DROP BEARS: A WARNING

Look at it, the vicious bastard

It's a known fact in Australia that if an animal even so much as looks at you, you're dead already.

And this is particularly true in the case of the DROP BEAR, an animal so foul and vicious that it has been banned from any encyclopedia of the world's fauna. While it may look like the koala, one of the sweetest, loveable and serene creatures on the Earth, the drop bear is bad tempered and has a particular liking for fresh human meat, particularly that of the head and neck.

While it will do anything to get its sharpened fangs around a human face, the general modus operandi of the drop bear is to wait in a tree and drop onto its prey from above, gouging out eyes and tongue first, so you cannot see what killed you, nor can you scream for help. Sated on your blood, the drop bear returns to its perch, awaiting the next victim.

You can see why - even in a country where cruel and painful animal death lurks under every toilet seat - why Australians are loathe to talk about the drop bear. With its docile cousin the koala being the symbol of all things Australian, the drop bear is an embarrassment that could single-handedly destroy the tourist market, mostly by ripping its face off and eating it.

A photographer died getting this picture, as did the first three people sent to retrieve the camera

So, how do you defend yourself against a drop bear attack? The terrifying answer is that after the events of 1974, the police will not respond to drop bear emergencies. You are on your own against these curs.

Australian urban myth says that spreading vegemite over your head and neck will prevent an attack. However, drop bears look upon vegemite as little more than a condiment and will attack you regardless. Others say that you should speak with a loud, exaggerated fair-dinkum Aussie accent, but all this does in alert the murdering bastards to different flavours of fresh meat.

The only defence is the humble golf club, but anything less than a sand wedge is a waste of time, and you'd better be prepared for a good five minutes of thrashing, all the time the drop bear criticising the shape of your backswing. Shooting drop bears is illegal because of health and safety gone mad.

How serious is the drop bear threat? Let's put it this way:

In 1997, a drop bear managed to get across to New Zealand, where it ran amok, catapulting sharpened kiwis at people's faces before it was caught and destroyed in a battle with brave New Zealand armed forces, many of whom lost their faces and their lives. They're still rebuilding after the authorities embarked in a scorched-earth policy which destroyed thousands of square miles of forest and grazing pasture. All that bloodshed and fiery destruction from just from a single drop bear.

In 2003, a zoo in Singapore was accidentally sent a pair of drop bears instead of koalas as part of an animal exchange programme. By the time the cargo plane arrived in Singapore airspace, all the crew were dead and fighter jets were scrambled to shoot it out of the sky. The authorities are still trying to track down these murderers who are now the owners of a pair of fully-armed F-16 jets somewhere in the Asia-Pacific.

BE WARNED, these creatures are SHITS.

This little bastard has killed before AND HE WILL KILL AGAIN