The hoax that wasn't

In 1799, British naturalist George Shaw excitedly studied an extraordinary dried specimen from the newly established colony of New South Wales. The small, otter-like animal, measuring about 35 cm, had a duck-like bill on the furred body of a four-legged animal (Plate 15.9b). He named it Platypus anatinus. Until further specimens arrived the following year, however, he worried that the remarkable animal was a surgically prepared hoax. Renowned German anatomist Johann Blumenbach had no such reservations when he received a specimen in 1800. Unaware of Shaw's work in the slow communications of those pre-internet days, he also described the new animal, naming it Ornithorhynchus paradoxus. The scientific name was ultimately resolved as Ornithorhynchus anatinus and ‘platypus’ was kept as the common name. The surprises, though, were far from over. Excavations of platypus burrows on river and creek beds revealed that, although furred, it laid eggs and nourished the newly hatched young with milk. The truth of platypus eggs was not confirmed until 1884 when William Caldwell, fresh from excavating a burrow and dissecting an egg, telegrammed from outback Queensland to a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His message read ‘monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic’. The platypus thus blended characteristics of reptiles, birds and mammals – most of the groups of animals with a backbone – in one species.