Expansionist Eucalypti

Sound of leaves rustling…

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Warrun: Frighteningly aggressive.

BBC: Eucalyptus fire

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Wilga: Ssh. They’ll hear you.

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Warrun: Even if they could, they wouldn’t care. They’re even better equipped for taking over territory than humans.

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Wilga: You really think so?

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Warrun: These trees drop leaves and bark. Then they drop oil. This becomes an oil field just sitting there waiting for a spark. BOOM. The fire shoots up the tree to the crown, races over the treetops and firesticks take the blaze far away.

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Wilga: A mass self immolation taking out everything?

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Warrun: It’s a colonization of renewal. The explosions send seeds for miles. They repopulate, outgrow the competition, and they’ve occupied a whole new region.

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Voice-over
Blue gum eucalyptus have been called candles, gasoline trees, fireworks factories. Who needs a legged army of conquistadores when you have such an arsenal of botanical weapons to aggressively colonize?

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