"Beer thieving pig gets drunk and start a fight with cow"
Great headline, however I'm sure it's something that goes down in many Australian households every Friday night.
Indeed, this is not news if by "pig" the article is referring to a:
1) Mining magnate
2) Politician
3) Footballer
4) Police officer (awww SNAP!)
4) Any Australian male
It does, however, refer to an actual wild pig. With tusks and everything. Who stole 18 beers from an Australian campground in Port Hedland, Western Australia. Then drank them all, because in Australia, even the animals don't do anything in moderation.
The pig had been on the tear for days, and according to campers even tried to start a fight with a cow. Which apparently did not end well.
The pugnacious porker was last seen resting against a tree stump on a riverbank, nursing what is probably the worst hangover it's ever had. Unless during the week it works in finance or banking, among the fat cats and other pigs who are known for their mid-week benders.
In better news for the pig, it's not likely to be charged. As the campers were only upset about the loss of beer, and as pigs don't carry wallets, the campers were sceptical of the animal's ability to pay them back.
In other weird Australian animal news, a fish with two mouths was caught at South Australia's Lake Bonney.
Gary Warrick caught the bony bream and commented that, "Both mouths are actually joined together. The top one opens and closes but the bottom one looks permanently open. Other than that, it's a normal fish."
Warrick has worked as a commercial fisherman in the area for many years, and has stumbled across other deformities including odd-shaped heads.
Making up this tricky trio of weird and wonderful fauna stories, limpet teeth have just been found to be the strongest biological material on the planet, knocking spider silk from top spot.
"The structure of these tiny sea snails' choppers is so strong, engineers could copy it to make cars, planes, and other objects prone to collision," said Asa Barber, an engineering professor at the University of Portsmouth.
So what do these three stories have in common?
Apart from being true oddities, each in their own special way, it's the lack of reflection that strikes me as particularly Australian.
Pigs are drinking beer, a fish has two mouths and is one of many mutant sea creatures pulled from a lake, and the strongest biological material ever known has just been uncovered.
According to the news reports in Australia, what have we learned from all this?
Not once was it mentioned that campsites might be too close to nature, introduced feral pigs are at plague proportions, mutant fish could be caused by something more sinister than just random 'ol nature, and that snail teeth could be good for something other than things that crash into other things.
Instead, we've concluded that in Australia:
1) Nothing's worse than stealing beer.
2) Mutant fish just happen sometimes, ya know? Nothing to do with toxic anything.
3) Crashing into stuff can't be avoided. So we need to make stronger stuff.
4) Snail teeth might also be good for false human teeth. Which is something else designed to crash into stuff, and is about as visionary as using rocks to make fake rocks, or turds into contestants on "I'm a celebrity but not quite and my career needs a boost." Or whatever that crap is called.
5) When it comes to reporting the news in Australia, it's never about what we can do for nature, but what nature can do to entertain us.
Tune in next week for spectacular photos of polar bears roaming city streets, cute pics of penguins with sunburn, and vision of icebergs collapsing in real time. WOW. Onya nature.
In case you're interested, read about the aforementioned animal crazies in the real news here: