Let’s get one thing straight: The plural of platypus is NOT platypi, as that would put a Latin suffix on a Greek word, but platypodes … and in English it is just platypuses.
In this eminently readable, and funny at times, account of Australian mammals, Ashby explodes some myths and takes aim at the derogatory way some scientists have regarded Australia’s unique mammals.
As the Assistant Director of the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Ashby regularly carries out ecological fieldwork across Australia, and is a huge fan of our mammals. It is the only place in the world where one can find all three ways of being a mammal. There are monotremes, marsupials and placentals, characterised by how they reproduce: eggs; relatively tiny newborns; and relatively larger newborns.
Monotremes are represented now by the platypus and echidna, each with amazing capabilities.
Ashby takes definite umbrage at platypuses and echidnas being termed ‘primitive’ and ‘weird’. He argues that it matters how these animals are portrayed, with Australia’s unique wildlife disappearing at a faster rate than in any other large region on Earth.
He is particularly fond of platypuses, echidnas and wombats and has been horrified by early biologists terming them ‘stupid’. His descriptions of how a platypus finds its food, with eyes and ears closed in the water, but sensors in its bill detecting the electricity given off by its prey’s beating heart, shows just how special an animal it is.
The fate of these unusual animals, when sent overseas, makes fascinating reading; as do the problems for taxidermists who have never seen them live. For instance, most stuffed echidna specimens in overseas museums have their back feet pointing forward, when they actually face backwards.
In Ashby’s view, animals such as platypuses, echidnas, wombats, devils, kangaroos, quolls, dibblers, dunnarts and kowaris are not weird, but absolutely wonderful, and he wants more people, especially Australians, to realise this.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
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