Drop Bear
Kingdom: Animalia
Location found: Australia
Drop bears are carnivorous, tree-dwelling marsupials found throughout Australia. Their preferred dwelling is eucalyptus trees or gum trees. They are related to koala bears, though larger and equipped with sharp teeth and razor-like claws. Sometimes people refer to them as the koala bear's evil twin.Location found: Australia
Drop bears prefer to feed at night. They wait in trees and then drop down on top of their prey, usually instantly knocking it unconscious. They will then proceed to devour it. They will quite readily attack creatures larger than themselves, including humans.
The only known way to deter a drop bear is to spread toothpaste or vegemite behind your ears and on your neck. It also makes sense not to pitch your tent beneath a tree that contains a drop bear. A good way to find out if a drop bear is in a tree is to lie down beneath the tree and spit upwards. If a drop bear is sleeping up there, it will wake up and spit back.
Australians are known for going to great lengths to make sure that backpacking tourists are aware of the dangers posed by drop bears. Young children attending camp are also frequently warned of this threat to their safety.
Total Comments: 53
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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Hi Alex
I bought your book over the weekend and loved it! Very amusing tales of human gullibility, ignorance and intelligence.I thought you might be interested in a tale that did the rounds in my youth. No doubt there are similar stories out there. I attended many camps, and a popular story to keep the kids in their beds at night was the threat of the 'drop bears'.
According to camp leaders (and I confess to perpetuating this in later years!), there lurked in Australian gum trees fierce koala bear type creatures called drop bears. They slept during the day, and only came out at night to feed. You could tell if there was a drop bear in a tree by upturning your face and spitting up into the tree. If there was a drop bear, it would spit back (think about it...). They were also said to be attracted to Vegemite, the staple Aussie condiment, which the kids then started to avoid at breakfast. To ward off an attack by drop bears, campers were advised to put toothpaste behind their ears. I am sure there were a few parents who wondered why they had to wash toothpaste out of pillowcases.
I am pretty sure there were more tall tales associated with this mysterious creature, but I can't remember more at present.
I have also attached a picture you might be interested in, similar to the photo on your Jackalope page. I work at quarantine, and occasionally these unusual creatures make their way into Australia in the luggage of tourists with a penchance for unusual souvenirs.
Keep up the great work!
Posted by Jen on Sun Feb 16, 2003 at 06:01 PM
Re: Drop Bears in Australia
In my experience, the drop bear story is related to girl guide and boy scout camps. I have not heard about the spitting idea to tell if there is a bear in the tree, but i was informed that they lived in eucalyptus trees and had very long arms and sharp claws (I always pictured them a bit loke a small sloth) and they would drop from the tree, land on your shoulders and rip out and eat your neck.
Posted by on Sun Aug 03, 2003 at 08:01 AM
is that a drop bear it is like cant be
Posted by on Wed Aug 06, 2003 at 09:01 PM
About the Australian Drop Bear, hah! That's funny! Cause if you lye down on your back and spit, the only spit you'll be getting in return is your's! :+P That's funny! Who ever thought of that? And if so, when?
Posted by on Tue Aug 12, 2003 at 12:07 AM
Apparently this story also works on foreign army groups. My father's army team managed to get some other group to sleep on top of their 4WD during the entire time they were out bush in Australia. The other story that goes with the drop-bears is the trip-snakes - you're walking along a track, and the snake will pull itsef across the track (coiling its tail/body around something on each side) and then, when you fall over, bite you so it can eat you.
Posted by Kellie on Sun Aug 24, 2003 at 09:01 PM
TO Mr.alex,
i enjoyed looking at your web page but i do not believe in drop bears
Posted by on Tue Oct 14, 2003 at 05:50 PM
That sounds like an urban legend around here, the "Johnson Monster"
Posted by Joe on Sun Nov 02, 2003 at 03:51 PM
The drop bear is just another term for the Yowie, which many people in Australia believe exists. The story of the Yowie has been retold in Aboriginal communities for generations.
Posted by Willow on Tue Feb 10, 2004 at 10:05 PM
The only way to get rid of a Drop Bear is to run around in a circle 3 times very quickly. This disorients the Drop Bear and it falls to the ground paralized. Otherwise, if you have a Trip-Snake handy it will sufice as it is the Drop Bears only natural preditor. This story is not just told to guides, scouts and foreign armies, but to all backpacking tourists upon arrival on a tour in Australia.
And if you happen to see a Trip-Snake lying crippled on a bush track, give its shoulders a gentle rub, it normally just has a pinched nerve and will slither away quickly once it recovers.
Posted by sykobanana on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 01:49 AM
my friend got attacked by a drop bear a year ago
Posted by Justin on Sat Mar 06, 2004 at 08:01 PM
There is no such thing as a Drop Bear or a Trip Snake. Although I would stand under a tree because a snake or spider could fall on you and many of the snakes and spiders in Australia are poisonous. Some of them are very aggressive and there I think the Tiger snake would even chase after you to bite you, more than once. That could be fatal.
Posted by Micaela in New South Wales on Sun Mar 28, 2004 at 04:22 AM
The complement to the drop-bear is the upstone: bushwalkers must watch out from above and below when walking Down Under.
Posted by James on Tue Mar 30, 2004 at 02:49 PM
As a boyscout member of the 2nd Parramatta troop, I was introduced to the horrors of Drop Bears by the senior scouts and in turn, passed the same horror stories onto the kids below me as I advanced in rank. Drop Bears were described as a subspecies of Koala Bear (a marsupial) with two very long incisor teeth, that would wait on a branch for someone to pause underneath. It would then fall from the tree, driving the large teeth into the spinal chord at the base of the neck. This would paralyse the victim and allow the creature to eat. May of the smarter kids (including myself) were wise enough not to heed the stories of Drop Bears.
But there was another creature that lived in the Australian bush that likewise frightened younger Scouts: "Ombilie-Gombilies". According to the senior scouts, an Ombilie-Gombilie was a small non-descript creature known to attack enmasse and gnaw off any protruding toes and fingers that slipped from a tent or sleeping bag at night. One scout was found screaming and running around the forest covered with blood one night and when I backtracked his footsteps, it seems he had tripped over a fresh deer carcass and has landed in the chest cavity which had been opened by foxed or wild dogs. Of course, all the other kids thought the Obilie-Gombilie stories were true after that and refused to believe my explaination.
As for Yowies (an Aussie version of Bigfoot), I was present when a Park Ranger came by to ask us one night if we'd seen anything since he was investigating a legitimate sighting by elderly campers upriver. Of course, two scouts had been running about with one atop the other's shoulders and a ground-sheet over them so it was hard to take the report seriously. Until we discovered giant footprints and a forensic team had been taking moulds of them a week before we arrived.
Nowdays I'm one of the premier visual effects artist for the film industry and get to design and make my own mosters every week.
Posted by Marco Nero in Australia on Sun Apr 18, 2004 at 08:24 PM
who is dumb enough to
1. lie under a tree in australia
2. spit up into the air and not realise that gravity is against you and ur spit will fall back onto your face.........is anyone dumb enough to try it out???
Posted by me on Thu May 27, 2004 at 10:29 PM
I'm from NZ and as these damn aussies just LOVE teasing us new zealanders, my friend started talking to me about drop bears one day. the fool thing is, after a few minutes i was seriously saying 'no come on emma, honestly, drop bears arent real ... are they?'
Posted by Anji in Australia on Sat Jun 12, 2004 at 07:27 AM
I'm an Aussie, I've been a girl guide, a girl guide leader and I've bushwalked all over the place, but I've never heard about drop bears before. I feel deprived! I really could have used that to scare my charges and fellow guides on camps. The hilarity of the entire thing is that no one stops to think hard about the method of finding one! And we don't even have bears here. (If it's meant to be a cousin of the koala, I'm sorry to say the koala isn't part of the bear family either.)
Posted by Kiara on Fri Jul 16, 2004 at 12:24 AM
The version of drop bear I heard about is:
When a koala (-bear) up in the tree dies, it naturally falls out of the tree onto the ground. So one has to look out so as not to get hit on the head by a dead koala.
This version is usually believed by all non-Aussies. Try it out!
Posted by Susanne on Wed Aug 18, 2004 at 07:01 AM
My best friend was fooled by that one... but then again she also thought a shark was living in my pond. SO I wouldn't use her as a example!
Posted by Sherie in USA on Tue Nov 09, 2004 at 06:55 PM
Drop bears don't exist, to my knowledge, but they're plausible (except for the spitting thing). Koalas can become very fierce if severely provoked, and ancient Australia was home to many carnivorous marsupials. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine an arboreal, carnivorous relative of the koala that hunts by dropping out of trees onto its prey.
Posted by Anonymous on Fri Dec 31, 2004 at 04:39 PM
Smileys
Drop bears actually refers to the Marsupial Lion-Thylacoleo carnifex, which dropped down onto its prey killing it by the sheer weight of the beast.
Posted by t.c in SYdney-AUstralia on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 08:21 PM
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HOAX HAIKU
Rustling leaves - wind? birds?
Fear not the eucalyptus
But what hides within.
(by Terran)
Fear not the eucalyptus
But what hides within.
(by Terran)