From Abracadabra to Zombies
reader comments: bunyips
14 Aug 2003
Just a thought about bunyips…..freshwater cod (Murray cod} that are known to
grow to at least 200lbs (still caught regularly around 80lbs) prefer deep,
still pools….billabongs, and are more than capable of swallowing a child…the
various descriptions are probably
To explain what had never been seen as aborigines had no capacity to catch a fish of this size, and would rarely, if ever have seen one.
There is some thought that these stories were told to children (before white settlement and for a short time after until we were able to pretty much wipe out the cod) to stop them from swimming in such places as there is a fair chance they would have been eaten if a large cod was present. They are voracious eaters…I bought 2 fingerlings around an inch long for my aquarium…very soon after they were put together one began swallowing the other. over a period of a few days the dead fish was gradually swallowed and excreted
Simultaneously….interesting to watch.
Strange cries at night can easily be explained by a couple of nocturnal birds that make some awful screaming noises and seem to do so only occasionally and only at night.
I have no evidence for the above -,just a lifetime of observation.
Peter Close
reply: I've been to your country and became a bit concerned when a walk on the beach was interrupted by a sign warning of the possibility of sudden attacks by salt water crocodiles. Stories abound of people sunning on a rock one moment, gone the next, disappearing in the jaws of some wild creature or succumbing to the bite of a deadly spider. Or swimming peacefully one moment and sleeping with the jellies or sharks the next. Now you tell me there is also a man-eating cod lurking in ponds? Delightful!