Ornithorhynchology (PLATYPUSES) with Tahneal Hawke

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Speaker 1 Oh, hey, it's the coffee shop guy who is happy to heat up your muffin, Allie Ward. And though we can't all be in Australia right now, we are all here for platypuses.

Speaker 1 What is with this ology, you ask me, horrified by the amount of letters. Well, ornithohynchus in Greek,

Speaker 1 that word, that portmanteau of words, means bird-like.

Speaker 1 And the species we're going to be chatting about, anatonus means duck-like so these critters names literally translate to bird-like duck-like although there was this outmoded species name paradoxus which just means unexpected platypus itself that word means big flat feet we're going to talk about those two as well as this other just constellation of confusions that is the platypus.

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Speaker 1 And on to this week's guests who got their PhD in biological sciences with a focus on impacts of river regulation on platypus population dynamics from Sydney's University of New South Wales, where they are now a joint senior research associate, as well as at Taranga Conservation Society.

Speaker 1 They have nearly a decade in monitoring wild platypus populations.

Speaker 1 They've worked with nearly 500 wild ones, publishing numerous papers on these animals, including Field Anesthesia for Platypuses: A Proven Method in the Case for Non-Veterinarian Accreditation pathways in the journal Australian Mammology.

Speaker 1 They let me ask so many befuddled questions on mine and your behalf. So say goodbye to Small Talk about the weather forever because this single episode of Ologies will give you icebreakers.

Speaker 1 for the rest of your life as we touch on their fur, their face, their butts, their tails, their evolution, their conservation, how to spot a platypus, why you shouldn't have one in your bathtub, field work down under, platypuses and espionage, milk, eggs, hoaxes, and a lot of soft, stunned gasps with biologist, conservationist, scholar, professor, and ornitho rhyncologist Dr.

Speaker 1 Teniel Hawk.

Speaker 2 Sneal Hawke, my pronouns are she, her.

Speaker 1 Okay, first things first, platypuses, platypie. What's the deal?

Speaker 2 So, platypuses, technically platypodes, but that's not really widely used. The reason is because it's actually Greek origin.

Speaker 2 So, if it was Latin origin, it would be platypie, but because it's Greek origin, we go, we generally go with platypuses.

Speaker 1 Okay, that makes sense, and it solves the most burning question in a lot of people's minds.

Speaker 2 That is, I would say, my most asked question.

Speaker 2 Okay, good.

Speaker 1 We got it right off the top. Well, it's been great talking to you, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.
And that's it. That's all I got.

Speaker 2 No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 What about species? Are there a lot of them or just one?

Speaker 2 Just one species of platypus right across their range, which is like pretty unique.

Speaker 2 We're kind of looking into the genetics a bit and there's kind of a bit of a difference, you know, across east to west, but not enough to even be a subspecies. So just one species, yeah.

Speaker 1 Are they slightly different sizes or something, or do they just have different vibes?

Speaker 2 A bit of a different size. So platypuses in Australia, they extend from kind of up north in Cairns in Queensland all the way down to Tasmania.
So right along the east coast of Australia.

Speaker 2 So if you're up north, you'll find that the platypuses are much smaller. But when you come down to Tassie, they're starting to get pretty big.
Like a male will be around three kilos.

Speaker 2 So there's quite a size difference.

Speaker 1 Six and a half pounds. So a little more than a standard bag of flour or a two liter bottle of soda.
I should not be drinking. And those babies, as tiny as half a kilo or a pound, but on average.

Speaker 1 If you had to compare them to a size dog or a cat, like what kind of pet would they be?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess smaller than both, like your standard dog. Yeah, much smaller.
Like maybe a small kitten vibe, i guess yeah

Speaker 2 they're that small yeah a lot of people when they see them they're quite surprised by the size they expect them to be kind of like you know like otter beaver size yeah yeah but definitely much smaller like i guess average would be around a kilo a kilo and a half and about 50 centimeters so yeah they're much smaller than what people expect so about 20 inches long and weighing three and a half pounds or like the teacuppiest yorkie that you can fathom i never knew that i thought they were beaver beaver-sized, or like if you had a friend who has like a 20-pound cat and you go, whoa, that's a big one.

Speaker 1 I thought they'd be about that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, much smaller, much smaller.

Speaker 1 Holy smokes. Okay, and there's only one species.
Only Australia?

Speaker 2 Only Australia, yeah. So endemic to Australia, which, you know, makes them very unique in terms of their evolution.

Speaker 1 Do many zoos even carry them, have any in stock?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so it's a bit of a hot topic. Platypus, like they're pretty hard to keep in captivity.

Speaker 2 There are a few institutions, so we have Taronga Zoo in Sydney and out at Dubbo here that house platypus really successfully.

Speaker 2 And also Healesville Sanctuary down in Victoria, who have like a long history of having platypus in captivity.

Speaker 2 And, you know, they're really kind of they know how to house them well, they know what they need. And there's a few other institutions around Australia that do it really well.

Speaker 2 There is also over at San Diego Safari Park, they've got a pair of platypuses that came over from Sydney a few years ago who are doing really well.

Speaker 1 So let's hear it for ambassador animals and probably reluctant Australian expats, Eve and Birarung, whose name in Aboriginal means a river of mists and shadows.

Speaker 1 And the two arrived in sunny San Diego in 2019 and the park keeps their night owl schedule by making sure their enclosure is dark during the day.

Speaker 1 And if you are looking for some breathless tabloid gossip about their personal lives, scientists dish that Bera, for short, is more relaxed with his keepers, but more active.

Speaker 1 And he's a quote, sleep on top of the covers guy who's ready to go as soon as he sees his keepers at 6 a.m.

Speaker 1 However, Eve likes to sleep in all cozy, is more talkative than Bera, greeting her keepers with quote, a hissy growl vocalization when they check on her nest box.

Speaker 1 And if you were like, get these cuties in my eyes, but you can't can't make the trip to australia or california or you're scared of the united states you can live stream san diego safari parks platypus cam

Speaker 1 and if you're like not to complain but why doesn't my zoo have ambassador rescue platypuses to enrich my life So there are a few institutions, but the problem is they're really hard to breed in captivity.

Speaker 2 So, you know, they're only really coming into these zoos if they're coming in as like rehab animals, if they're coming in from the wild injured.

Speaker 2 So that's really the only way that we can kind of get those animals in captivity.

Speaker 1 Are they bonded pairs? Like when you say that they've sent a pair, are they like, we've shipped them, we love them, they love each other, let's send them over.

Speaker 2 No, so platypus are solitary, so you know, they don't mate for life, they don't have bonded pairs. Um, that's just kind of a pair of our own doing, I guess.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, they got along pretty well at the zoo, so yeah, they went off to San Diego together. It's like married at first sight, yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 1 They're like, you're just gonna see how it goes, you know?

Speaker 1 Where are they living? I picture them living in little creeks or ponds, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 So rivers and creeks is their primary habitat. It depends on the size.
Like generally, they cope well with most conditions. Their ideal foraging depths are about one to five meters.

Speaker 2 So that's kind of where they really like hanging out.

Speaker 2 But along the east coast, yeah, if you're lucky enough, you'll find them in most river systems as long as there hasn't been like any significant degradation.

Speaker 2 But yeah, they're pretty much just hanging out in all the rivers and streams along the eastern side of Australia.

Speaker 1 You said five meters, so they can dive down to like 15 feet. Are they holding their breath in their little bills?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're amazing divers.

Speaker 2 They'll be like on the surface, they'll dive down, they'll close their eyes and ears, hold their breath, kind of scoot along the bottom looking for water bugs, and they can hold their breath for between like generally around two minutes.

Speaker 2 If they're feeling threatened, they can hold it for much longer, like up to 10 minutes, if they really want to relax and like lower their heart rate.

Speaker 2 Oh, but generally, it's around the two to three minute mark that they'll be down, and then they'll kind of pop up to the surface and eat any of the bugs that they've found.

Speaker 1 So, these sweet little weirdos, they're swimming around, they're clapping their little bills to eat up all kinds of aquatic bugs and worms and larvae and such underwater at night.

Speaker 1 How are they doing this? I can't find my lip balm in the darkness of my purse. How are they gobbling up so much in the dead of night with their eyes closed? This is this is baffling in its magic.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, essentially, they're not relying on their eyes or their ears when they're underwater. So, their bill is incredibly sensitive.

Speaker 2 It's got electroreceptors and mechanoreceptors, which essentially means like once they dive under the water, they're detecting all those electrical signals that any little water bugs, any freshwater shrimp or worms are giving off, and that's kind of guiding them to their position in the river, like down in all the mud.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, they're able to just dive down, detect those signals, find their prey, and then they'll come back up to the surface where they'll eat their prey.

Speaker 1 Is that like a, is there metal in their

Speaker 1 bill?

Speaker 2 No, no, yeah, super sensitive. They're called electromechanoreceptors.
They've got about 50,000 of them in the bill.

Speaker 2 So it's highly sensitive to just any movement or electrical impulses that are happening in the waterway.

Speaker 1 Okay, so 50,000 tiny electric receptors. This is news to me, but it's not news to ornithoarychinologists.

Speaker 1 So a 1987 paper in the Journal Nature titled Electroreceptors in the Platypus reads that it's been known since the 1800s that the bill of the platypus contains densely packed arrays of specialized receptor organs, mechanoreceptive, that can detect movements of water currents and tension and pressure.

Speaker 1 But the electroreceptive has been more surprising historically. And it says that behavioral observations showed that a platypus could detect weak electrical dipoles.

Speaker 1 And it was suggested that the animal was able to locate moving prey by the electrical activity associated with the prey's muscle contractions. The bill, it's not a beak, it's a bill, then, right?

Speaker 2 Right. Or is it a beak?

Speaker 1 Is a bill a type of beak?

Speaker 1 Clearly, I don't know jack shit about this because all I know is that they're weird. They're like a Mr.
Potato head of different parts. This is why we love them.
But yeah, is it a bill? Is it a beak?

Speaker 2 So a lot of people are also shocked when they see a platypus because they like it's called a duck bill platypus.

Speaker 2 So people have this perception that the bill is going to be similar to what we would expect from a duck's beak.

Speaker 1 So quite hard.

Speaker 2 The bill is actually very soft on a platypus. It's almost like malleable, like you can bend it.
It's very rubbery. And that's just because it's like it's so sensitive.

Speaker 2 It contains all these, you know, electro and mechanoreceptors. Yeah, so very different to the beak of a duck, which a lot of people are surprised about.

Speaker 1 Do they have teeth in there? Are they mishmashing around the bugs? How do they chew?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no teeth. They are born with like some vestigial teeth, which kind of helps them crack out of their egg.
Oh, malady. But then, as an adult, they don't have any teeth.

Speaker 2 They have what we call keratinized grinding pads. So inside the mouth, it's like these two kind of horny grooves that run kind of laterally.

Speaker 2 So when they come to the surface, they're kind of using their bill. They're kind of moving the top side to side and really grinding up all those little bugs into sort of a paste, really.
Oh.

Speaker 1 Well, speaking of horny grooves, they lay eggs.

Speaker 2 They do.

Speaker 1 Do they got jennies on the inside or the outside? How would they make it more of themselves?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so they're a monotreme. So yeah, they lay eggs and they have a cloaca.

Speaker 2 So both male and females have the cloaca, similar to what we see in a chicken, which essentially means like all their reproduction and all their feces and all their urine and everything happens in a single hole.

Speaker 2 For the males, they have like the penis and the testes are inside, like internal.

Speaker 2 When mating happens, he'll kind of flop out his penis and yeah, into the cloaca of of the female, and they will engage in mating.

Speaker 1 Yeah, did I hear wrong that it might be barbed?

Speaker 2 It is

Speaker 2 okay.

Speaker 1 Is it how many forks are like, is it the is it like the scepter of Neptune? What's happening?

Speaker 2 It is quite confronting, I'll be honest. It's like very alien-esque, is how I would describe it.

Speaker 2 So, it comes out, it has like two heads, and then at the end of each head, there is like several large spikes, but then the whole penis itself is also covered in smaller spikes.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, not my idea of a good time. I'll put it like that.

Speaker 1 No, and they're not like koosh ball squishy spikes, are they? Are they like fingernail hard?

Speaker 2 Um, yeah, like they're not huge spikes, but they're definitely hard. Like, I wouldn't want to touch it with my fingers, so I can't imagine it's too pleasant.

Speaker 1 How are there any

Speaker 2 platypuses on the planet?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, good question.

Speaker 1 I mean, and is that evolutionary purpose? I know we can only probably speculate, but is that to clean out like sperm of competitors? Or is it just because they were made of leftover parts?

Speaker 2 Yeah, don't really know, to be honest. It might be like something to do with just how they're mating in the water.
So perhaps it's like a mechanism to make sure that they stay interlocked.

Speaker 2 When they're mating, there's like a whole heap of circling maneuvers that are kind of happening, often called like a love donut leading up to the breeding.

Speaker 1 Okay, so to test the quality of a mate, a female platypus will wrestle and chase around and kind of feel out the vibe before doing any baby making.

Speaker 1 And part of this little sexual dance involves this trance-like yin-yang circle with their bodies where they clasp each other's floppy tails with their rubbery bills, and then they just merry around in the water like that.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, platypus is kind of 69.

Speaker 2 But then, when they're when they're breeding, the male will be on top.

Speaker 2 But, yeah, I'm like, we're not really sure about the mechanisms of why they have these barbs, but we do also see them in echidnas, which is their closest living species. And echidnas are on land.

Speaker 2 So, I'm not sure of the evolutionary reasons why they've retained those spurs.

Speaker 1 So, they have an egg that's fertilized through an arduous process that you probably could litigate if you were on land. Then does it pass through the oviduct and then, or the cloaca, like a bird?

Speaker 1 And then do they have like a clutch of them or is it like one and done for the season?

Speaker 2 Once the female is pregnant, it's quite a quick process to egg laying. So the male and the female will mate.
Usually within a week after that, the female knows she's pregnant.

Speaker 2 She's going to start collecting nesting material. So they are a mammal, but they do construct a nest as you would expect a bird does.
Obviously, because laying those eggs.

Speaker 2 So she's going to start collecting this nesting material. She's going to build a breeding burrow in the riverbank, and then she's going to start hauling all this nesting material deep into her burrow.

Speaker 2 She's going to construct a little nest, and then, yeah, within, you know, about 10 days, she's going to lay her eggs. And then they're going to hatch pretty quickly after that.

Speaker 1 Wait, how fast? A week and a half?

Speaker 2 About 10 days they're going to hatch.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 that's so fast.

Speaker 2 Yeah, super quick. But when the eggs hatch, they come out very small.
So if anyone's familiar with marsupials, like kangaroos, they have like a tiny baby, like jelly bean size.

Speaker 2 So they're very primitive when they're born.

Speaker 1 But no pouch.

Speaker 2 No pouch, no.

Speaker 1 So these things, again, the size of a teacup Yorkie with a bouncy, flappy bill. They got a barbed dong and babies, eggs.
Mechanics are iconic. Lifestyle, no idea here.

Speaker 1 Do they normally sleep in a burrow? Like, let's say that they're

Speaker 1 Dilfs, dual, or what is it? Dual income, no kids. Dinks.
Let's say they're dinks. Dual income, no kids.
They're child-free. Would they sleep in a burrow anyway?

Speaker 1 Or would they just be like, I don't have kids, so I'm going to sleep in this patch of wet grass?

Speaker 2 Most platypuses, I'd say 99% are going to sleep in a burrow every day. Obviously, they need to breathe air, so it's quite difficult for them to, you know, sleep in the river.

Speaker 2 So they'll construct what we call a resting burrow. And that's, you know, it's in the bank.
It's maybe a couple of meters deep, but that's kind of where they're just hanging out during the day.

Speaker 2 So, that's different to the breeding burrow.

Speaker 2 The breeding burrow is normally more complex, it's normally deeper, it might have like a series of chambers, and yeah, it'll just be a bit more complex than those day-to-day burrows that they use.

Speaker 1 When they're in their burrows, though, for the most part, they're living solo. Yeah, like when they're in their just sleeping burrows, they're just like living alone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so this is kind of what we've always thought was the case. Like I said earlier, they're like a solitary animal.

Speaker 2 We are seeing some evidence just in a few of our recent studies that in certain populations where the density is quite high, that we've noticed a number of females are kind of sleeping in these big condos of you know, females getting together in one certain area.

Speaker 2 So, whether that's like something to do with how many platypus there are, or maybe at this location, that's just like the primary estate, and they're all trying to cram in there together.

Speaker 2 We don't know.

Speaker 1 They've gentrified the particular riverbank.

Speaker 1 So sometimes, yes, there are big slumber parties with a bunch of moms and babies, just like little sweet, furry, stinky aliens underground. Do you have to get down there with fiber optic cameras?

Speaker 1 Are you checking it out? Are you doing like a Zillow home tour with a camera?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so in the wild, it's super hard to do that.

Speaker 2 Once a platypus goes into the burrow, it could be sort of anywhere in the earth mound on the riverbank so we have had a few instances where we've put like a radio tracker on the platypus and then when it goes into the burrow you can kind of use this antenna to kind of pinpoint where the animal is in the bank and we have worked with a few documentary crews that managed to like carefully very hand drill like um down through the soil when once the female was you know out foraging in the river um we knew we weren't going to disturb her.

Speaker 2 Hand-drilled down into that chamber and yeah, put a small flexible camera in and then kind of seal up the entrance.

Speaker 2 And we were able to get some really unique footage of those kind of puggles growing up in their burrow for a few weeks, which was really exciting.

Speaker 1 Puggles?

Speaker 2 Puggles, yes.

Speaker 1 They're called Puggles?

Speaker 2 Well, I guess up for debate.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, I vote yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 that's my philosophy. Generally, now it's kind of more accepted as puggles, but there's no real evidence of where that came from.

Speaker 2 And I know some of the like old school researchers might prefer to use just juvenile platypus, but you know, I think puggle kind of it gets the audience excited anyway.

Speaker 1 Like a tiny gummy bear puggle. Do they have little bills too?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so they're born, like I said, they're primitive, but they're very much, they look like a platypus. They're just tiny and pink and very underdeveloped.
Yeah, very strange looking initially.

Speaker 1 Also, I saw a video while they're building a burrow and they're making a nest in there.

Speaker 1 Females will grab bunches of vegetation with their weird little tails and then they'll drag them into the hole, into the lair.

Speaker 1 Like if you were to try to drag a bushel of corn stalks through your front door, but the long way is so ambitious. How are they digging these

Speaker 1 underground catacombs? Don't they have like a webby foot?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so the front foot of the platypus, it's super specialized. So it is webbed, it's very well adapted to swimming in the rivers because that's kind of primarily what they're doing.

Speaker 2 But it also has, they also have like nails on them as well. So they can actually kind of fold back the webbing and then they can use their nails to dig these really like intricate burrows.

Speaker 2 So yeah, there's a lot going on there.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, it's like a pocket knife. They're just like,

Speaker 1 that's amazing. I mean, are they nocturnal? Because I've seen photos of researchers out and it looks like it's nighttime and people are wearing headlamps.

Speaker 1 And are you just sneaking up on them while they're sleeping? Are they nocturnal?

Speaker 2 So primarily they are nocturnal. For us to study them, like it's all happening during the night.
It depends on what season it is.

Speaker 2 So over the winter months and kind of leading into spring in Australia is their breeding season. So they might start coming out a bit more during the day over those months.

Speaker 2 The males are trying to find females, they're trying to establish territory. So you might get a bit more daytime activity, but certainly predominantly at night.

Speaker 2 And all our research is definitely kind of focused over those evening hours.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you're working nocturnally. What is the life of a platypus expert like? Do you brew coffee at like 5 p.m.
and you're like, get your hip waiters on and you're like, let's get to work, people?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's pretty much it. I will say I've only started drinking coffee in the last few years, and I'm not sure how I used to do this job without it, to be honest.

Speaker 2 But, yeah, like a typical day, you know, we're heading out sort of in the afternoon.

Speaker 2 We're looking for sites, you know, we've got a few considerations when it comes to net setting, like the depth of the river, which nets we can use, you know, if we can get access, how fast the river's flowing.

Speaker 2 And then, yeah, we spend a couple of hours kind of putting the nets up.

Speaker 2 We're hanging out, we're waiting, hoping for platypuses, Pretty much, and it depends, you know, on the project, but normally until the morning. Wow.
And then we go again over and over.

Speaker 1 And do you know, is there like when you're fishing and there's like a bobbin, like, how do you know if you've got one that's like, ah, ah, shit, I'm in the net. You got me.
You got me.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It depends. So we have two types of nets.
One is called an unweighted gill net. And it has like a series of floating buoys on top.
And so when a platypus is foraging in the water, it'll hit that net.

Speaker 2 It'll immediately surface for air and it'll be splashing on the surface.

Speaker 2 So normally what will happen is we'll hear the splashes, but we're also kind of patrolling that net with a spotlight every couple of minutes just because we don't want to miss any action that's happening.

Speaker 2 We don't want to stress that animal out.

Speaker 2 And so we'll jump in the boat and we'll go and collect it from the net and put it in a pillowcase. Oh, yeah, yeah.
The other type of net that we have is called a fike net.

Speaker 2 That's where we're putting our waders on. You know, we're going into the river.
We're setting these nets. They're very different.
So the platypus is kind of funneled into a series of chambers.

Speaker 2 So it can be resting in the water. It can be resting out of the water.

Speaker 2 And so those ones we're checking, you know, every couple of hours throughout the night to make sure, you know, the platypus aren't in there for too long.

Speaker 1 So yes, two types of nets. And the second one, a fake net, is used in shallow waters.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like a halfway submerged hallway with these different chambers, like walking through airlocks on Star Trek. And then if you

Speaker 1 get one, then do they get kind of like a volume situation and then you're weighing them and checking, you know, taking a DNA sample and all of that?

Speaker 1 What happens when you fish them out? Do they get a treat?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I wish I could give them a treat.

Speaker 2 So like I said, once we catch, they go straight into a pillowcase. And then for us, it's really kind of, we're trying to reduce the stress to this animal.
Like, you know, these are wild animals.

Speaker 2 We don't want to cause unnecessary stress to them so once they're in the pillowcase if it's cold we'll put a little towel around them we'll put them in the car so often we have like a car full of platypus situations

Speaker 2 but they're really like they're quite comfortable there i think it maybe it like resembles their burrow a bit you know it's dark it's quiet they feel secure so normally they're just going to be resting in the pillowcase no problem Our protocols, again, this is different to some other research groups, but we actually do like an infield anesthesia for platypus.

Speaker 2 So while they're still in their pillowcase, they'll go into an induction chamber.

Speaker 2 We use like an isofluorine gas, which if you take your dog or your cat to a vet, that's kind of the standard protocol, the standard gas that they'll be using.

Speaker 2 And essentially, the platypus within a few minutes, it's just breathing in this gas, it'll go to sleep.

Speaker 2 And then that allows us to then have a really close look and take those samples for, you know, health and genetics and measurements and anything that we want to look at.

Speaker 1 Do you guys fight over whose car the platypuses go in, or are you like, do they smell like what do they smell like?

Speaker 2 They smell bad. Okay, okay.
They smell bad.

Speaker 2 Like the platypus themselves are fine, but often, you know, they're pooing in these bags, you know, they're being held for a while, and their feces is like some of the worst stuff I've ever smelled.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 generally, if someone else wants them in the car, I'm like, yeah, you can take them, put them in yours, and they can do it. The consequences on the drive home.

Speaker 1 It's because it's poop from a cloakca, but it's also made of insect paste. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right? Yeah. They're sifting through all the mud on the bottom of the river.
And they're probably, yeah, it's not a pleasant experience. And it always

Speaker 2 gets on you. And it's one of those smells that, you know, you can't really wash out too easily.
So I'm like smelling a platypus every time I'm in the field.

Speaker 1 We wanted you to have as rich an experience as possible. And I looked more into the information on the smell.

Speaker 1 One conservation site reported that fresh platypus poo looks like black mousse or soft serve ice cream, but is tacky like hot tar.

Speaker 2 It also smells a lot, it added.

Speaker 1 Some other adjectives that I found for you to savor, strong, unctuous, musky, pungent, and bad.

Speaker 1 Well, are there a lot of you on these night expeditions, or is it like a X-Files Mulder and Scully pair-up, or is it like there's 50 people?

Speaker 1 Cause everyone's like, This is the dopest job in wildlife conservation?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 this is kind of a balancing act that we play. When we first started, it was kind of us and a few volunteers, like very low-key.

Speaker 2 And I guess now that it's started to build traction in the media, people are getting excited about this research. We get a bit bombarded sometimes with requests for people to join.

Speaker 2 You know, people want to see a platypus, which is fantastic, but also we want to kind of maintain numbers to a level that, you know, we're not going to place any extra stress on these animals.

Speaker 2 Because you can imagine, you know, if you're a platypus, it's already a stressful situation going through being trapped, being prodded, and then being put back in the water.

Speaker 2 So I guess the smaller the numbers, the better, just in terms of noise and light and, you know, anything that might impact the animals.

Speaker 1 You don't want to put them on like a red carpet situation where you're like, over here, over here. Can I get a,

Speaker 1 you know, everyone's gramming them.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 1 if you're out there all night, you're drinking coffee, it's a long night. Who, where are you peeing? Where are people like? What's that like?

Speaker 2 Yeah, in the bush. I'm an expert now.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. No stress mind anymore.
Like, that's all part of it for me. But I feel like, you know, when people volunteers come out, they're always a bit like, oh, like, where's the bathrooms?

Speaker 2 You know, so I'm very, when I, when I'm putting out these calls for people to join, I'm very explicit now about like, we're out in, we're out in the woods. Like, you know, there's no comforts here.

Speaker 1 You want to be comfortable with discomfort a little bit, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, did you grow up camping a lot?

Speaker 1 Like, is this something that you didn't even have to worry about, or were you like, okay, there's a big learning curve in terms of outdoorsiness?

Speaker 2 Big learning curve. Okay.

Speaker 2 I, yeah, like, when I was younger, I loved animals and I loved the outdoors, but like, as a family, yeah, we weren't that outdoorsy family, you know, we went camping maybe a handful of times, and so when I like I started my PhD research, I was very much like in the deep end, you know, camping, boats, water, waders, making a fire, driving a four-wheel drive, like all that stuff was very foreign to me in the beginning.

Speaker 2 So the learning curve was, I would say, very steep. But yeah, I really found my feet with it, I think.
And, you know, like, I love it now. I love being outdoors, being in nature.

Speaker 2 So it's worked out pretty good, I'd say.

Speaker 1 Do you ever take friends, like close friends or family out with you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I try to. Like, when I first started this research, it was very much, oh, look at like cute animals.
I love this.

Speaker 2 I still feel that way about platypus, but I think some of the special parts now is actually getting to share that experience and share this like incredible animal with other people.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, really, any opportunity I get to take friends, family, anyone out in the field, you know, it's like a real privilege to be able to share that experience.

Speaker 1 When you started with platypuses, were you on a completely different wildlife track and then someone's like, hey, I need another researcher for this, or were you sending emails to platypus experts being like, put me in, put me in, put me in?

Speaker 2 No, I wasn't.

Speaker 2 I was looking for like an honors master's project when I was still an undergrad. And one of the professors kind of said that they had this platypus project coming up.

Speaker 2 And so I went and saw him and he said, oh, like.

Speaker 2 it's too soon it's still a few years off like nothing's kind of in motion yet and so i kind of laid that dream to rest and then a few years later i saw an advertisement advertisement for a PhD position, at which stage I had like no interest in going back to university to study.

Speaker 2 So I kind of, again, I dismissed it. But then there was, yeah, it was nagging me in the background, I guess.
So I thought, I'll just apply and see what happens. And then I got it.

Speaker 2 Been platypusing ever since.

Speaker 1 What a job. Do you get to touch them with your own hands? Do they have soft fur? Do they have soft bellies?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 They do.

Speaker 2 Yes. So while they're like anaetized, you know, you, you get like a really up-close look.
They're so soft, especially their bellies. Like, oh, yeah, really soft.

Speaker 2 And I guess, so platypuses, they were actually extensively hunted in the early 1900s. And that was because their fur is so soft, like, and it's waterproof.

Speaker 2 So they would make coats, they would make rugs, like hats, all this stuff out of platypus. And, you know, when you're touching them, you realize, you know, yeah, why? Like, very soft, very soft.

Speaker 1 So if you listen to our lutrinology episode in which we talk smack on otters, you will know that the density of their fur is what keeps air trapped close to the skin and maintains their body temperature, even when they're clocking long hours in the sea.

Speaker 1 Same thing for a platypus. So their fur is nearly as dense as otters.
It's soft. Apparently, it's almost velvety when it's dry.
And their feet, whoa, their feet are webbed ones with these long claws.

Speaker 1 The best analog visually I can think of is like a leather flamenco skirt with knives along the hem. And even the tail, it's not like a beaver tail.
It's not leathery.

Speaker 1 I looked at a picture and I was like, wait, they got a big hairy butt over here too.

Speaker 2 The tail is actually, yeah, different to the hair on the body. The underside is like hairless, but then the top side is kind of bristly.

Speaker 2 I can always describe it to people as like, I don't know, in America, like those kind of shitty brown doormats that everyone has on their front porch,

Speaker 1 you know that's a little bit dated needs replacing that's kind of what i always think of when i touch their tail like super bristly and hard compared to the rest of their soft burr oh my gosh okay so many questions can i ask you listener questions yeah for sure yep oh my gosh we have so many let's get to the milk of the things and we will lap up those answers in a moment but first let's take a quick break and donate to a cause of theologist choosing and this week dr hawk directed it toward the platypus conservation initiative which works to reestablish these amazing and irreplaceable animals in the wild, reducing their risk of extinction before it's too late.

Speaker 1 And a donation to them helps reintroduce more platypuses along Australia's East Coast. It supports vital research and outreach programs.

Speaker 1 Again, that is the Platypus Conservation Initiative, and we will link them in the show notes. So thank you to sponsors of the show who make that possible.

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Speaker 1 Okay, let's get into your questions, which you submitted via patreon.com/slash ologies.

Speaker 1 You two can join for a dollar a month, or you can pop up to an upper tier if you would like to leave an audio question, such as this one.

Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Roni. I'm from LA.
I heard in a previous episode, I think it was mammology, about how the platypus mammary glands work. And I think, I guess, my question for that is:

Speaker 2 why?

Speaker 3 Yeah, my question is, what the fuck is up with that?

Speaker 3 thank you.

Speaker 1 So mammary glands.

Speaker 2 Okay. What?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're different to mammals in the fact that platypuses don't have any nipples,

Speaker 2 but they still produce milk for their young.

Speaker 2 So what's kind of happening is when the female is in that burrow with her young, she's kind of laying on her side and she's just excreting milk through her skin essentially.

Speaker 2 And then the baby platypuses are kind of there just lapping it up up from the start.

Speaker 2 Very weird system going on there.

Speaker 1 I mean, and so many people ask this, but in so many different ways, but let's just talk about the evolution.

Speaker 1 Katie King, Nicole, ZYZ, Rosalind Hesby, Aaron Johnson, Aurora Cullen, Isoparty, Storm, Matt Thompson, ADSI erminologist, Jennifer Grogan. I mean,

Speaker 1 so many. I'm going to have to list them all on a side, or maybe not.

Speaker 1 I mean, another like 15 people want to know in ben bierdak fiore's words why do they seem to have so many unique features what happened to all their evolutionary cousins you know i mean i know that you must be so sick of people just stuttering why at you but honestly like they're so weird yeah so like so they're monotremes um so essentially that means they're a group of mammals whose ancestors have kind of retained these traits like egg laying, which is a feature lost lost by what we see in marsupial and placental animals.

Speaker 2 So it's like an ancient characteristic that's shared with birds and reptiles. It's evolved before the development of live birth.

Speaker 2 So that kind of explains what some people see as primitive egg laying traits.

Speaker 2 I tend to refer to it more as not primitive, but it's a survival of an ancient lineage that's evolved separately from other mammals.

Speaker 1 So that egg laying is kind of a bit of a throwback. It's like using a flip phone or a digicam when you go out.
It's like vintage tech, an oldie, but a goodie.

Speaker 2 So, you know, it has all these weird features, the spurs, the eggs, and then a lot of the others are kind of adapted to its environment.

Speaker 2 Like we see, you know, the webbing that we were talking about, the nails that they use to dig and walk on land.

Speaker 2 And then this bill is obviously highly adapted to the waterways and the food that it's eating.

Speaker 1 You know, so it has a real mix of morphological and evolutionary traits that, you know, come together and make this super unique animal i understand that when someone in europe was shipped a specimen they thought it was a hoax but they were looking to see if it was stitched together from a lot of different animals how long has the colonizing world outside of australia known of these beautiful creatures?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so yeah, the first one that ever went back to Europe, they were like, this can't be real. This is a duck and a beaver stitched together.
So they had it under a microscope.

Speaker 2 They were looking for the stitching, you know, where the bill attached yeah it's not been long people still don't really believe that this animal exists i think like sometimes when i put stuff on social media and you know it goes viral internationally it's like people from other parts of the world are still like wait these things are real like this this animal actually exists so yeah i think maybe still a lot of people around the world don't actually know about platypus to be honest I mean, I think that they're possibly the most fascinating animal on the planet.

Speaker 1 They are a hodgepodge of so many different things and they're so rare and now I know that they're like kitten-sized. I'm in love.

Speaker 1 Do you know of any Aboriginal or Indigenous sort of like traditions or myths about it?

Speaker 1 Doug Foster, Aaron Farley, Char Harrison and AJ wanted to know in Char's words what importance do they hold in like Indigenous Australian culture?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so the platypus is considered a totem animal for some Indigenous Aboriginal cultures here in Australia. So, you know, it holds deep cultural significance to those groups.

Speaker 2 And it does feature in some creation stories and there's spiritual traditions associated with the animal.

Speaker 2 There's some evidence in certain areas that perhaps platypus were eaten by Indigenous people, but then for other areas, you know, it was considered too sacred to be hunted or eaten.

Speaker 2 So yeah, it definitely depends on where in Australia. Obviously, the platypus is specific to the east coast, so it definitely has stronger ties to certain Indigenous peoples throughout that area.

Speaker 1 Well, you mentioned eating too. A few people wanted to know if anyone eats their eggs or tries their milk and what it might taste like.

Speaker 2 Do you have any data?

Speaker 2 My answer is going to be no.

Speaker 2 So, you know, platypus, like to see a platypus even in the wild is rare. To come across their eggs inside the burrow, it's exceptionally rare.
Like, you, I'd say it would almost never happen.

Speaker 2 And if it did, the eggs are tiny. Like, so I was talking about, you know, the size of the platypus when it's first born, but the eggs are very small, like, you know, nothing like a chicken egg.

Speaker 2 We're talking more like an oversized spider egg almost. Wow.

Speaker 1 Like a breath mint, kind of, like if you were going to have a mentos.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay.
So like mentos size, but round. So, you know, you wouldn't get much nutritional value out of a platypus egg, I don't think.

Speaker 2 And you know, in terms of the milk, yeah, you'd have to find, I guess, a lactating platypus and then be willing to suckle the milk straight from its stomach.

Speaker 2 So, you know, if you're lucky enough to do that, go for it.

Speaker 1 I'm sure there's one person out there in history who has. Hey, don't worry, y'all.

Speaker 1 I found an account from the 1832 paper titled On the Mammary Glands of the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus, in which this anatomist, Sir Richard Owen, recounts very hands-on research, writing, on compressing the glands in a specimen, there escaped from these orifices minute drops of a yellowish oil, which afforded neither the perceptible taste nor smell, except such that was derived from the preserving liquor.

Speaker 1 I mean, he says he did this, but if you were to bop over to the Sir Owen Wikipedia, you would see that in addition to being a knight, he was also a bitch, as there was a whole heading titled Conflicts with His Peers, which starts off: Owen has been described by some as a malicious, dishonest, and hateful individual, and a social experimenter with a penchant for sadism, addicted to controversy and driven by arrogance and jealousy.

Speaker 1 So maybe if you squeeze a dead platypus smoke gland, it will just taste like ethanol, or maybe he lied for clout.

Speaker 1 Based on how they smell and what they eat and where they swim, I can't imagine it wouldn't taste a little maybe earthy.

Speaker 2 No, I would be steering clear of that personally.

Speaker 1 Well, who does eat them? Olivier Kalas, Christine Wenzel, and Benevolentish, as well as AJ, wanted to know, like AJ asked, what predators do they deal with in the wild? Who's out there eating them?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I guess in Australia, we have a big problem with like introduced species. So red foxes, feral cats.
That's probably the biggest issues for platypus.

Speaker 2 But when you think about the platypus, like... you know, they're living in rivers, so you might think, oh,

Speaker 2 they're pretty much safe. Like, what's going to get them?

Speaker 2 The issue that we have with those feral species is when conditions start to dry out, so rivers are drying up, the platypuses, they might start moving over land more to try and find better habitat, more water.

Speaker 2 And that's when we see they're super vulnerable to those introduced predators. There is also some evidence.
So we have in Australia Murray cod, which is a native fish.

Speaker 2 They grow to be over 100 kilograms. Wow.
There's some anecdotal evidence that maybe in areas where they overlap, some juveniles might get taken by these big fish.

Speaker 2 And then also birds of prey might also be an issue. But the evidence for that stuff is pretty limited at this stage.

Speaker 1 How big are the gummy bears when they are flip flopping out of their burrow? Like, are they like a

Speaker 1 tiny candy bar? Like, what, how big?

Speaker 2 No, so they actually will stay in the burrow for about three months. And so when they emerge, they're 70 to 80% of the full adult size.
So they're coming out of the burrow, like, ready to go.

Speaker 2 And often mom is sort of kicking them out too. She's like, you've overstayed kicking them out the door and even like, even backsealing it so they can't get back in.
It's very much like

Speaker 2 1018. I'm changing the locks.
Wow, mom. Mom's over it.

Speaker 1 She's a bitch, but who blames her?

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's done her job.

Speaker 1 Well, okay, a bunch of people from Patreon asked this question. A bunch of listeners did.
And I did not even know.

Speaker 1 Like, I had no idea. Linus Rain, Tina, Benevolentish, Addie Capello, Obela, Angela, Schnepp asked, why do they have venom? What is after these weird, fascinating creatures?

Speaker 1 And then they asked, if friend-shaped, why dangerous?

Speaker 2 I will say, I do get that comment on social media a lot, which I love.

Speaker 2 But yeah, the venom. So, male platypuses, they have this venomous spur on both their hind well, it's on their ankles, essentially.

Speaker 2 And it has a venom that is said to be the most excruciating pain known to man like

Speaker 2 yeah like there was a record of someone I think it was the Korean war or Vietnam War and he had like full body shrapnel wounds and later in life he actually got spurred by a platypus and he said that the spurring from the platypus was worse than any war injury he sustained so yeah like there's no anti-venom morphine won't help like you're gonna pass out from the pain and then you could be in pain for months like and some people report even years of this ongoing pain so the venom is like really serious why they have it is it's really

Speaker 2 we think a male male combat thing so the venom is like it doesn't impact platypuses as much as it impacts humans or you know that would probably be detrimental to their longevity but we see the during the breeding season the venom production really spikes for males and you see them like you know they're aggressive you see them fighting in the water you know they've got scars on their tails from when they're kind of engaging in this combat.

Speaker 2 When it comes to combat, the males are well equipped for a knife fight, and that's because they're you know, they're fighting for resources, they're fighting for females, they're fighting for habitat.

Speaker 2 And the reason why we think that this is to do with breeding and not like an anti-predator defense is because we don't see these spurs in the females.

Speaker 2 So, the females are born with a vestigial spur, which is lost.

Speaker 1 Just to recap again, where we're at anatomically: rubbery bill, tiny as a kitten, smell terrible, bristly tail, electric face, armpit nipples, venomous, needle-sharp ankle stingers, and females have spur nubbins that do nothing, maybe just for style.

Speaker 1 It's so interesting that human males have nipples, female platypuses have no nipples, but they do have vestigial spikes. It's all topsy-turvy.

Speaker 2 It is, yeah.

Speaker 1 Who needs what and who's using it? But Andy Pepper wanted to know how serious is the venom. I'm guessing that you have not been envenomated because you would probably have told me.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, when we're in the field, we're steering clear of that. Like I said, you know, it can be months of pain.
It can cause muscle atrophy.

Speaker 2 Normally, it's people like get spurred in the wrist or the hand, but your ability to use your hand could be really compromised.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, when we're in the field, you know, we're super careful with how we handle the animals. We're assuming that any platypus we catch is a male until we prove 100% that it isn't.

Speaker 2 But, irrespective, when we're handling them, we're holding them by the tail with our hand kind of on like the backside.

Speaker 2 So, you know, it's out of reach of the spur, and it's like really the only safe way to handle them and make sure that you don't come into contact with those spurs.

Speaker 1 Do you know anyone, any other colleagues who have accidentally been poked?

Speaker 2 Not my direct colleagues, but I know some people that work at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. I've heard their stories of being spurred.
One lady was spurred there.

Speaker 2 I think she said it was more painful than delivering her twins.

Speaker 2 And there are records of people, you know, who the issue that the public has is they'll see, normally it's an injured platypus that's on land and they'll kind of go up and they'll try to help the animal without realizing about these spurs.

Speaker 2 Because, you know, a lot of people don't know about platypus, let alone about their venom. So they're trying to help the animal and they get stung and they soon realize the pain associated with it.

Speaker 1 And if you wanted to see one that wasn't injured and maybe even more defensive, but if someone wanted to see one in the wild, like that's their dream, like that's their bucket list, the only thing on their bucket list.

Speaker 1 So that was Kim C as well as Lisa Gorman, Sarah Bone, Bushwich, and Mallory Avery.

Speaker 1 Although Although patron Aaron Gunderson wrote that, why is it that as an albeit determined and well-informed tourist, I was able to see three in the wild in a week from a road or tram, and I only met one non-biologist Aussie that had ever seen a wild one.

Speaker 1 What's the best way to spot them from a safe distance? Is it possible to just go sit by a riverbank all night?

Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure. Like, you know, it takes, I would say patience is the number one thing to have.

Speaker 2 You can can see them like really any rivers and streams throughout the east coast if you're lucky enough. So dawn and dusk is the best time to see them.

Speaker 2 And you really want to be sitting at areas, you know, where there's a nice, slow moving, like a pool in a river, not those kind of fast-moving rapids.

Speaker 2 You really want those calm areas just because it makes it easier for you to sight them. But then within, you know, within their distribution, there are some hot spots.

Speaker 2 So like if you're hell-bent on seeing a platypus, I would recommend going to Tasmania.

Speaker 2 The river systems are slightly smaller throughout a lot of their range there. The population size appears to be really good there.
So a lot of people have success with sightings in Tasmania. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Good to know. We do have an episode with about Tasmanian doubles.
And so

Speaker 1 tick two platforms.

Speaker 1 I've never been to Australia or New Zealand. I want to go so bad.
There's so many critters to see.

Speaker 2 Emily Sanders wants to know, they're from Olympia, Washington, and they were wondering how we feel about the platypus representation in Perry the platypus' character.

Speaker 2 More specifically, are they very social? Are they enigmatic? Do people have a hard time finding platypuses? Yeah, what are their personalities like? That's my question.

Speaker 1 Are you aware of this?

Speaker 2 I am. I am.

Speaker 2 I've only really been made aware of it, though, again, through social media. So a lot of like the content we post, again, if it goes viral, I get all these people commenting, like,

Speaker 2 this isn't Perry, like, where's his fedora? Why is he not green? Like, what's he doing? Secret agent kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 So, Perry the Platypus is a character on the animated show Phineas and Ferb and is assumed to be a very simple-minded family pet, but Perry leads this double identity of espionage.

Speaker 1 Considering how odd and rare and not domesticatable they are, the secret life does kind of track for them.

Speaker 1 But I guess the storyboard artists weren't inspired by Riverbank Mud Brown, so they took some liberties.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, I'm very much aware of Perry now.

Speaker 2 Even like the university that I work for, some of their social media content, you know, they've kind of been capitalizing on that and, you know, adding a little fedora and adding the background music to try and get people excited.

Speaker 2 But yeah, people are, I think they have this perception, some people, that, you know, that's what a platypus is, like this teal, secret agent, hat-wearing, weird thing, but you know, it's highly anatomically incorrect, really.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 1 Perry is aquamarine and walks on hind legs, but still, a tiny hat would be like the most normal thing about a platypus. But what kind of charisma do they have? AJ and Allie Holcomb needed to know.

Speaker 1 They're not very social from what I understand from what you've told me, but are they enigmatic? Like, do they have different personalities?

Speaker 1 Like, are some feistier and some just like, fine, like, give me the gas and take my blood?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they definitely have personalities.

Speaker 2 Like, and that's evident even if you're, like, if you're not researching platypus and if you're just trying to spot a platypus in the wild, like, you can already tell that they have these real different personalities.

Speaker 2 Like, um, some are quite inquisitive.

Speaker 2 If you're sitting on the bank of a river, they'll notice you there and they they might like be interested they might kind of pop up and down they might be quite playful whereas others you know they have those more shy tendencies so they might notice you and they might dive and they might immediately swim away like they want nothing to do with you so there's definitely a difference and when we're trapping for sure like some we catch like you know even within females who are not typically the most aggressive sex like you will notice that some are kind of trying to bite you even though they don't have teeth they're kind of trying to i guess bite you with their bill um whereas some are much more placid, so there is real variation among individuals in terms of personality.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Magda Kasauka asked, Would a platypus be my friend, and would they rather do a puzzle and drink tea together, or like snort Coke in a club bathroom?

Speaker 1 And the answer is, it really depends on the platypus, right?

Speaker 2 So, yeah, I think you can get a mix of both.

Speaker 1 Also, Lena Schuster wanted to know, do they do much? Nathan asked, they seem like they're kind of clumsy and generally incapable, is what Nathan Curry says.

Speaker 1 I'm going to think, Nathan Curry, you try using electromagnetic sensors on your face to find a bug in a mud puddle and tell me how that goes.

Speaker 1 But in general, like, are they sleeping a lot or are they pretty like hustle?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're hustling. Like, yeah, they're doing a lot.

Speaker 2 So you imagine, like I said, they're between one and three kilos, but they're eating these tiny like water bugs, you know, like insignificant in terms of their body weight.

Speaker 2 So, to get the amount of food that they need to survive, sometimes they're foraging up to 16 hours a day. So,

Speaker 2 they're swimming, they're out there, you know, and they're working against different flow conditions, different temperatures. How many water bugs are in the river?

Speaker 2 Like, they can travel up to 15 kilometers in a day if they feel like it. So, they're very capable and they're certainly active.
They're also, you know, navigating things kind of outside of that.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, in a river system, it's not just water. Like, we're navigating sometimes waterfalls, you know, rocky areas.
Sometimes we need to go over land. So, yeah, they're busy.

Speaker 1 Oh, I mean, let's be honest between you and me. Are they the best animal? I know that we don't.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. That's okay.
I mean, I might be biased, but yes.

Speaker 1 No, I think that they are.

Speaker 2 You know, they have all these incredible features. Like, yeah, I think they're amazing.
And like I said before, you know, it's a privilege to be able to work with them.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't have even asked this, but so many listeners asked: Plan Sai, Lorraine, Katie Bell, Colby Evans, Kyla McDonnell, Mirmanda for real.

Speaker 1 So many of you craved this information: Michael Timbrook, Empress of Smallwood, Lisa Veris, Kim, Jen Squirrel, Alvarez, Molly, Mia Arclay, Lauren Hurlbert, Bridget Wall, Alexa Ferd, Denise Sanders, Jenny Yu, Haley Kay, and Planet Sci Lorraine asked, They glow blue-green under UV light.

Speaker 1 For why

Speaker 1 do they do that? What? I didn't even know that.

Speaker 2 This only came out within the last two years.

Speaker 2 Someone kind of used these museum specimens to shine a UV light at and found that they glow like a bluey, kind of purpley tinge, depending on where you're pointing your light.

Speaker 2 And we don't like, I don't really know the reason for that, to be honest, because we do see that in a lot of native Australian mammals. Like it's in our marsupials.

Speaker 2 Whether that's some way that these animals are communicating with each other, whether it's something to do with predators, whether it's because they're nocturnal.

Speaker 2 Like I don't really know the mechanism behind that, but I will admit, we have, after that paper came out, we did purchase a UV light, and

Speaker 2 we do tend to shine at it some platypus and see if we can see the pretty colors.

Speaker 1 I mean, I remember, and that came out about flying squirrels recently, too, right? By accident, someone just shined, and then everyone's like, We got to go see what's in the collections, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Going back to Perry for a second, Special K wanted to know: do they really sound like

Speaker 1 and what what do what sounds do they make?

Speaker 2 They don't make a lot of noises, they do do like a bit of grunting, you know, if they're unimpressed with the situation.

Speaker 2 Um, if they're waking up from the anesthesia, they're a bit like like what's happening to me.

Speaker 2 We do get some that do like a bit of squeaking when they're waking up, so like really cute, like squeaking sounds, or even like a bit of like a snoring sound when they're waking up from the anesthesia.

Speaker 2 But that's kind of it. You know, they don't rely much on vocalization, so we don't hear too much for them.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, they're so cute and people want to take their fur. And I understand that they're not doing great, but you've done some recent releases in Royal National Park.

Speaker 2 Yeah, correct.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so a lot of people wanted to know just how their conservation is doing, how their populations are doing, what they're affected by.
I know so much of your research looks at that.

Speaker 1 So let's have it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So again, this is like where all our research kind of leads is we want to better understand their conservation status.
So how many are in the wild? Has that declined?

Speaker 2 You know, what's their range? Is that changing? So that's kind of why we're out there at night. We're tagging these animals.
We're trying to estimate numbers.

Speaker 2 But as you can imagine, it's very difficult to even see a platypus. So to study a platypus, you know, it's high effort to try and catch them.

Speaker 2 And you need to do that repeatedly at a single site to get an understanding of how many platypuses are just at that one site.

Speaker 2 And even then, that can be inaccurate because obviously these animals, you know, they're not in a closed system. They live in rivers, so they can move upstream, they can move downstream.

Speaker 2 So it's very hard to estimate numbers in one river, let alone their entire range, which is, as I said, is you know northern Queensland down to Tasmania.

Speaker 2 So we know for some localized areas that there are declines happening and we know like the threatening processes.

Speaker 2 So if we think about in Australia, we have a lot of big dams which overlap the distribution of the platypus. So, we have issues with water regulation.

Speaker 2 You know, platypuses, they're dependent on both the river and also the health of the riparian vegetation.

Speaker 2 So, the vegetation alongside rivers, where we have a lot of clearing, we have a lot of sedimentation, urbanisation, pollution, predators. And the big one is climate change, really, here in Australia.

Speaker 2 So, they've been around for millions of years. They're well adapted to our environment.

Speaker 2 They know floods, they know fires they know droughts but the problem that we're seeing is the increased frequency and intensity of these events and that they're kind of occurring back to back so you know in the last 10 years we've had some of the worst flooding on records we've had the worst bushfires on records and we've had some of the worst droughts so for an animal that depends on waterways that is a huge problem and so We suspect that populations are declining.

Speaker 2 They're not currently listed as a threatened species, which we're trying to get them listed at because we want them to have the maximum amount of protection.

Speaker 2 We don't want to end up in a situation where they become too far gone and they're listed as a threatened species.

Speaker 2 And, you know, by the time we try to enact any conservation management, you know, they're kind of already beyond that point of no return.

Speaker 2 So we're really trying to implement some conservation strategies before it's too late.

Speaker 1 Well, Meg Schruder asked how close are we to getting them on the IUCN Red list and asked if the recent findings of drugs and PFAS and microplastics in the platypus population, would that help get them on the list?

Speaker 1 And I understand that they absorb a lot of the medications that are in the waterways as well, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so there's a lot of research coming out. about that.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, that stuff doesn't feed directly into a nomination under any of the categories for IUCN or even our Commonwealth legislation here in Australia.

Speaker 2 So that stuff is really reliant on providing evidence of declines in numbers, declines in range. Is it a small population size?

Speaker 2 Or can you provide modelling that suggests that this animal is going to go extinct within X amount of years?

Speaker 2 So we put together a submission in 2021 to have it listed as a threatened species under both the IUCN criteria and our Commonwealth legislation. But as I said, like it's hard to get that data.

Speaker 2 It's hard to get the data across the entire range. So that nomination was knocked back on the basis of data deficiency.

Speaker 2 With, I guess, they said that there are obvious threats impacting the population, but the data is not strong enough to have it listed at this stage. So yeah,

Speaker 2 we're still fighting for it. We're collecting as much data as we can, and we'll keep pushing until it gets the protection that it deserves.

Speaker 1 Aaron White said, please let them be okay.

Speaker 1 And Lunar Crumpet said, as an Australian who has seen platypuses in captivity and once a few tiny splashes and a dark shape in a creek, I want to know how can we help.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I guess for Australians, there's a few things.

Speaker 2 So when we're doing these nominations or when we're trying to quantify changes in number and distribution, we can't just rely on our own captured data.

Speaker 2 You know, I said it's incredibly time consuming, it's expensive, they're widespread. So the number one thing people can do is report their sightings.

Speaker 1 If you Google Platypus Watch, it'll take you to a form you can fill out to give the whens and the wheres and the majesty and the details of your platypus sighting.

Speaker 2 We can kind of use that data to make an attempt to quantify those changes. So if you see a platypus, upload your sightings.
It's super helpful for us.

Speaker 2 It gives us really a much better understanding of where they occur and in what numbers.

Speaker 2 I would also recommend if you can, like if you live near any rivers, pick up any rubbish, if you see like circular items, so we're talking like hair ties, rubber bands, bands, anything circular that might entangle a platypus, kind of make sure you cut them up before they go into the bin.

Speaker 2 And then remove any like fishing line.

Speaker 2 So if you if you fish, if you utilize rivers for anything like that, make sure you take those fishing line with you because we do see, unfortunately, a lot of platypuses.

Speaker 2 They get entangled and they drown.

Speaker 2 And then I think like joining community groups that are getting involved with like replanting. So, you know, re-vegetation.
I said platypus, they really need those nice banks to build their burrows.

Speaker 2 So, we really want to try and, you know, plant more trees, plant more vegetation that's going to hold that soil together, that's going to help them, you know, create their burrows and also encourage all those lovely water bugs back into the system that they need to eat.

Speaker 1 And when you say water bugs, do you mean a lot of different bugs that live in the water, or do you mean specifically like, because we have these things called water bugs here and like toe biters, but I think you must mean like a lot of different kinds.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so macroinvertebrate water bugs, they'll pretty much eat like whatever's around, around, to be honest. They're kind of like a generalist.

Speaker 2 They've got a few species that they're kind of really keen on, but yeah, generally, whatever's available. Like, you know, they can't really distinguish between different species with their bills.

Speaker 2 So they're kind of just snapping up whatever's around.

Speaker 1 Just like little Pac-Man.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 2 Little sweeties.

Speaker 1 And I mean, you have arguably one of the coolest jobs on the planet. If I could be you researching a platypost or like in space, like hands down, pick your life.
Like how

Speaker 1 amazing is other than the car upholstery issue, 10 out of 10.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's an amazing animal to work on.
So yeah, very lucky.

Speaker 1 But I always ask at the end, something's got to suck. What sucks? What, what is it? Is there anything? Is it the poo?

Speaker 2 Is it the branding? That's a lot. It sucks.
You know, like that. I think, you know, there's this conception that, oh, cute.

Speaker 2 Platypus is like best job in the world, which don't get me wrong, it is, but, you know, it's also hard work.

Speaker 2 Like, we're out there in the night, we're wet, we're freezing, you know, it's long hours, we work all through the night and all through the day sometimes.

Speaker 2 Um, and then there is also, it's not all field work, you know, we have to come back, we have to sit at the desk and write the grants to get the money to do the research, you know, and then write our publications.

Speaker 2 So there's both sides of it. Like I said, it's the best job in the world, but I think everyone that has a job thinks that there's parts that they could change.

Speaker 2 But to be honest, all that stuff for me kind of makes it more worthwhile. Like we have this saying, you know, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward.
So yeah, we really enjoy what we do.

Speaker 1 What is the biggest reward? What do you love the most about them or about the job?

Speaker 2 I love getting people excited about platypus. And I think that has the real roll-on effect to caring about like our natural environments here.

Speaker 2 Like it's a real flagship species, you know, like people might not know that they have platypus in their local creek or you know in their local community and once you kind of educate them about that and they they learn you know like all the things that are impacting this amazing animal i feel like it really inspires them to make kind of on-ground change to you know if they're just changing one thing if they just they stop dumping their rubbish or they plant a few trees like i feel like the platypus it really kind of is a catalyst for these on-ground conservation actions and i i really love to see that unfold you know i love that it inspires people to get involved involved in science and conservation.

Speaker 1 Oh, for sure. I mean, I can't imagine seeing a flip-flop and platypus in the creek on my back to lose my shit and lose my mind.

Speaker 1 Well, this has been thrilling. I didn't know I could love them more.
Please tell it that we're rooting for them and that they don't have to wear the fedora. They could take it off.

Speaker 2 We'll do. I'll name my next one, Ali.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I can only beg. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat, buddies.

Speaker 1 So ask ornithorichinological people unorthodox questions because they can illuminate your curiosities like a blacklight. Thank you so much, Dr.

Speaker 1 Tanil Hawk, for not only being on Ologies, but for everything you do to keep these floppy, sloppy little puzzles alive and happy. For more on Dr.

Speaker 1 Hawk and the Platypus Conservation Initiative, you can see the links in the show notes.

Speaker 1 There are also links to our spin-off classroom safe versions of ologies called Smologies, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S, wherever you get podcasts. Merch is at ologiesmerch.com.

Speaker 1 You can join patreon.com/slash ologies and perhaps hear your name or your voice on the show. And thank you also for all the lovely reviews.
We are at Ologies on Blue Sky and Instagram.

Speaker 1 I'm Allie Ward at both. Aaron Talbert, Admins, The Ologies Podcast, Facebook group.
Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly R.
Dwyer does the website.

Speaker 1 Noelle Dilworth does our diurnal and nocturnal calendars as scheduling producer. Den leader of our stinky borough is managing director Susan Hale.

Speaker 1 And stitching the incongruous pieces together each week are Jake Chafney and lead editor Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn did the theme music.

Speaker 1 If you stick around to the very end, you know, I may tell you a secret. This week, it's simple, it's hopefully life-altering.

Speaker 1 But if you are a person who struggles with anxiety, as is me, your father, Ward, dad,

Speaker 1 one way to cut that anxiety by like 50% is to quit coffee, maybe, or whatever source of caffeine is electrocuting your system. Go half-calf.
don't have a second cup. You're like, dad, what's the data?

Speaker 1 Well, start with the 2024 Frontiers in Psychology paper, Caffeine Intake and Anxiety, a meta-analysis, which looked at hundreds of people in eight different studies and turned out the very like, uh, yeah, conclusion saying that results confirmed that caffeine intake is associated with an elevated risk of anxiety in healthy individuals without psychiatric disorders, especially when the intake dose is greater than 400 milligrams.

Speaker 1 And I know that you know this. It's very, like, very broad knowledge, but it's one of those things that we're like,

Speaker 1 the least you can do for yourself is take a scientific approach, give yourself the gift of less caffeine, and reading a book. I know that you know this, but take this as a sign to give it a try.

Speaker 1 You deserve it. We all need it.
So do I. With that, bye-bye.
Hachidermatology, homology, cryptozoology, litology, nanotechnology, meteorology, cold factology, mamphology, seriology, selenology.

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