Drop bear

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A drop bear (or dropbear) is a non-existent^[1] Australian marsupial. Drop bears are commonly said to be unusually large, vicious, carnivorous koalas that inhabit treetops and attack their prey by dropping onto their heads from above.^[2] They are an example of local lore intended to frighten and confuse outsiders, and amuse locals, similar to the jackalope, hoop snake, wild haggis or snipe.

It is often suggested that doing ridiculous things like having forks in the hair or Vegemite or toothpaste spread behind the ears will deter the creatures.^[3]

[edit] Drop bears in popular culture

• Drop bears appear in the novel The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett. In that novel, the wizard Rincewind travels through the Australia-like continent of Fourecks, and is attacked by some (that is most) of the creatures while traveling through the desert. Rincewind is wearing the traditional pointed wizard's hat, which serves to protect Rincewind's head from the stunning blow of the bear, and stun the bear itself. When the first bear's attack is unsuccessful, a massive cadre of dropbears begins to fall from the trees out of sheer astonishment. When hearing about this later, the locals insist that drop bears don't really exist.
• Escape Velocity Nova, an Australian-designed 2002 computer game from Ambrosia Software, contains attacks from alleged drop bears in Auroran Empire space. These drop bears are actually young Auroran warriors in disguise.
• A Bundaberg Rum ad series featured stories about the drop bears being used by Australian male campers to get some female backpackers to move their tents close to the boys so they could chat them up. The attractive female backpackers are incredulous until the Bundy Rum Bear (a large talking polar bear often featured in the company's advertising) drops out of a tree near the edge of the lake, squashing one of the girl's tents.
• In Warren Ellis's comic Nextwave, weaponized drop bears are deployed from an air-based military platform.^[4]
• The D20 Modern RPG sourcebook D20 Menace Manual features Drop Bears as a Monster Type.
• Australian cartoonist Ian Dalkin had a popular cartoon strip 'Derek the Drop-Bear' which ran in the Sydney Sun an afternoon newspaper in Sydney that was folded by Fairfax in the early 90s.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Phantom kangaroo
• Fictional national animals
• Bunyip
• Yowie
• Queensland Tiger