Dropbear

A Dropbear is a special kind of folkloric creature from Australia that while widely portrayed as geniune is in reality a modern invention designed as a light-hearted joke by locals to fool guillable tourists or simply to entertain people who happen to visit the great Outback, the Dropbear is jokingly referred to as one of Australia's most terrifying monsters and locals often have fun in making up ridiculous methods of protecting oneself from the mythical beasts - which in itself is a means of poking fun at the concept of superstition.

Legend
According to legend a Dropbear is a vicious, abnormally large koala with a taste for human flesh - they can vary from being outright predators to simply territorial but they are seldom seen as benevolent - they get their name from their supposed habit of dropping out of trees to ambush their victims and are reportedly supernaturally strong, capable of overpowering a full-grown human with ease.

Although Dropbears are in essence a pure fairytale told to frighten and/or amuse tourists their may be some inspiration to the legend in the fact a sleeping koala may on very rare occassions drop onto an unfortunate individual and appear to attack them due to be startled - of course such events would rarely, if ever, be fatal to the unfortunate person involved but observers may then proceed to exaggerate accounts of such events - thus beginning an urban legend.