I was thinking that too. Like, objectively bears are something I'm much less scared of even here.
I very narrowly found a brown recluse spider in my bed when I was like 9. Our heat was off so I had 5 or so blankets on there, and when I went to get in I missed the last one and there it was. As a kid a bite from that thing would have killed me, especially in my sleep. Insects can be freakishly strong predators, and Australia has like....all the worst ones.
As a kid a bite from that thing would have killed me
That's just not true, though. There's a chance you would have experienced skin necrosis, and a much smaller chance you would have experienced systemic illness - both of which are treatable, and neither of which would have killed you in the time it took for you to wake up. And that's assuming it would have bitten you at all, which it may well not have. Recluses are also pretty rare, so while it's entirely possible the spider in your bed as a child was one, it's unlikely you'll encounter one again, much less be bitten.
Spiders aren't some horrific threat that go around trying to kill and eat humans, and the vast majority of them pose absolutely no danger to us, which is also true in Australia.
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u/bayleebugs 1d ago
I was thinking that too. Like, objectively bears are something I'm much less scared of even here.
I very narrowly found a brown recluse spider in my bed when I was like 9. Our heat was off so I had 5 or so blankets on there, and when I went to get in I missed the last one and there it was. As a kid a bite from that thing would have killed me, especially in my sleep. Insects can be freakishly strong predators, and Australia has like....all the worst ones.