An Australian 'ballista spider' weaves a silk trap for up... | funfact.wiki | funfact.wiki
An Australian 'ballista spider' weaves a silk trap for up to four hours. When a green tree ant trips its base, tensioned threads release, flinging it skyward in 42 milliseconds at about 15 times the g-force a fighter pilot endures.
In 1859, a British settler in Australia released 24 rabbits into the wild. With no predators and mild winters, they multiplied into billions. Australia tried continent-spanning fences, foxes, poison, disease, and the military—all failed. The rabbit war continues to this day.
New Zealand's Māori did not come from Australia but descend from people who left Taiwan. By canoe through the Philippines and Papua, they reached New Zealand around 1200–1300 CE. Before their arrival, the islands had no humans—and no mammals at all.
In 1927, Australian physicist Thomas Parnell began an experiment: letting pitch (tar)—solid-looking, shattering when struck—drip from a funnel to prove it is liquid. The first drop took 8 years. Drops fall every 8–13 years, but no one has ever witnessed one fall.
In 1932, Australia waged war on emus — and lost. To stop ~20,000 emus wrecking crops, soldiers brought two machine guns and 10,000 rounds, but the birds split into small groups and outran the fire; one gun jammed. After two months, under 1,000 were killed — the war birds won.
The giant anteater's tongue can extend about 60 cm and, unlike that of other mammals, attaches directly to the sternum instead of the throat. It flicks in and out up to 150–160 times per minute, snapping up ants and termites with backward-pointing papillae and sticky saliva.