If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise…..
Spotted Quoll Dasyurus maculatus, image from environment.nsw.gov.au)
It’s not often we have to put a graphic content warning but here it is, the following is a bit gruesome but I thought it interesting.
Now, despite the stories that everything in Australia wants to eat you, bite you or in some way kill or maim you Australia is a fairly safe place (just keep out of the water), no bears, no lions or wolves, apart from Dingos that generally leave people alone we really are short on land based predators, so camping in the wild is a relatively safe activity.
But it hasn’t always been so, recent research has found 111 times between 1831 and 1916 that Quolls have been recorded as gnawing on human corpses, including that of Sergeant Michael Kennedy shot by the Kelly Gang, “one ear was gone. I imagined it had been gnawed away by native cats (quolls). The body was very much decomposed”.
The rest of the story here: https://theconversation.com/research-reveals-111-times-australian-quolls-reportedly-chewed-on-human-corpses-179566