Inside tip · Kuranda

Myth or legit: Australia once had a real tree-climbing, meat-eating marsupial, a bit like a drop bear.

Answer: Legit

The drop bear is an urban legend, but the Australian Museum holds fossils of an eerily similar real predator: Thylacoleo carnifex, the largest meat-eating marsupial on record. Mostly a ground-dweller, it could climb, maybe to ambush from above.