You're Seventy-three. You Don't Need a Platypus!

"You're seventy-three.  You don't need a platypus!" 

Terry said as he watched me snuggling a plush puggle 

in the Taronga Zoo's gift store in Sydney, Australia.

He knows me too well. 

Taronga

"But when I buy something, 

it helps Taronga's work for platypuses 

and other wildlife conservation efforts." 

"Charity begins at home, Babe."

Like I haven't heard that before!

Less than an hour before I had experienced one of the most magical moments of my life:

I had seen a real, live platypus, a puggle named Tilly.

And she captured my heart in a nanosecond!

Tilly, on the Cover of Australian Geographic

November.December 2023

It was a dream come true, something I had promised myself I'd do

when I was a small girl in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada,

and my mother read to me about the duck-billed platypus.

I had finally seen this perplexing creature:  an egg-laying monotreme

that was a mixture of a duck, a beaver, and an otter.

The platypus was such a weird and improbable animal

that the first western scientists who examined them thought they must be a hoax. 

In 1799 zoologist George Shaw was sent the pelt and the bill of a platypus from Australia, 

and he became the first western to describe the strange animal. (atlas obscura)

George Shaw’s Illustration of a Duck-Billed Platypus (1809)

George Kearsley Shaw

Wikipedia

Platypuses are monotremes or egg-laying mammals. 

"Mono" refers to single and "treme" to hole so monotreme means "single hole." 

Along with four species of echidnas (spiny anteaters),

they are the only mammals to have a cloaca

or single hole for peeing, defecating, mating, and laying eggs. 

But platypuses' unusual characteristics don't end with egg-laying and cloacas. 

Adult platypuses have no stomach or teeth.

Although they hatch with teeth, platypuses lose them when they start eating solid food.

The teeth are replaced by keratin discs at the back of their jaws which grind their food.

The platypus digestive track includes a small expanded pouch

containing Brunner's glands instead of digestive acids or enzymes.

These glands produce a thick fluid to help the platypus absorb nutrients. 

Feeding Platypus

Wikimedia ~ Brisbane City Council ~ License

Platypuses are carnivorous and hunt live prey: 

insect larvae, crayfish (yabbies), small fish, and worms

on the bottoms of rivers, lakes, streams, and ponds.

They eat 20-50% of their body weight in food each day. 

When hunting in the water, the platypus closes its eyes, ears, and nostrils,

and relies on an unusual aquatic sense, electroreception.

Platypuses are one of a very few mammals known to use electroreception to find prey.

The others are echidnas and the Guiana dolphin. 

As a platypus swims, it moves its head quickly from side to side

and locates small electrical signals from its prey.

Thousands of receptors lining its bill pick up the electrical signals. 

(Some platypus sources refer to electrolocation, others to electroreception.)

Infographic of Platypus Electrolocation

Wikimedia ~ Chiswick Chap ~ License

This National Geographic video shows a platypus hunting for prey.

YouTube

Platypuses have other unusual characteristics.

Male platypuses are one of the few venomous mammals on earth.

The venom is produced mostly during mating season

in crural glands that are connected to hollow spurs on their hind legs.

The venom can paralyze small animals.

It won't kill a person, but it causes excruciating pain

that doesn't respond to morphine and can last days, weeks, or months.

The Venomous Spur on the Hind Leg of a Male Platypus

Wikimedia ~ License

Females platypuses are unusual in that they lack nipples to suckle their young.

Instead, their mammary glands secrete milk which collects in grooves in the mother's skin.

Baby platypuses, or puggles, lap up the milk or suck it from tufts of the mother's fur.

Female platypuses usually don't breed until they are four years old.

After mating the female builds a nest in a burrow located near water.

Following a three-week gestation period, the female lays 1 to 3 eggs.

She will incubate the eggs for about 10 days by pressing them to her belly with her tail.

When the babies hatch, they are the size of a nickel and weigh 50 to 80 grams

The fragile and vulnerable babies remain in the burrow for three or four months,

until they can swim and forage on their own.

australian.museum

Mother with Babies

reddit

Tilly, the puggle who captured my heart at the Taronga Zoo, 

cannot have been on her own for very long when she was found

under a bush on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

She was weak, severely malnourished, and covered in ticks.

This made it difficult for her to swim and survive, 

because her waterproofing was impaired.

She couldn't remain buoyant, dry, and maintain her temperature 

properly while she was in the water.

Tilly at Taronga's Wildlife Hospital

Taronga Conservation Society

Tilly was about four months old and weighed only 280 grams

when Taronga’s Wildlife Hospital admitted her in April 2023.

She began to recover under the expert care of Taronga's platypus team

who fed her by hand 6 times a day for 2 months.

She was named Matilda after Australia's beloved women's soccer team,

the Matildas, which placed 4th in the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023.

When I saw Tilly in November she was about 10 months old and weighed over 700 grams.

taronga.org.au

When Terry and I visited the Taronga Zoo on November 10, 2023,

the first thing I did was go to the information desk and ask about the platypuses.

An enthusiastic young volunteer told me to go see Tilly.

"She's a real show girl!  And she loves people," he said.

Then he told us Tilly's story and how she hunts using electrolocation.

We headed her way to the Nguwing nura or Nocturnal Country exhibit,

a place for nocturnal animals which opened in September.

Three Spinifex Hopping Mice

Nguwing nura, Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia

November 10, 2023

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Tilly was the last animal in the Nocturnal Country exhibit.

At first we could see nothing, and suddenly there she was swimming in figure eights.

She was so small!  

I had always imagined platypuses to be about a yard in length, 

but Tilly was barely over a foot long.  I was shocked!

(I later learned that adult female platypuses are 1.2-1.8 feet/37-55 cm long 

and weight 1.3-3.7 pounds/0.6 -1.7 kg). Australian Museum

Tilly knew right where we were on the left side of her habitat.

She kept swimming in figure eights, and she'd stop right in front of us

and jump straight up and down four or five times,

her bill and head launched perpendicular above the surface of the water.

I felt a powerful connection with Tilly which is what made the experience magical.

After five minutes Terry literally dragged me away.

He thought Tilly was cute,

but the Seal Show was starting soon and he wanted a good seat.

Tilly Starting or Finishing a Figure Eight (Black Spot, Lower Left)

I literally could not see her fast enough to get a good picture with my iPhone

Nguwing nura, Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia

November 10, 2023

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

The seals were great fun, but I'll take Tilly over them any time.

Spectacular Tricks

 Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia

November 10, 2023

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

I will never forget those magical minutes with Tilly.

They literally were one of the highlights of my life.

Thank goodness for all the people and organizations working to preserve

platypuses and the other amazing Australian animals.

I'm linking to  Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date and Nicole's  Friday Face Off.

For Rain's TADD, I am sharing a piece of public art in Sydney

known informally as "The Big Matchsticks."

The matches were sculpted by Australian artist Brett Whiteley

who named his creation "Almost Once."

The sculpture is a reflection on life and death

with the burnt out match representing a life well lived.

He gifted it to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991,

shortly before his death in 1992.  cultureshock-adventure

Almost Once

 Art Gallery NSW, Sydney, Australia

November 9, 2023

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

For Nicole's FFO, I'm sharing the face of the animal my brother

Roy most wants to see, a Tasmanian devil.

A Tasmanian Devil

Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia

November 10, 2023

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Have a great weekend!  🌺 Aloha!!! 🌺

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

  My next post will be soon! 🤞

On the Bay of Fundy
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

 

    

George Shaw’s Illustration of a Duck-Billed Platypus (1809):  General Research Division, The New York Public Library. "Duck-billed Platypus." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1809. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-5117-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99