The platypus makes its U.S. debut - July 15th, 1922

On this day in 1922, the duck-billed platypus was exhibited for the first time in the U.S. at the Bronx Zoo.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that d mystifies history one day at a time.
I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're talking about the first
time that the average American ever laid eyes on a real,

(00:22):
live platypus, and why that encounter proved to be a
turning point for the credibility of the species. The day
was July fifteenth, nineteen twenty two. The duck billed platypus
was exhibited for the first time in the US at
the Bronx Zoo. It was also the first time that

(00:46):
a live platypus had ever been seen outside of its
native habitats in Australia and Tasmania. Until then, the rest
of the world had only seen stuffed specimens, illustrations, or
the rare photograph, and while the same was true of
many other exotic animals, the platypus held a special place
in the public's imagination at the time. The animal had

(01:09):
only been known to people outside of Australia for a
little over a century, and the descriptions of it that
had circulated during that time were almost beyond belief. The
name platypus is a latinization of the Greek word for
flat foot platypodia, but flat feet are hardly the animals
defining characteristic. With a bill like a duck, a tail

(01:33):
like a beaver, and clawd webbed feet like those of
an otter, the platypus looks like a real life chimera,
a bizarre cross between a semi aquatic mammal and a bird.
Look a little closer, and you'll find they share reptilian
qualities as well. For instance, platypuses or platypi reproduced by

(01:54):
laying small, leathery eggs like a snake, and the males
of the species are born with a sharp, venomous stinger
on the heels of their back feet a toxic spur
that the animal wields to fend off competing suitors during
mating season. These disparate traits aren't a coincidence either. In
two thousand and eight, scientists deciphered the entire genome sequence

(02:17):
of the duck billed platypus and discovered that it shares
DNA with mammals, birds, and reptiles. At some point in
the species history, it probably could have gone either way,
but in the end, the platypus landed firmly in the
mammal camp thanks to its warm blooded body, dense fur
and hair, and ability to produce milk for its young.

(02:39):
Although on those last two points the platypus is still
a standout among mammals. For instance, researchers recently learned that
platypus fur glows blue and green under ultraviolet light, possibly
as a way to reduce their visibility to predators. That
kind of biofluorescence is a rarity in the mammal class

(03:01):
and is only known to be shared by two other species,
the flying squirrel and the possum. That said, the way
the platypus produces milk is even more unique. Unlike all
other mammals except for fellow egg laying odd ball, the Echidna,
platypuses don't have nipples. Instead, the females release milk through

(03:23):
memory gland ducts on their abdomen. The babies then nurse
by sucking the milk from her fur or from the
folds of her skin. Of course, not all of those
unusual traits were known to scientists in the eighteenth century,
but the platypus's general appearance was enough on its own
to raise the question of whether the animal actually existed.

(03:46):
In fact, when the first taxidermid platypus was sent back
to England from Australia in the late seventeen hundreds, the
scientists who examined it thought the animal was a hoax.
They suspected that somebody had sown a ducts onto the
body of a beaver like mammal, but after carefully searching
the animal's dried skin, they found no sign of stitches.

(04:09):
In the first scientific description of the platypus, published in
seventeen ninety nine, English naturalist George Shaw admitted to being
puzzled by the creature. It is impossible, he wrote, not
to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of
the animal, and to surmise that there might have been
practiced some arts of deception in its structure, some deceptive

(04:33):
preparation by artificial means. Shaw's skepticism was shared by zoologists
all over the world for the next one hundred years,
but at the turn of the twentieth century, the truth
of the platypus's existence finally began to break through. That
was largely thanks to the efforts of Australia naturalist Harry Burrell.

(04:55):
At the time, the animals were plentiful in the wild
and lived just as they do now in the freshwater
wetlands along Australia's East coast, but no platypus had yet
managed to survive in captivity until Burrell created the first platypussary,
a portable artificial nursery habitat designed to mimic the cozy

(05:17):
shoreline burrows where the animals lay their eggs and nurse
their young. Thanks to Burrell's ingenuity, a platypus was exhibited
for the first time in Australia at the Moore Park
Zoological Gardens in nineteen ten. Then three years later, Burrell
was contacted by Ellis Stanley Joseph, an Indian American wildlife

(05:39):
trader who was interested in bringing a live platypus to
the United States. Burrell spent the next several years teaching
Joseph how to care for the animal, and in nineteen
sixteen they sent a live one back to America aboard
a boat departing from Sydney. Unfortunately, the little guy didn't
survive the voyage and it would be another six years before,

(06:01):
Joseph tried again. Finally, in the summer of nineteen twenty two,
he worked out a deal with the Bronx Zoo, which
had long hoped to acquire the mysterious animal for its collection.
With an assist from Harry Burrell, Joseph secured five male
platypuses and boarded a boat with them bound for San Francisco.

(06:21):
Once again, though the voyage proved difficult, and by the
time the ship arrived in early July, only a single
platypus had survived. After a brief stopover to procure more
fresh worms, Joseph and the final platypus resumed their journey
to New York City and arrived at the Bronx Zoo
on July fourteenth. The following day, the unnamed platypus was

(06:45):
exhibited for the first time at a small official gathering
at the zoo. The New York Times, which was on
hand for the occasion, hailed the platypus as an extremely
rare and distinguished visitor from Australia, although the paper reported
that the animal was too shy to enjoy his welcoming
party as much as the other guests. He's said to

(07:07):
have eaten a fresh worm lunch with Gusto, the zoo's
director at the time, Doctor Hornaday, was thrilled to finally
meet a platypus in person. He told the press quote,
the spell of ten thousand years has been broken. The
most wonderful of all living mammals has been carried alive
from the insular confines of its far too distant native

(07:30):
land and introduced abroad. Through a combination of favorable circumstances.
It has been the good fortune of New York to
give hospitality to the first platypus that ever left Australia
and landed on a foreign shore. No matter what evil
fate may hereafter overtake the platypus, nothing can rid us

(07:51):
of the fact that New York has looked upon a
living platypus and found it mighty interesting. Hornaday's ominous men
of an evil fate proved sadly prescient, as the first
platypus to reach the US only survived another forty nine
days in captivity. It was the last time that a

(08:12):
living platypus would be seen in the United States until
twenty five years later, when the Bronx Zoo once again
exhibited platypuses that time a pair named Penelope and Cecil.
In the years since, only a handful of platypi have
been allowed to leave Australia, as the species is now
considered near threatened due to habitat loss. In addition to

(08:36):
monitoring the export of the animals, the government has also
tightened regulations to protect the three hundred thousand or so
adults that are believed to still exist in the wild.
Anyone caught capturing or killing a platypus could face up
to several hundred thousand dollars in fines. That high penalty
seems more than appropriate to help safeguard these little weirdos,

(09:00):
because now that we know they really do exist, letting
them slip away would make us look more ridiculous than
they do. I'm gay, Blues gay, and hopefully you now
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you'd like to keep up with the show, you
can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI

(09:24):
HC Show and if you have any comments or suggestions,
feel free to send them my way by writing to
this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias
for producing the show. And thanks to you for listening.
I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day
in history class.