Explanation: Several attempts were made in the 19th century AD to introduce the mongoose, a small predator, into Australia, as a means of pest control. In part to control pests that European colonists themselves introduced. “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly…”
Unlike several other major incidents, like rabbits and cane toads, the mongoose population did NOT uncontrollably explode and wreck the environment. In fact, they failed to take root entirely, despite over a thousand of them being introduced.
Danger Continent too spicy for the mongoose
Further explanation:
Mongoose are snake predators and have developed resistance to cobra venoms native to their home range. Most of the time they avoid any bites with relfexes and speed but they do get hit.
Although Australian poisonous snakes are of the cobra family, they have different venom complexes to those in India etc. Their immunity developed over millennia of evolution doesn’t work. So the introduced mongooses ended up as a dinner for the snakes.
