The Fable of the Drop Bears

Today was fun at work, because I managed to get someone to believe in that great Australian myth... the dreaded "Drop Bear". For those who don't know, it is every Australian's obligation whilst overseas, or when entertaining overseas visitors, to explain about this maligned, carnivorous beast. A larger (up to 4 feet) cousin to the Australian Koala Bear, the Drop Bear sports a wide array of cruel teeth (all the better for biting with). It drops from the trees onto unsuspecting travellers and rips their bodies apart in a gruesome display of merciless, carnivorous barbarity. 

Well, I took the opportunity today to slide a mention of the Drop Bear into conversation today with my colleague D___. D___ is a little bit gullible (in a nice way), and has never been to Australia. Ha! A perfect candidate! I really had him going for a while, too. It was only when I mentioned the voracity at which they tear your head off and burrow into your insides, that he started to see through my charade. Wanting to keep it going though, I said "Well, why don't you Google it then?", in the hope that somebody has posted something. I wasn't disappointed. Much to the credit of Google, a page at the very top of the rankings completely supported the existence of Drop Bears, together with the image sported to the left. (Hehe... there must be an Aussie working at Google). This was all very well, and now I had D___ totally in my clutches! How could he continue to deny in the face of such overwhelming evidence?

The whole thing went on for some time, until finally D___ looked at a Wikipedia reference that referred to the Drop Bears as an Australian hoax. As you could imagine, I had quite a few inner guffaws at D___'s expense. It was quite hard to suppress them at times.

Baa