North americans have bears and mountain lions. South East Asia has snakes. Australia has some of the world's most poisenous spiders. South Africa has white sharks.
And Germany has - ticks.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...481040,00.html
Got bitten twice as a small boy, with no tick-typical virus infection, but both times the small wound became infected, in one case leading to an extremely painful blood poisening once that almost led to the loss of an arm. Needless to say I hate these little beasts.