This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batchel with my mate Jeremy Zackas,

New South Wales, reporting on reptiles. I jest sometimes that everything in Australia is exotic

and will try to kill you. That is especially true of the venomous snakes. There's a tragedy this week, and we'll come to that.

We want to start with a test that Jeremy sent me.

Can you spot the snake in the shrubs?

What it looks like is springtime in the woods.

Lots of broken leaves, fallen sticks, some weedy bushes starting to green in, not too much yet, nothing like

high summer, and wet soil in the background. It's either been raining or dried out very quickly.

The sticks lie where they fell, and Jeremy says, can you find the snake? No way I could find the snake.

Everything either looks like a snake or looks like a stick that is a snake.

So if I were walking through this woods, I would step over the big logs and keep walking.

I would be stupid.

Jeremy, I can't find that snake.

You help me understand where it is right now.

Can anybody see that snake when they're watching in the woods?

I mean, you're used to it.

Could you see it?

Honestly, John, I have to say with this photo in particular, I did struggle.

I really took a long time to find it.

This is very, very typical of my childhood, in fact.

This is how I've nearly been

bitten by snakes, because what you're seeing there, as he described, is a very typical Australian

...