the drop bear is that it was completely made up to have a laugh at tourists. The origins of the drop bear myth are hidden, but it’s so well-known to Australians that any tourist trying to check the veracity of it will have the story vigorously confirmed. The Australian Museum even put together a detailed description of this fake creature and Australian Geographic published a straight-faced report claiming that drop bears are more likely to target tourists.

Other pieces of advice tourists are likely to hear include the useful tip that drop bears will stay away if you put Vegemite behind your ears, wear forks in your ear, or urinate on yourself. Admitting that drop bears aren’t real is considered by many Australians to be a worse crime against country than burning the flag.

1 Marree Man

One of the many mysteries of Australia is the Marree Man, an enormous depiction of an Indigenous man carved in the desert. The drawing is over 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) long and has been a boon for tourism ever since it was noticed, well over a decade ago. The strangest part is that no one knows who is responsible for the drawing, or how and why they put so much effort into it.

To the people who own the land and run tourist ventures, the more important question is how they can restore the drawing, as it has faded over time. The people who make money by taking people on flights over the drawing are quite happy with this mystery, but many Indigenous Australians are not so pleased. Some feel that the tourism flights over their lands are insulting to their beliefs and would prefer if the drawing was simply removed from the desert.

As no one knows who drew the figure, it is likely to remain in controversy for years to come. The area that includes the drawing has been the focus of a land dispute between two different Indigenous groups who hold opposing viewpoints on how the land should be used.

Much of Australia’s history before the arrival of Europeans is unknown because of the lack of written records that allow us to understand early cultures from other areas like Africa and Asia. However, this hasn’t stopped researchers from uncovering the secrets of Australia’s distant past.

10The Aboriginal-Amazon Link

The Aboriginal tribes of Australia are some of the oldest cultures in the world, but it has been something a mystery as to how they got to Australia in the first place. In 2014, researchers ran tests on the genomes of various South and Central American tribes and found that a few Amazonian tribes were more closely related to the Aboriginals in Australia than any of the Eurasian cultures other tribes descended from.

Due to the distance between the Amazon and Australia, this seems almost impossible, but the situation can be explained by humanity’s greatest migration when different cultures crossed the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait. It seems that a single group split, with one portion heading to South America and the other to Australia. As the continents continued to shift, the two tribes were divided by an ocean.

9Australia’s Stonehenge

Stonehenge in England remains a celebrated prehistoric site, but several similar sites have been found around the world, with one being near Mullumbimb in the northern area of New South Wales. The site was originally discovered in 1939. It was damaged quite badly during the 1940s; because of this, the location of the site has been a secret to prevent further damage.

Dating back to the Paleolithic era, it is one of the oldest standing stone structures in the world. The 181 sandstones stones could not have occurred naturally, and the nearest sandstone quarry is nearly 20 kilomers (12 mi) away. Inscriptions on the stones could also prove to be one of the oldest human languages ever discovered, and lost letters recently rediscovered show that that the original discoverer translated around 28,000 of the language’s words.

8Ancient Trade Between Australia And China

Before Europeans explored and settled Australia in the 17th century, many thought the aboriginals were isolated from other cultures, but various discoveries change that view. In 2014, an archaeology group known as Past Masters uncovered a surprising find at a remote island in Australia’s Northern Territories: an 18th-century Chinese coin from the Qing Dynasty. While this was most likely from trade between the Chinese and nearby Indonesians in the 1940s, a thousand-year-old coin minted in East Africa shows just how extensive trade was in the Indian Ocean.

Chinese merchants likely traded with the Northern Australians for their sea cucumbers, which were considered a delicacy. Further proof of Chinese contact with the Aboriginals comes from oral histories that speak of Chinese visitors and an Aborigine practice of using Chinese coins while fishing.

7The World’s Oldest Axe

In the 1990s, a small rock fragment about the size of a thumbnail was discovered in Western Australia. It was quickly forgotten but was re-examined and was discovered to be a fragment from an ancient axe 46,000–49,000 years old. This would make the axe fragment the oldest axe ever discovered and shows that the Aboriginals were on the cutting-edge of prehistoric technology. Though just a piece of a larger tool, there is enough to give a good idea of what the axe may have looked like.

6Boomerang Attacks

Eight hundred years ago, a man now known as Kaakutja died when a deadly blunt object struck his forehead. Recently, Kaakutja was found very well preserved in New South Wales, shedding light on Aboriginal conflicts of the time.

Fighting was a major part of Kaakutja’s life: He had two other head injuries that had partially healed. The wound that killed him was a 15-centimeter (6 in) gash across his head that resulted from being hit by the sharp edge of a wooden boomerang. Boomerangs were long used by Aborigine tribes. As for its effectiveness, Kaakutja serves as a chilling example.

There is very little knowledge of Aborigine conflicts in the past, but Kaakutja at least sheds some light as to certain tribes’ vicious, lethal tactics.

5The Aboriginals And The Rising Seas

Between 18,000 and 7,000 years ago, sea levels rose nearly 120 meters (400 ft). The only culture that documented this was the Aboriginals of Australia, who faithfully kept up an oral tradition for over 300 generations about the rising seas. This is a remarkable feat for a culture who had no written histories, since oral traditions rarely remain relevant after 800 years.

The Aboriginals used a unique cross-generational cross-checking process that allowed stories to be kept accurately over multiple generations. There are some 21 indigenous stories about the rising water levels that range from one tribe describing the loss of their hunting grounds to allegories about angering an ancestral being who subsequently swallowed their lands.

4The Aborigine Disaster Legends

As further evidence of remarkable Aborigine oral traditions, legends concerning catastrophic events have proven effective in allowing modern-day researchers to discover disasters throughout Australia. One example is the Henbury meteorite field. It wasn’t found until 1899 and wasn’t recognized as impact sites until 1931, but the Aboriginals near the site maintained legends warning others about the “fire devil“ who struck there over 4,700 years ago.

Throughout the 20th century, Aborigines would tell their local legends of fire devils to visitors, and because of the living memory of the meteorites at Henbury, increased attention is now being paid to the local myths when trying to document the past.

Another example is the Gunditjmara people in Victoria, who have passed down a legend of a massive flood in the area. When the area was tested in 2015 for an ancient tsunami, sediments in the soil indicated that one occurred thousands of years ago just as described by the legend.

3Australia’s Oldest Aboriginal Art

The Aboriginals have a long tradition of art, with sites dating back thousands of years. In the Northern Territory, ancient Aborigine art was discovered in a rock shelter known as Nawarla Gabarnmang in 2011. The artwork is over 28,000 years old, making it the oldest known cave art in Australia and some of the oldest in the world. However, another site containing ancient rock art located in the Kimberley in Western Australia could prove to be thousands of years older still.

The oldest proven art in the Kimberley region dates back 17,500 years ago, but this number is disputed as newer scientific methods have been discovered to date the art. Starting in February 2016 and using newer uranium-series dating, researchers hope to find the true age of the Kimberley art, which could be almost 50,000 years, making the Aboriginal art some of the oldest continuous records in history.

2The Kimberley Mega-Drought

While work is being done on the true age of the Kimberley cave art, other, more recent Aboriginal art from the region serves as evidence for a disastrous event that completely changed the landscape of Western Australia.

Sometime around 17,000 years ago, the Gwion people appeared but disappeared a few thousand years later and were replaced by the Wandjina. To find what happened to the Gwion, researchers looked into the pollen record of the area and found that 6,300 years ago, pollen dramatically changed, showing that the area went from a lush landscape to the scrubby, arid conditions present today.

In addition, sediments show a large increase in dust, indicating that a mega-drought occurred around the same time the Gwion disappeared. This mega-drought severely impacted the local tribes of the region, causing them to alter their behaviors; however, they didn’t leave the area, as stone tools show that it was continuously occupied.

1The World’s Oldest Civilization

The Aboriginals have long been overlooked by historians when it comes to the distant past, but a DNA study shows that the Aborigines of Australia make up the world’s oldest civilization. Ancestors can be traced back over 75,000 years.

Humans began to migrate from Africa at this time, and the ancestors of the Aboriginals split from other Eurasians 57,000 years ago, finally settling in Australia around 31,000 years ago after splitting with the Papuans who now occupy Papua New Guinea. Finally, the Aboriginals were left alone in Australia when the continent broke off around 10,000 years ago.

Gordon Gora is a struggling author who is desperately trying to make it. He is working on several projects but until he finishes one, he will write for for his bread and butter. You can write him at [email protected].

Following up on my recent list “Ten Odd News Stories Out of New Zealand,” I thought I’d look over what we call “The Ditch” to my Australian neighbors and see what oddities are turning up in the headlines over there.

Turns out, the Aussies have some rather strange goings-on over their way, too, and here’s just a handful of oddball stories that have hit the headlines in Australia’s recent(ish) times.

Related: 10 Incredibly Odd Things That People Have Stolen

10 Wallaby Mugs Easter Bunny

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Easter Bunny’s best-laid plans were almost ruined this past Easter if a mischievous male wallaby—oddly named Polly—had his wicked way.

In Clarence Point, Tasmania, local resident Amanda Sparkles and her two daughters were awakened around 6 am by loud noises on Easter Sunday. Instead of catching the Easter Bunny in the act, Amanda explained how she was surprised to find a wallaby stealing Easter eggs hidden around the property. “The very naughty boy had been on the deck, caravan, swing set, spa bath, collecting and hiding all the eggs he could find,” she wrote in a post on Facebook.

Brought into care as an infant after his mother was killed by a car, Polly is now a 20-kilogram (44-pound) adult and freely roams around the Sparkles’ farm, where Amanda is a registered wildlife rehabilitator.

As with dogs, cats, and many other animals, chocolate is also bad for wallabies and kangaroos, so Polly could not indulge in any of his stolen goodies. Amanda was able to use a piece of his favorite vegetable as a bribe to retrieve one of the eggs in his possession.

Once Polly had handed over his Easter egg, Amanda and her daughters realized they had another problem—all of the other Easter eggs were still missing. “We then started looking around to see if there were any more,” she said. “We couldn’t really see many at all, but Polly kept on going in and out of the bushes… We realized he’d gathered up eggs and put them all into the shrubs.”^[1]

9 Death Threats and the Robot Waitress

A Sydney restaurant owner says she received several death threats earlier this year after using a robot waitress amid pandemic staff shortages.

The Matterhorn, a Swiss restaurant on Sydney’s North Shore, recently spent $AU 28,000 on a high-tech robot waitress to help carry plates and take customer orders. The robot, named Bella, also sings “Happy Birthday” to customers, as singing in indoor restaurants is currently not permitted in the state under Covid regulations.

The Matterhorn’s owner, Liarne Schai, explained that Bella wasn’t merely a gimmick, as international border closures and staff poaching resulted in a critical worker shortage throughout the hospitality industry. Wages for some positions have skyrocketed during the pandemic, with casual waiting jobs advertised for as much $AU 80 per hour. (Sheesh, where can I sign up?) Despite paying their staff “well above award wages,” The Matterhorn just couldn’t compete with these inflated wages, so they invested in Bella.

“99.9 percent of the customers love Bella,” explained Schai. “It’s the funniest thing to watch people talking to it like it’s a person, but the nicest part of it is by the time the novelty wears off, she fades into the background like a good waiter does anyway,” she said.

However, not everyone was impressed by the restaurant’s robotic employee. They received an email insinuating that the restaurant was “part of the right-wing prefecture and that we were facilitating robots taking over the world.” Following media reports about Bella, a man phoned the restaurant to issue death threats to the owners. “He said that he’d seen us on the news and that he wanted the owners to die the most horrible, painful, torturous, cancerous death possible,” Schai explained.

Rather than being some kind of evil robotic overlord bent on the destruction of humanity, Schai described Bella as being more of an “automatic trolley.” Bella allows the human staff to spend more time with the customers, giving them “an extra seven to eight minutes servicing each table that we would normally be spending running back and forth.”^[2]

8 The Shocking Case of the Un-Australian Vegemite Toast

In April 2022, a cafe in Sydney was labeled as being “un-Australian” for its miserly serving of Vegemite toast.

For those that don’t know, Vegemite (and its far superior rival Marmite) is concentrated yeast extracts. It is a dark, thick spread, kind of malty, and super salty. Kiwi kids and Aussie kids alike are raised on the stuff, and it’s safe to say that for the uninitiated, it’s an acquired taste.

But back to the story…

A customer at the cafe took to social media to share what they had been served—a somewhat anemic-looking piece of buttered toast with a meager smear of Vegemite. It immediately sparked a heated debate about “how much Vegemite is the right amount?” In this instance, the cafe clearly fell well short with its stingy offering.

One person criticized the cafe for messing up every step of what should really be a no-brainer. “Not enough toasting, not enough butter, not enough Vegemite,” they said. Another person added, “I always wondered how badly you can f**k up Vegemite on toast. We have a new leader.”

Some critics went as far as to call it “un-Australian,” while others questioned why you’d order something like Vegemite toast from a cafe in the first place. And in case you’re wondering if this is really such a big deal, in November of last year, a man was served Vegemite on toast for breakfast while being held at the Albany Police Station. He apparently became outraged about the thickness of the Vegemite and angrily smeared the iconic Australian spread all over his cell, later requiring a “specialist cleaner” to clean up the mess.^[3]

7 The Alien Sea Creature with Human Lips

In April 2022, long-time Bondi resident, Drew Lambert, was shocked to come across a bizarre “alien-like” creature washed up on the beach when he was out for his morning jog.

Lambert later explained how he first thought it could be a “weird form of shark.” However, he noticed the mouth was on the bottom of its body, and while its skin was not dissimilar to a shark, it lacked a dorsal fin. “[I thought] oh my god, that’s weird. It looked like it was puckering up for a kiss,” he explained. “I just looked at it and said, ‘What the hell? Does this fish have human lips on it?’ “he added.

A supervisor at the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, Laetitia Hannan, later confirmed that despite its missing fins and tail, it appeared to be a coffin ray, a fish native to Australia. Another name for it is the numbfish, as they are capable of dishing out electric shocks to fight off predators, generating up to 200 volts of electricity. While some divers have been on the receiving end of a rather nasty shock, none are known to have proven fatal.^[4]

6 Woman Loves Herself… a Lot

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In May 2020, Sydney teacher Patricia Christine made the ultimate commitment… to herself. In a 30-minute “self-commitment ceremony” attended by nine of her closest friends, she married herself.

Having called off her engagement to an ex-partner eight years ago, Patricia said she felt under psychological pressure created by society to get married before turning 30. In total, the event cost approximately $AU 95. Patricia purchased her own Bohemian wedding dress, diamond wedding ring, and flowers.

During the unique ceremony, which took place in a local park, Patricia put forward her views on the importance of self-love. She later explained that she hoped that her act of marrying herself would motivate other young women to accept themselves, regardless of their relationship status and any societal pressure to get married.

She explained that in the vows she made to herself in an “emotional’ ceremony,” she promised to love herself despite the mistakes she had made in life and committed to trusting herself to follow her dreams. “I wanted to defy societal expectations and show women that the most important relationship we have is with ourselves,” she stated. Adding “we search our whole lives to make a huge declaration to another, but we don’t do it for ourselves first.”^[5]

5 Gigantic Crocodile Eats Dinosaur

Massive spiders the size of your face, a whole bunch of deadly snakes (there’s a 2-decade old list that says that 21 of the 25 most toxic snakes in the world are all from Australia!), sharks, box jellyfish, and stonefish—just to name a few of the deadly critters that can be found around Australia. And of course, there are crocs. Earlier this year, scientists were excited by the discovery of a massive 95-million-year-old crocodile relative that fed on dinosaurs.

It was named Confractosuchus sauroktonos, which means “broken crocodile dinosaur killer,” the “broken” in the crocodile’s name is a reference to the enormous, smashed boulder where the fossils were discovered. While this specimen measures some 2 to 2.5 meters (6.5 to 8 feet) in length, museum research associate Matt White believes it would have grown considerably larger had it not died.

The fossil species found in a rock bed in eastern Australia is from the Cretaceous Period, when most of the more commonly known dinosaurs roamed Earth. Making this find all the more exciting was that the croc had a partly-digested and near-complete chicken-sized dinosaur in its stomach. The juvenile as yet unidentified ornithopod (a medium-to-large plant-eating dinosaur) weighed around 1.5 kilograms (3.5 pounds) at the time of its death. The croc likely also died shortly afterward, resulting in the half-digested dinosaur in its belly getting fossilized too.

While the fossil croc was missing its tail and limbs, most of the smaller dinosaur’s skeleton was still intact even after it was swallowed. Scans revealed that the croc bit down so hard on it that it ended up breaking one of the ornithopod’s femurs in half and even left a tooth embedded in the other femur.

This discovery is believed to be the first definitive evidence that crocodiles were eating dinosaurs in Australia. “It is likely dinosaurs constituted an important resource in the Cretaceous ecological food web,” said White. “Given the lack of comparable global specimens, this prehistoric crocodile and its last meal will continue to provide clues to the relationships and behaviors of animals that inhabited Australia millions of years ago,” he added.^[6]

4 M&M’s Stacking

Queenslander Brendan Kelbie is, by his own admission, a serial record-breaker. His Guinness World Records include: most drumstick flips in one minute (98), longest duration spinning a basketball on a pair of spectacles (29.67 sec), longest time spinning a basketball on the nose (9.57 sec), and longest duration to spin a fidget spinner on one toe (6 min 52.28 sec), just to name a few!

In October 2021, Kelbie laid claim to yet another record—when he stacked six M&M’s on top of each other, and it stood for at least 10 seconds before falling. Guinness requirements also specify that flavored M&M’s such as peanut are not permitted, and only the plain chocolate ones can be used.

“I’ve decided to break this record because I’m a serial record breaker, and I am a versatile world record holder,” he told Guinness.^[7]

3 Unlicensed Cooler

In November 2021, an unnamed 25-year-old man in Kerang, Victoria, was stopped by the Swan Hill Police Service while driving a motorized cooler on the sidewalk. Police shared photos on social media of the small cooler being loaded onto a rather large tow truck as the “vehicle” was impounded for 30 days.

Police stated that while the driver of the cooler passed a breathalyzer test and was not intoxicated, he did not have a valid driver’s license, and he had, in fact, never held one. As a result, the driver is now facing charges of driving without a license and driving an unregistered motor vehicle.

“This motorized esky (a brand of portable cooler) is considered a vehicle due to the size/engine capacity and must comply with legislative requirements and road rules,” the police statement read.^[8]

2 Extra Leg of Lamb

Sam Kuerschner, a sheep farmer from Orroroo, South Australia, said a lamb born in 2021 was destined to become a family pet instead of dinner when he discovered that the animal had an extra leg growing out of the back of its head.

He said he felt rather shocked after discovering that the lamb had a fully-sized fifth leg attached to his head in what “looks like a mullet” hairstyle (no mutton chop beard was mentioned). However, the lamb did not appear to be affected in any way by the extra appendage. “It seemed completely happy and healthy and didn’t seem to be suffering any kind of medical issue,” Kuerschner explained.

He was sure his children would be keen to have the unusual pet. “When the time comes to wean it off its mother, I think I’ll take it home, and it can run around the house yard. I’ve got three little kids, and they’ll be fascinated to have that as a bit of a special pet for hopefully the rest of its life,” he said.

Polymelia is a birth defect in which an affected individual has more than the usual number of limbs. The extra limb is most commonly shrunken and/or deformed. However, in this instance, the leg is apparently fully formed and appears to be attached to the back of the sheep’s head by flesh rather than a bone joint. Veterinarian Paul Nilon estimated that one in 200,000 sheep is born with an extra limb.^[9]

1 The Echidna Penis That Broke the Internet

In April 2022, Australian Geographic was accused of being more like Australian GeoGRAPHIC after posting an NSFW pic of an echidna penis on Facebook. Sometimes known as spiny anteaters, echidnas are unusual quill-covered, egg-laying mammals resembling hedgehogs that are native to Australia.

“Have you ever seen an echidna’s penis?” the post began. Fans of Australian flora and fauna were taken aback by what came next…an engorged echidna penis thrust onto their screens in full technicolor, all in the name of science.

“Labeled one of the ‘weirdest penises of the animal kingdom,’ it’s bright red and has four heads,” the post explained. “Now there’s a dinner conversation starter…” concluded the post. You’re not wrong there!

People commenting on the post were busy trying in vain to compose themselves after gazing upon the colorful, multi-headed “d*ck pic.”

“I cannot un-see this,” wrote once traumatized page subscriber, “scarred for life!”
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/a-photo-of-an-echidnas-penis-landed-in-facebook-feeds-without-warning-and-you-cant-unsee-it/news-story/380bac2225d72087db4a586057d3848e
“Wears condoms. They fit like a glove,” another quipped.

Reproductive biologist Jane Feleon explains,” We’re not really sure why it looks so weird, but we do know that they only use their penis for mating, not urine.” Adding “because they don’t need it for urine, they had the freedom to make it much more elaborate.” Elaborate…so that’s what they’re calling it these days!^[10]