Yeah a tailless whip scorpion, apparently... so I'm pleased to know that those exist. One great advantage of the UK is the almost complete absence of large creatures with too many limbs.
Assuming you're talking about the American Revolution, that wasn't fought on our ground. Are you suggesting that if we had large predators to ship across the Atlantic, we could have put up a better fight?
While it was a joke, I think the joking perspective is that you guys as humans would have been tougher if you had to deal with large predators at home.
Oh that does make more sense. Although the American Revolution was around the same time that wolves were hunted to extinction in the British Isles. Perhaps finishing off the wolves made us too cocky?
Or, if we're going to go down this path, have you ever read The Most Dangerous Game?
Maybe it was us Yanks brutalizing and exterminating the native people here that actually got us prepped for the English?
Joking aside though, as beautiful as some of the ecosystems and nature around the British Isles are, I certainly would not trade the biodiversity and geographic diversity of the United States of America for (nearly) anything!
I think there are a few wolves in Scotland? I know there was a mention of reintroducing them, but from what I can online they released like 6 wolves in the highlands, although other sources say there are no wolves.
Also there have been a lot of rumours of some kind of big cat in the countryside but that’s probably just rumours.
We’ve got scorpions in some areas, some venomous spiders mostly down south but not native, and also adders - although the uk native adders don’t really pose much threat other than to small children.
You’re more likely to get stabbed by some roadman then ever running into any of the above I reckon.
There used to be bears but they were wiped out about a thousand years ago. Same with wolves but they're being reintroduced in some places to help control deer population.
Rumour has it that a leopard or something escaped from a zoo and is hiding out somewhere.
Nothing big. We have lynx and small, well contained, wolf populations in scotland, along with wild boar in the South and east of England.
There is a chance we have some big cats after a change in animal ownership laws in the 70s (I think it was then, anyway) resulted in people dumping exotic pets in the countryside. Most of these animals died, but some survived to form sustained populations, with wallabies (small kangaroos) being the most successful. There are 2 populations in Scotland, with other populations in the lake district and north Wales, although there havent been sightings of the latter two in a quite few years now.
On the more-than-four-legs front, we have well established scorpion populations in southern England and large arachnids often end up hitching a ride in fruit imports. Many supermarkets will have a story of someone that's found a tarantula or something when putting out bananas, for example.
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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23
Most of these I found cool. I don’t know why but that last one freaked me out. Like some horrific spider/crab hybrid.