Latest news with #platypus
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
A personal platypus: the strange tale of Winston Churchill's ‘magnificently idiotic' wartime request
There is a photo – or at least a 'fabled' photo – that would tie up a lot of loose ends in the strange story of Winston Churchill's platypuses. Recent research has revived the tale of how the British prime minister asked Australia to send him a live monotreme at the height of the second world war. Sadly his namesake, Winston, died just two days before landing in England in 1943 in now disputed circumstances. But Associate Prof Nancy Cushing, an environmental history specialist at the University of Newcastle, says Winston's journey would never have happened without the knowledge gained from a second platypus, Splash, that was also sent to Churchill – albeit after it had died and been stuffed. Cushing describes the connection between Churchill and the platypuses as 'weirdly compelling'. Splash sat on Churchill's desk while Operation Platypus – a series of reconnaissance missions in Borneo – was under way, academic research has found. 'I think one thing we would have loved to have found, and is fabled to exist, is a photograph of Splash on Churchill's desk,' Cushing says. 'There hasn't been really any discussion of [Splash's journey to London]. And that was such a breakthrough. Before its death, Splash was the first of the sensitive, duck-billed, beaverish animals to be successfully kept in captivity by Healesville Sanctuary's Robert Eadie. 'Without Splash there wouldn't have been an attempt to send Winston. He defined how you look after a platypus in captivity.' Churchill famously kept a menagerie, which included kangaroos and black swans. In 1943, he asked Australia's external affairs minister, Herbert 'Doc' Evatt, if he could have not just one platypus, but half a dozen, a request described by the zoo owner and author Gerald Durrell as 'magnificently idiotic'. Monotremes, which include echidnas as well as platypuses, are distinct from other mammals because they lay eggs. With their duck-like bill, flat tail and partially webbed feet, they are so strange looking that many early European scientists studying specimens suspected they were a hoax. Cushing and Kevin Markwell, from Southern Cross University, wrote in 2009 in their paper Platypus diplomacy: animals gifts in international relations that efforts to fulfil Churchill's request were motivated by a desire to secure his 'personal affection' towards an Australia 'which felt abandoned by Britain during the war'. 'The feat of transferring the platypus would have brought acclaim to the Australians and viewing the platypus [at London zoo] would have reminded embattled Londoners of their Australian cousins who were also facing the grim realities of war while raising morale by providing an opportunity to see an exotic animal for the first time,' they wrote in the Journal of Australian Studies. Officials charged with satisfying the British PM's request approached Australia's 'father of conservation', David Fleay, for help. Fleay wrote of his surprise in his 1980 book Paradoxical Platypus: hobnobbing with duckbills. 'Winston Churchill had found time suddenly in the middle of the war to attempt to bring to fruition what was, apparently, a long-cherished ambition … he had actually approached our prime minister for no less than six platypuses!' he wrote. He described it as the 'shock of a lifetime' and a 'tremendous problem landed squarely in my lap'. Fleay pushed back against the idea of sending six platypuses on the dangerous mission, but caught several and picked one to go. He named him Winston, built a 'special travelling platypusary' for him (with burrows and a swimming tank) and trained a platypus keeper to look after him on the ship. 'I thought it was a really weird thing to do when you're running a country, running a war,' Fleay's son, Stephen, tells Guardian Australia from Portugal. The platypus mission was secret at the time, but Stephen gradually learned about it and says his father supervised the whole thing. 'They're very, very difficult to keep,' he says. 'But he was completely, completely devoted to the animal.' Fleay built his knowledge on the work of Eadie, his predecessor at Healesville Sanctuary. 'We occupied his original cottage when my father became director in '37, '38,' Stephen says. 'He did a lot of pioneering work with the platypus, then my father took up his work.' Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion It was Eadie who had successfully kept Splash in captivity until its death in 1937. Cushing and Markwell, referring to Eadie's own writings, wrote that the preserved remains of Splash were 'carefully packed and secretly despatched to London'. 'When delivered to 10 Downing Street on 19 June 1943, accompanied by a leather-bound scientific description of the platypus and Eadie's 1935 book The Life and Habits of the Platypus, with Sidelights on 'Splash' the Tame Platypus, Churchill was said to have been delighted and later to have displayed the platypus on his desk.' The University of Cambridge's Natalie Lawrence wrote in the BBC Wildlife Magazine that Splash, who had been a 'minor celebrity' in Australia, was sent as an 'interim gift' while plans were made to keep Winston alive on the long sea journey. '[Splash] became almost entirely tame from his training by Robert Eadie, who had, as it happened, once saved Churchill's life in the Boer war in South Africa,' Lawrence wrote. Brisbane's Courier Mail reported in 1949, in an article about Eadie's death, that he had indeed been part of a team that helped Churchill escape from captivity (though other accounts have him escaping on his own). Winston the platypus set sail on the MV Port Philip, but died just two days before he was due to reach land. The media at the time reported, presumably on advice of the authorities, that the Germans were to blame. On 1 November 1945, Adelaide's the News reported that Churchill, 'in the midst of his war-time worries, wanted an Australian platypus'. 'And he would have got a specimen, a husky young male, but for German submarines,' the paper reported. Depth charges dropped when the Port Philip encountered the submarines caused the platypus to die of shock, the paper said. Fleay wrote that a heavy concussion would have killed the sensitive creatures. 'After all, a small animal equipped with a nerve-packed, super-sensitive bill, able to detect even the delicate movements of a mosquito wriggler on stream bottoms in the dark of night, cannot hope to cope with man-made enormities such as violent explosions,' he wrote. But students from the University of Sydney studying Fleay's collections in the Australian Museum Archives said in June that a shortage of worms to feed Winston, alongside heat stress, could have been factors as well as potential distress from the detonations. The ship's logbook shows air temperatures soared above 30C and water temperatures rose above 27C for about a week as the ship crossed equatorial waters. Platypuses cannot regulate their body temperatures in environments warmer than 25C, the students wrote. 'Heat stress alone would have been enough to kill Winston,' they wrote. 'However, it is important to note that food restrictions and the shock of a depth charge, in combination with heat stress, likely had an additional impact on Winston'e wellbeing and together contributed to his demise.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
A personal platypus: the strange tale of Winston Churchill's ‘magnificently idiotic' wartime request
There is a photo – or at least a 'fabled' photo – that would tie up a lot of loose ends in the strange story of Winston Churchill's platypuses. Recent research has revived the tale of how the British prime minister asked Australia to send him a live monotreme at the height of the second world war. Sadly his namesake, Winston, died just two days before landing in England in 1943 in now disputed circumstances. But Associate Prof Nancy Cushing, an environmental history specialist at the University of Newcastle, says Winston's journey would never have happened without the knowledge gained from a second platypus, Splash, that was also sent to Churchill – albeit after it had died and been stuffed. Cushing describes the connection between Churchill and the platypuses as 'weirdly compelling'. Splash sat on Churchill's desk while Operation Platypus – a series of reconnaissance missions in Borneo – was under way, academic research has found. 'I think one thing we would have loved to have found, and is fabled to exist, is a photograph of Splash on Churchill's desk,' Cushing says. 'There hasn't been really any discussion of [Splash's journey to London]. And that was such a breakthrough. Before its death, Splash was the first of the sensitive, duck-billed, beaverish animals to be successfully kept in captivity by Healesville Sanctuary's Robert Eadie. 'Without Splash there wouldn't have been an attempt to send Winston. He defined how you look after a platypus in captivity.' Churchill famously kept a menagerie, which included kangaroos and black swans. In 1943, he asked Australia's external affairs minister, Herbert 'Doc' Evatt, if he could have not just one platypus, but half a dozen, a request described by the zoo owner and author Gerald Durrell as 'magnificently idiotic'. Monotremes, which include echidnas as well as platypuses, are distinct from other mammals because they lay eggs. With their duck-like bill, flat tail and partially webbed feet, they are so strange looking that many early European scientists studying specimens suspected they were a hoax. Cushing and Kevin Markwell, from Southern Cross University, wrote in 2009 in their paper Platypus diplomacy: animals gifts in international relations that efforts to fulfil Churchill's request were motivated by a desire to secure his 'personal affection' towards an Australia 'which felt abandoned by Britain during the war'. 'The feat of transferring the platypus would have brought acclaim to the Australians and viewing the platypus [at London zoo] would have reminded embattled Londoners of their Australian cousins who were also facing the grim realities of war while raising morale by providing an opportunity to see an exotic animal for the first time,' they wrote in the Journal of Australian Studies. Officials charged with satisfying the British PM's request approached Australia's 'father of conservation', David Fleay, for help. Fleay wrote of his surprise in his 1980 book Paradoxical Platypus: hobnobbing with duckbills. 'Winston Churchill had found time suddenly in the middle of the war to attempt to bring to fruition what was, apparently, a long-cherished ambition … he had actually approached our prime minister for no less than six platypuses!' he wrote. He described it as the 'shock of a lifetime' and a 'tremendous problem landed squarely in my lap'. Fleay pushed back against the idea of sending six platypuses on the dangerous mission, but caught several and picked one to go. He named him Winston, built a 'special travelling platypusary' for him (with burrows and a swimming tank) and trained a platypus keeper to look after him on the ship. 'I thought it was a really weird thing to do when you're running a country, running a war,' Fleay's son, Stephen, tells Guardian Australia from Portugal. The platypus mission was secret at the time, but Stephen gradually learned about it and says his father supervised the whole thing. 'They're very, very difficult to keep,' he says. 'But he was completely, completely devoted to the animal.' Fleay built his knowledge on the work of Eadie, his predecessor at Healesville Sanctuary. 'We occupied his original cottage when my father became director in '37, '38,' Stephen says. 'He did a lot of pioneering work with the platypus, then my father took up his work.' Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion It was Eadie who had successfully kept Splash in captivity until its death in 1937. Cushing and Markwell, referring to Eadie's own writings, wrote that the preserved remains of Splash were 'carefully packed and secretly despatched to London'. 'When delivered to 10 Downing Street on 19 June 1943, accompanied by a leather-bound scientific description of the platypus and Eadie's 1935 book The Life and Habits of the Platypus, with Sidelights on 'Splash' the Tame Platypus, Churchill was said to have been delighted and later to have displayed the platypus on his desk.' The University of Cambridge's Natalie Lawrence wrote in the BBC Wildlife Magazine that Splash, who had been a 'minor celebrity' in Australia, was sent as an 'interim gift' while plans were made to keep Winston alive on the long sea journey. '[Splash] became almost entirely tame from his training by Robert Eadie, who had, as it happened, once saved Churchill's life in the Boer war in South Africa,' Lawrence wrote. Brisbane's Courier Mail reported in 1949, in an article about Eadie's death, that he had indeed been part of a team that helped Churchill escape from captivity (though other accounts have him escaping on his own). Winston the platypus set sail on the MV Port Philip, but died just two days before he was due to reach land. The media at the time reported, presumably on advice of the authorities, that the Germans were to blame. On 1 November 1945, Adelaide's the News reported that Churchill, 'in the midst of his war-time worries, wanted an Australian platypus'. 'And he would have got a specimen, a husky young male, but for German submarines,' the paper reported. Depth charges dropped when the Port Philip encountered the submarines caused the platypus to die of shock, the paper said. Fleay wrote that a heavy concussion would have killed the sensitive creatures. 'After all, a small animal equipped with a nerve-packed, super-sensitive bill, able to detect even the delicate movements of a mosquito wriggler on stream bottoms in the dark of night, cannot hope to cope with man-made enormities such as violent explosions,' he wrote. But students from the University of Sydney studying Fleay's collections in the Australian Museum Archives said in June that a shortage of worms to feed Winston, alongside heat stress, could have been factors as well as potential distress from the detonations. The ship's logbook shows air temperatures soared above 30C and water temperatures rose above 27C for about a week as the ship crossed equatorial waters. Platypuses cannot regulate their body temperatures in environments warmer than 25C, the students wrote. 'Heat stress alone would have been enough to kill Winston,' they wrote. 'However, it is important to note that food restrictions and the shock of a depth charge, in combination with heat stress, likely had an additional impact on Winston'e wellbeing and together contributed to his demise.'
BBC News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The mystery of Winston Churchill's dead platypus was unsolved
Platypus are solitary creatures, but New York had been promised lovers. And while Cecil was lovesick, Penelope was apparently sick of love. In the media, she was painted as a "brazen hussy", "one of those saucy females who like to keep a male on a string". Until 1953 that is, when the pair had a four-day fling - rather upsettingly described as "all-night orgies of love", fuelled by "copious quantities of crayfish and worms". Alas, Penelope soon began nesting, and the world excitedly awaited her platypups, which were to be a massive scientific milestone – only the second bred in captivity, and the first outside Australia. After four months of princess treatment and double rations for Penelope, zookeepers checked on her nest in front of a throng of excited reporters. But they found no babies - just a disgruntled-looking Penelope, who was summarily accused of faking her pregnancy to secure more worms and less Cecil. "It was a whole scandal," Mr Cowan says - one from which Penelope's reputation never recovered. Years later, in 1957, she would vanish from her enclosure, sparking a weeks-long search and rescue mission which culminated in the zoo declaring her "presumed lost and probably dead". A day after the hunt for Penelope was called off, Cecil died of what the media diagnosed as a "broken heart". Laid to rest with the pair was any real future for platypus diplomacy. Though the Bronx Zoo would try to replicate the exchange with more platypuses in 1958, the finnicky beasts lasted under a year, and Australia soon tightened laws banning their export. The only two which have left the country since have lived at the San Diego Zoo since 2019.
The Sun
6 days ago
- General
- The Sun
Death of a duck-billed platypus gifted to Winston Churchill by Aussies finally uncovered
THE truth over the death of a duck-billed platypus sent to Winston Churchill as a wartime gift has finally been uncovered. Researchers found the baby monotreme cooked to death on its long journey to Britain from Australia. Its fate was covered up to avoid a public outcry and when it leaked a few years later was blamed on shock from German U-boat attacks on the ship on which it was carried. The truth was uncovered by students who found the ship was never bombed — and the platypus succumbed to the 27C-plus heat as it crossed the equator. Researcher Ewan Cowan said: 'It's way easier to just shift the blame on the Germans, rather than say we weren't feeding it enough, or we weren't regulating its temperature correctly.' Australia, fearing the Japanese were moving ever closer, sent the platypus to curry favour with wartime PM Churchill in 1943. It was plucked from a Melbourne river, nicknamed Winston and shipped off on a 45-day voyage, pampered with 50,000 worms, duck-egg custard and even its own full-time minder. But after crossing the Panama Canal into the Atlantic, it was found dead in its purpose-built pen. The mission was hushed up while Winston was stuffed and shelved in Churchill's office. But Australian students got to the truth by trawling archives in Canberra and London. They found an interview with Winston's minder, who insisted the crossing was peaceful. Incredibly rare watch with historic inscription sells for eye-watering price 2
BBC News
7 days ago
- General
- BBC News
How the mystery of Winston Churchill's dead platypus was finally solved
In 1943, a camouflaged ship set off from Australia to England carrying top secret cargo - a single young after his would-be owner, UK prime minister Winston Churchill, the rare monotreme was an unprecedented gift from a country desperately trying to curry favour as World War Two expanded into the Pacific and arrived on its days out from Winston's arrival, as war raged in the seas around him, the puggle was found dead in the water of his specially made "platypusary".Fearing a potential diplomatic incident, Winston's death – along with his very existence – was swept under the was preserved, stuffed and quietly shelved inside his name-sake's office, with rumours that he died of Nazi-submarine-induced shell-shock gently whispered into the mystery of who, or what, really killed him has eluded the world since - until now. Two Winstons and a war The world has always been fascinated by the platypus. An egg-laying mammal with the face and feet of a duck, an otter-shaped body and a beaver-inspired tail, many thought the creature was an elaborate hoax; a taxidermy Churchill, an avid collector of rare and exotic animals, the platypus's intrigue only made him more desperate to have one – or six – for his in 1943 he said as much to the Australian foreign minister, H.V. 'Doc' the eyes of Evatt, the fact that his country had banned the export of the creatures - or that they were notoriously difficult to transport and none had ever survived a journey that long - were merely challenges to had increasingly felt abandoned by the motherland as the Japanese drew closer and closer – and if a posse of platypuses would help Churchill respond more favourably to Canberra's requests for support, then so be David Fleay – who was asked to help with the mission – was less amenable."Imagine any man carrying the responsibilities Churchill did, with humanity on the rack in Europe and Asia, finding time to even think about, let alone want, half-a-dozen duckbilled platypuses," he wrote in his 1980 book Paradoxical Platypus. On Mr Fleay's account, he managed to talk the politicians down from six platypuses to one, and young Winston was captured from a river near Melbourne shortly elaborate platypusary – complete with hay-lined burrows and fresh Australian creek water – was constructed for him; a menu of 50,000 worms – and duck egg custard as a treat – was prepared; and an attendant was hired to wait on his every need throughout the 45-day the Pacific, through Panama Canal and into the Atlantic Ocean Winston went - before tragedy a letter to Evatt, Churchill said he was "grieved" to report that the platypus "kindly" sent to him had died in the final stretch of the journey."Its loss is a great disappointment to me," he mission's failure was kept secret for years, to avoid any public outcry. But eventually, reports about Winston's demise would begin popping up in newspapers. The ship had encountered a German U-boat, they claimed, and the platypus had been shaken to death amid a barrage of blasts. "A small animal equipped with a nerve-packed, super sensitive bill, able to detect even the delicate movements of a mosquito wriggler on stream bottoms in the dark of night, cannot hope to cope with man-made enormities such as violent explosions," Mr Fleay wrote, decades later."It was so obvious that, but for the misfortunes of war, a fine, thriving, healthy little platypus would have created history in being number one of its kind to take up residence in England." Mystery unravelled "It is a tempting story, isn't it?" PhD student Harrison Croft tells the it's one that has long raised so last year, Mr Croft embarked on his own journey: a search for archives in both Canberra and London, the Monash University student found a bunch of records from the ship's crew, including an interview with the platypus attendant charged with keeping Winston alive."They did a sort of post-mortem, and he was very particular. He was very certain that there was no explosion, that it was all very calm and quiet on board," Mr Croft says. A state away, another team in Sydney was looking into Winston's life too. David Fleay's personal collection had been donated to the Australian Museum, and staff all over the building were desperate to know if it held answers."You'd ride in the lifts and some doctor from mammalogy… [would ask] 'what archival evidence is there that Winston died from depth charge detonations?'" the museum's archive manager Robert Dooley tells the BBC."This is something that had intrigued people for a long time."With the help of a team of interns from the University of Sydney, they set about digitising all of Fleay's records in a bid to find out. Even as far back as the 1940s, people knew that platypuses were voracious eaters. Legend of the species' appetite was so great that the UK authorities drafted an announcement offering to pay young boys to catch worms and deliver them to feed Winston upon his the platypus attendant's logbook, the interns found evidence that his rations en route were being decreased as some of the worms began to it was water and air temperatures, which had been noted down at 8am and 6pm every day, that held the key to solving the readings were taken at two of the cooler points of the day, and still, as the ship crossed the equator over about a week, the recorded temperatures climbed well beyond 27C - what we now know is the safe threshold for platypus the benefit of hindsight - and an extra 80 years of scientific research into the species - the University of Sydney team determined Winston was essentially cooked they can't definitively rule out the submarine shell-shock story, they say the impact of those prolonged high temperatures alone would have been enough to kill Winston. "It's way easier to just shift the blame on the Germans, rather than say we weren't feeding it enough, or we weren't regulating its temperature correctly," Ewan Cowan tells the BBC."History is totally dependent on who's telling the story," Paul Zaki adds. Platypus diplomacy goes extinct Not to be dissuaded by its initial attempt at platypus diplomacy, Australia would try again in off the achievement of successfully breeding a platypus in captivity for the first time – a feat that wouldn't be replicated for another 50 years – Mr Fleay convinced the Australian government to let the Bronx Zoo have three of the creatures in a bid to deepen ties with the Winston's secret journey across the Pacific, this voyage garnered huge attention. Betty, Penelope and Cecil docked in Boston to much fanfare, before the trio was reportedly escorted via limousine to New York City, where Australia's ambassador was waiting to feed them the ceremonial first would die soon after she arrived, but Penelope and Cecil quickly became celebrities. Crowds clamoured for a glimpse of the animals. A wedding was planned. The tabloids obsessed over their every move. Platypus are solitary creatures, but New York had been promised lovers. And while Cecil was lovesick, Penelope was apparently sick of love. In the media, she was painted as a "brazen hussy", "one of those saucy females who like to keep a male on a string".Until 1953 that is, when the pair had a four-day fling - rather upsettingly described as "all-night orgies of love" - fuelled by "copious quantities of crayfish and worms".Alas, Penelope soon began nesting, and the world excitedly awaited her platypups, which were to be a massive scientific milestone – only the second bred in captivity, and the first outside four months of princess treatment and double rations for Penelope, zookeepers checked on her nest in front of a throng of excited reporters. But they found no babies - just a disgruntled-looking Penelope, who was summarily accused of faking her pregnancy to secure more worms and less Cecil."It was a whole scandal," Mr Cowan says - one from which Penelope's reputation never later, in 1957, she would vanish from her enclosure, sparking a weeks-long search and rescue mission which culminated in the zoo declaring her "presumed lost and probably dead".A day after the hunt for Penelope was called off, Cecil died of what the media diagnosed as a "broken heart".Laid to rest with the pair was any real future for platypus the Bronx Zoo would try to replicate the exchange with more platypuses in 1958, the finnicky beasts lasted under a year, and Australia soon tightened laws banning their export. The only two which have left the country since have lived at the San Diego Zoo since 2019.
