Platypus comes from the Greek platupous, meaning flat-footed. It was identified by early colonists in Australia who called it a duckbill and first described by Dr George Shaw, who thought the animal was a hoax, but still named it and published an extensive description in The Naturalist’s Miscellany in 1799. His entry includes the lines “Of all the mammals yet known it seems the most extraordinary in its confirmation, exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a duck engrafted on the head of a quadraped.”
One of the few mammals that reproduces by laying eggs, what the platypus lacks in beauty it compensates for in distinctiveness.
7 Jun /13
