HAPPY PLATYPUS DAY 🎉
Here's some silly guys for the occasion!
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#platypus #platypusday #animal #platypi #platypuses #cute #funny #booty #silly #chibi #acggoods #meme #cartoon #toony #digitalart #art #artist
A platypus lower jaw and upper jaw, showing one remaining horny pad and three empty sockets where the pads have fallen out. From the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge
The #platypus has solved the key flaw of mammal teeth - that they can't be replaced*: #platypuses got rid of teeth. Instead they have horny pads to smash the crayfish & larvae they eat. As they wear down, they just regrow like fingernails.
*Unless you're a nabarlek, a rock-wallaby with endless teeth
A #platypus waddles her way upstream, constantly foraging. As well as using touch to find food, platypus bills can detect the electrical impulses given off by their prey's muscular contractions.
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses #fieldwork
My lifer Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) today... at the Hobart rivulet. There are only 5 egg-laying mammals on the planet. 4 of them are echidnas, and the other is this strange creature. #WildTasmania #WildAustralia #mammals #platypuses #platypi
A terrible video glimpsing a mountain #platypus in heavy snow. Tasmanian #platypuses are hardy little fellows (or perhaps big fellows - they can be three times heavier than their counterparts in tropical #Queensland).
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz
Platypuses hunt underwater (their bills detect the electricity given off by their preys' muscles), and cram the food into cheek-pouches, then come to the surface to chew it up.
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
Just a #platypus having a scratch.
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
A shop-display of books, including Platypus Matters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals, among other Tasmanian-themed publications
Platypus Matters on an armchair in front of a fireplace
Platypus Matters on a mossy log next to a dark stream
I've never been more pleased to see #PlatypusMatters on sale than in the little shop at #CradleMountain Lodge. I started writing it by the fire here on evenings after #fieldwork, and have spent countless hours sat on this log - just minutes away - watching for #platypuses It has come full circle 🥰
Today was a #platypus day. 🤩 It was snowing, but #platypuses have incredibly dense fur. It's so thick that they can spend 30 hours non-stop foraging in the extremely chilly Tasmanian water without their skin actually getting wet. #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz
A fossil skeleton of Dimetrodon, with a giant sail-back
...egg-laying in mammals was clear proof of #evolution: a mix of features from different groups. The first mammals inherited egg-laying from their synapsid ancestors (like Dimetrodon) - #platypuses & #echidnas have not changed this feature in their evolution, but other mammals did.
Kenny Travouillon holding a platypus skin rug
Wow. By my count, 81 #platypuses were killed for this rug. It was donated to the Western Australian Museum in 1906, from a donor in Victoria, where platypuses have been protected since 1892 (they were hunted heavily due to their thick, waterproof pelts). @kennytravouillon.bsky.social for scale.
A platypus at the surface of a stream, with three tiny twigs across its back
I'm not entirely convinced by this #platypus' attempt at disguising itself behind some twigs.
#fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
A section of the book Platypus Matters. It reads: My feelings can readily be imagined. I would rather have lost all of my shipment of a very valuable cargo of birds, Mattersanimals, and reptiles. This was not because the platypus was worth more (far from it), but because it was my ambition to bring one alive to America. I am glad to say that good fortune eventually favoured me, since on June 30, 1922, I landed in San Francisco with the first living platypus ever brought to America.
#OTD in 1922, animal-dealer Ellis Joseph left Sydney with five live #platypuses. In #PlatypusMatters, I explain that one died whilst still in southern Australian waters. Two succumbed to a massive wave crushing their tank soon after. A fourth died while the ship was in Hawaii. One made it. He wrote:
A really fat taxidermy platypus
Another really fat taxidermy platypus
I've arrived at Manchester Museum and of course the first order of business is a pilgrimage two of the world's fattest #platypuses. Absolute chonkbeasts.
#fattypus #taxidermy #platypus
Two books on a wooden table: The Platypus and the Mermaid by Harriet Ritvo, and The Platypus by Tom Grant.
A freeze-dried platypus
New additions to the #platypus library! I'll particularly treasure these as they're gifts from Adrian Friday - the man who first got me into #platypuses when I was a student in @camzoology.bsky.social 24 years ago, with the way he talked about this stunning freeze-dried platypus. 😍 #PlatypusMatters
When a #platypus comes at you so fast you can't keep it in focus, and then swims past so close you can't keep your legs out of shot.
#platypuses #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz
A preserved platypus bill upside-down in a jar.
A close-up of the bill
A pretty grim specimen of a #platypus bill, but looking closely at the flap of the face-shield, there are thousands of tiny pores. #Platypuses' bills contain receptors for detecting movement underwater, but also ⚡️electricity⚡️: they can detect the electric impulses running through their prey's nerves
A multi-tasking #platypus: chewing & scratching at the same time.
When #platypuses dive, they cram their cheek pouches full of food, to chew when they surface. Platypuses don't have teeth (they wear down too easily): they've replaced them with ever-growing horny ridges.
#Tasmania #fieldwork #WildOz
Fun facts:
#Platypuses do not urinate through their penis - it's used for reproduction only.
They keep their balls inside their bodies, like elephants, whales, beavers & sloths.
#Platypus eggshells are laid down very early in development inside the female, & the shell then grows with the egg. 🥚
Two jars side by side, showing the preserved organs of a male (left) and female platypus, mounted onto white backing boards
Just found these fascinating #platypus dissections of male & female reproductive organs. They show the cloaca (the one-stop-shop opening for all their reproduction and waste-disposal needs), their internal testes, and the egg-producing ovaries (like birds, #platypuses only use one of their ovaries).
This is a brilliant little vid (<4mins) of a conversation between a #platypus and the world's greatest ever platypusologist Harry Burrell. Burrell taught us much of what we know about #platypuses, albeit through some rather questionable methods.
Three taxidermy platypuses. One stood traditionally on all fours, one stood up on two legs, peering over the third, which is curved up on its neck with its beak and feet in the air.
Three taxidermy platypuses. One stood traditionally on all fours, one stood up on two legs, peering over the third, which is curved up on its neck with its beak and feet in the air.
Playful #platypuses! What an awesome #taxidermy trio, showing some non-standard platy-poses (for the record, platypuses do roll over onto their backs like this to scratch).
And it provides a great view of the male #platypus' horny venom-spur by his ankle. At @mnhn.fr Grand Gallery of #Evolution.
Hello everyone fleeing Twitter. Have a #platypus.
#MammalWatching #Tasmania #WildOz #platypuses
A close-up view of a #platypus having a scratch, before foraging in the shallows, walking on her knuckles to protect her huge webbed hands.
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
Sometimes, life gives you a #platypus coming down a waterfall. 🤩
#Tasmania #platypuses #fieldwork #MammalWatching #WildOz
Often the best way to spot a #platypus is to look for the cloud of mud they kick up while they're foraging underwater.
#fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
I'm loving seeing the pics of #PlatypusMatters that appeared in people's Christmas stockings! 🎁📚
There's surely no better present than the gift of #platypuses! 🤩
A very busy #platypus frantically trying to find *all the food* among the stream pebbles. #Platypuses use their bills to detect the electrical signals given off by crayfish, insect larvae and worms' muscles.
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz
Platypuses are mesmerising. Nothing better has ever evolved.
#platypus #MammalWatching #WildOz #Tasmania #platypuses
A #platypus works her way through a couple of natural dams made by fallen trees, foraging as she goes. The first one looks like a perfect platypus water-slide.
#Tasmania ##MammalWatching #WildOz #platypuses
