Richard Feidler

He came here in 1816 to serve as a judge.

He wrote, Kangaroo, kangaroo, thou spirit of Australia that redeems from utter failure, from perfect desolation, and warrants the creation of this fifth part of the earth,

which would seem an afterbirth, not conceived in the beginning, for God blessed his work at first, and saw that it was good, but emerged at the first sinning, when the ground was therefore cursed, and hence this barren wood.

Imagine arriving in Australia and just going, well, this is God's junkyard like this.

It's an extraordinary thing.

This is really a widespread phenomenon, you found.

Yes, Australia, very nice, but it's not Kew Gardens is it?

That attitude as well.

The word primitive is interesting.

Does that mean anything to you as a naturalist, as a zoologist?

What does primitive mean?

Yeah, and you could turn it around, like you say, and say that the platypus has these advanced grinding mechanisms to grind down their food.

They have these advanced forms of very stable compounds in their venom.

But it's not like they're a platypus...

Scientists in laboratories working on this all the time, is there?

So it's a kind of an odd thing to say that's primitive or advanced.

None of this makes sense.

What about intelligence?

Sometimes they're regarded as, Australian animals are often dismissed as unintelligent.

Oh, yeah.