First of all, scientists didn’t understand how a creature with attributes that linked it to both reptiles and mammals could exist.
Still, he continued to be unsure whether or not the animal was real.īut why didn’t people trust the platypus? It’s important to keep in mind the time in which this was occurring. He also drew a picture of what he believed the platypus to look like, which was surprisingly accurate for how little he had to go off of in terms of the specimen.
Real platypus with birthday hat skin#
In fact, he even cut the skin with scissors to try and find the stitches-which, of course, he couldn’t!Īccording to Shaw, the creature’s duck-like bill and otter-like skin “naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means.” Shaw believed it was very possible a person might have taken an actual duck’s bill and the pelt from an otter or a mole and sent them to England to mess with him. Shaw tried to understand the platypus but, like many of those who studied the strange mammal after him, couldn’t shake the feeling he was being duped. Zoologist George Shaw was the first westerner to describe a platypus, the pelt and bill of which he was sent in 1799 from Australia. So weird, in fact, that the first western scientists who inspected them believed them to be a hoax. Though this basic platypus knowledge is part of most elementary school animal and science lessons, the truth is platypuses are WAY weirder than most of us even realize. They have tails like a beaver’s, they lay eggs like a reptile, and they have bills like a duck’s.
Pretty much everyone knows platypuses are weird.
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