Ozzy Kid Makes Horror Discovery In School Sandpit During His Lunchbreak

Ozzyland gets a pretty bad rap for its dangerous animals.  With all the crocodiles and snakes and spiders and scorpions and box jellyfish and cassowaries and blue-ringed octopuses and drop bears, it’s a wonder any of us are left alive to tell tales of our horri-f***ing-fying fauna.  Fortunately, our vigilant little Ozzykids are awake to the danger – and they’re ready to spot potential threats as they appear!

Take for example the clever little tucker who was digging around in his school sandpit during lunchbreak when he found some suspicious little eggs.  Fortunately, this little dude decided against munching on them and instead told his teacher about them.  (Told you he was a smart one.)

Mmmm, tasty. Credit: Fawna

Seriously though, it’s bloody lucky that he did tell an adult because those weren’t just your regular tasty eggs, they were brown snake eggs.  Now, if you don’t know, brown snakes are not the kind of snakes you want hanging around a school.

Usually I loathe mongering fear regarding snakes because I like them a lot, but brown snakes are bloody lethal.  The eastern brown snake is the second-most venomous snake in the world and just a drop of its venom can kill an adult.  What makes it more horrifying than another Ozzy snake, the inland taipan (the only snake more venomous than it), is that it’s pretty bloody common.

Anyway, this little fella’s told his teacher and – as you would expect – more investigation followed.  By the time they’d combed the sandpit to make sure it was all clear, they’d found 43 eggs.  That means 43 eastern brown snakes could have been wriggling through a school sandpit.

‘Nuff said. Credit: Australian Venom Research Institute

Before you say, yeah, but they’re only babies, stop being a whinger, baby snakes are born with the same capacity to bite and inject venom as adult ones.  While they don’t pump as much per bite as a full-grown snake or have fangs as big, it’s the same chemical concoction and even a drop can kill.  That’s not good.

Eastern browns are identifiable by the blotches on the underbelly. Hope you don’t see them. Credit: Greg Calvert

UPDATE: Hang on a minute, me cobbers!  It seems that some blokes are asking questions about whether or not the eggs actually are brown snake eggs.  There seems to be a suspicion that the eggs could be from a water dragon.

Imagine 43 of these in the playground. Credit: Soul land

However, and I have to say I agree with this, the school is saying it cannot take a chance on something so possibly dangerous.  It’s kind of a no-brainer really, especially when Rod Miller, from Fawna, said he shone a torch through the eggs and saw striped snakes inside during the initial investigation.

Regardless, the eggs have been relocated and released into the wild.

While I’d love to be an expert on this, I guess we’ll never know the truth.  While 43 water dragons hatching in a sandpit would be an exciting moment for children, I’m pretty sure the school would be in deep doo-doo if the eggs were left behind and the sandpit began to writhe like a gorgon’s haircut.

I know what I’d want to happen if it was my kid’s school!

Check out this little vid from the Barefoot Bushman featuring an eastern brown.

H/T: News.com.