1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,560 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:12,080 Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. When you enter the right wetlands in 3 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:16,640 Speaker 1: New Caledonia, New Zealand, Tasmania or mainland Australia, you might 4 00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:19,880 Speaker 1: just come across a tan and speckled heron that's got 5 00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:23,200 Speaker 1: the voice of an electric bass. You're more likely to 6 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:25,880 Speaker 1: hear it before you see it in the flesh or 7 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:31,160 Speaker 1: in the feathers, as it were. The booming cry, deep 8 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:34,320 Speaker 1: and resonant of male Australian bittern birds when they're ready 9 00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:36,960 Speaker 1: to breed sounds like it could have been ripped straight 10 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:40,760 Speaker 1: out of an eighties horror movie. That unsettling sound is 11 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:43,960 Speaker 1: why the Australian bittern is also called the bunyip bird, 12 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:48,320 Speaker 1: after a legendary cryptid with a similarly frightening bellow that's 13 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:50,640 Speaker 1: said to prey on humans and live in the remote 14 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: billabongs and wetlands of Australia. Legends about the bunyip began 15 00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:00,720 Speaker 1: in Aboriginal communities as cautionary stories to warn people against 16 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:03,760 Speaker 1: things like going in the water alone, taking more fish 17 00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:07,480 Speaker 1: than they needed, or wandering alone at night. Don't do it. 18 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:11,440 Speaker 1: The bunyip will get you. Lots of people's had similar 19 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:15,040 Speaker 1: stories about local water spirits, like the Mulawonk of the 20 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:20,440 Speaker 1: Narringerry people love southeastern Australia. The word bunyip is thought 21 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,200 Speaker 1: to derive from the Wergaya language word anib, the name 22 00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,800 Speaker 1: of a fearsome emu like river spirit from neighboring people. 23 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,959 Speaker 1: The legends morphed as they moved amongst different peoples, and 24 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:37,319 Speaker 1: again as European colonists picked them up. In the eighteen nineties, 25 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,479 Speaker 1: a novelist by the name of Rosa Campbell Prade, who 26 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:43,600 Speaker 1: had grown up in Queensland, wrote a short story called 27 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:47,160 Speaker 1: The Bunyip, now considered a classic work of Gothic horror. 28 00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:50,880 Speaker 1: In it, she wrote, the bunyip is said to be 29 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:55,120 Speaker 1: an amphibious animal, and is variously described, sometimes as a 30 00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:59,360 Speaker 1: giant snake, sometimes as a species of rhinoceros with a smooth, 31 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:01,840 Speaker 1: pulpy sk and a head like that of a calf, 32 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:05,680 Speaker 1: sometimes as a huge pig, its body yellow crossed with 33 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:08,840 Speaker 1: black stripes. But it is also said to be something 34 00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:12,920 Speaker 1: more than an animal, and among its supernatural attributes is 35 00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:17,120 Speaker 1: the cold, awesome, uncanny feeling which creeps over a company 36 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:20,040 Speaker 1: at night. When the bunyip becomes the subject of conversation. 37 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:27,040 Speaker 1: Over time, the bunyip further evolved. In the nineteen seventies, 38 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,720 Speaker 1: the city of murray Bridge received a somewhat fearsome, mechanical 39 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:33,640 Speaker 1: bunyip named Bert that, for a charge of twenty cents, 40 00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:37,520 Speaker 1: could be observed emerging from the water and bellowing. It's 41 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:40,800 Speaker 1: since been rebuilt to look more friendly and renamed Bertha. 42 00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:44,640 Speaker 1: You can now visit her free of charge, and today 43 00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:47,760 Speaker 1: there's a whole subgenre of children's books about the bunyip, 44 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:52,040 Speaker 1: ranging from classic cautionary myths to tales of friendly, if 45 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:57,680 Speaker 1: misunderstood monsters. Whatever the difference is in the details, the 46 00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:01,280 Speaker 1: beast is usually said to have a mighty roar, hence 47 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:06,920 Speaker 1: the Australian bitterns awesome nickname. In nineteen forty six, Australian 48 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:11,240 Speaker 1: geographer Charles Fenner wrote, the mysterious booming sound made by 49 00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:14,640 Speaker 1: the bittern a very shy bird, has become associated with 50 00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 1: the bunyip, but actual observers have usually described the sound 51 00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:23,800 Speaker 1: of the latter as a roar or bellow. The tales 52 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,720 Speaker 1: of the bunyip flourished during Fenner's lifetime, as Europeans further 53 00:03:27,760 --> 00:03:31,600 Speaker 1: settled Australia, unfamiliar with the sounds of the bush, many 54 00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:35,400 Speaker 1: colonists were convinced of the bunyip's existence as an undiscovered animal. 55 00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:38,920 Speaker 1: To this day, there are those who believe the legendary 56 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:42,840 Speaker 1: bunyip could be a one hundred percent real, undiscovered species 57 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:47,160 Speaker 1: lurking in the wetlands of the vast Australian continent. Wildlife 58 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:51,440 Speaker 1: experts aren't sold, though, especially because no verified corpses or 59 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:55,880 Speaker 1: other remains have ever come to light. A skull that 60 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,200 Speaker 1: supposedly belonged to a bunyip went on display in eighteen 61 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:03,320 Speaker 1: forty seven at the Colonial Museum of Sydney. However, a 62 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:06,240 Speaker 1: naturalist examined it and revealed it was actually the head 63 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:10,880 Speaker 1: of a deformed horse. Another famous bunyip head, this one 64 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:14,600 Speaker 1: complete with fur, found its way to Sydney's Macclay Museum, 65 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 1: alas it turned out the specimen came from yet another horse. 66 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:23,599 Speaker 1: Australia has no shortage of genuine animals that seem too 67 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:27,960 Speaker 1: weird to exist, like the duck billed platypus. Equally amazing, 68 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:31,200 Speaker 1: if a bit less strange, are the multitudes of seals 69 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,120 Speaker 1: and sea lions that can be encountered on the nation's beaches. 70 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:38,000 Speaker 1: We should also acknowledge the saltwater crocodile, a semi aquatic 71 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:42,480 Speaker 1: predator that stocks Australian waterways and coastlines. Capable of weighing 72 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:46,080 Speaker 1: two thousand, six hundred pounds that's one two hundred kilos 73 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:49,080 Speaker 1: and reaching lengths of over twenty feet or six meters, 74 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:54,520 Speaker 1: it's the biggest reptile alive today. Could any of these 75 00:04:54,560 --> 00:05:00,880 Speaker 1: beasts have contributed to bunyip lore? Perhaps also a chance 76 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:04,200 Speaker 1: that the storytellers of ancient Australia were inspired by the 77 00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:09,599 Speaker 1: now extinct rhino sized herbivore Diprotodon, a marsupial that roamed 78 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:13,839 Speaker 1: the continent during the last Ice Age. However, paleontologists have 79 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:17,920 Speaker 1: questioned this idea too, on the grounds that Diprotodon doesn't 80 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:23,560 Speaker 1: neatly align with most descriptions of the bunyip. Whatever its origins, 81 00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:27,159 Speaker 1: the bunyip, like other cryptids, holds a very real place 82 00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:31,359 Speaker 1: in our collective imagination, especially should you find yourself alone 83 00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:38,520 Speaker 1: by the water on a dark night. Today's episode is 84 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:40,800 Speaker 1: based on the article does the bunyip really haunt the 85 00:05:40,839 --> 00:05:44,120 Speaker 1: Australian Wetlands on how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Mark Mancini. 86 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:46,840 Speaker 1: Brain Stuff was production of by Heart Radio in partnership 87 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:49,320 Speaker 1: with how Stuffworks dot Com and as produced by Tyler Klang. 88 00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:52,840 Speaker 1: Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 89 00:05:52,960 --> 00:06:05,599 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.