the plat that’s a hat

HealesvilleSanctuary is one of my top five places to take visitors from interstate or overseas. Healesville has now added the Ornithorhynchus anatinus to it’s list of feature animals.

I only mention this because today The Hun* published a picture that made me go “aw shucks, paw!”.

It’s not only a cute photo, but it gives a pretty good indication of just how tiny a platypus is. Presumably the plat that’s a hat in the photo above is a female, as the male has a poisonous spur on each of its hind legs.

Platypi are very hard to spot in the wild, and sometimes even hard to see in zoo tanks. 
Like their cousins the echidnas they are monotremes – egg laying mammals.

The following clip is a tad long if you’ve got a lot of blogs to visit, but the story teller is very engaging, and is standing in a spot that shows you the platypus’ ideal habitat.

This is an Aboriginal Myth with a very nice moral to it.

*The Hun – local name for the Herald Sun newspaper, known for its right wing columnists.