Many regionally distinctive platypus names were employed by Aboriginal peoples, including “boondaburra”, “mallingong”, “tambreet” and “watjarang”. According to Aboriginal legend, the platypus originated when a young female duck mated with a lonely and persuasive water-rat. The duck’s babies had their mother’s bill and webbed feet and their father’s four legs and handsome brown fur.
A British scientist, Dr George Shaw, published the first description of the platypus by a European scientist in 1799. His initial reaction was that this very unusual looking animal was an elaborate hoax. He even took a pair of scissors to the preserved specimen, expecting to find that the bill had been attached to the rest of the body with stitches.
When the specimen proved to be genuine, Shaw named it Platypus anatinus, from the Greek words “platys” (meaning flat or broad) and “pous” (meaning foot) and a Latin word meaning duck-like (“anatinus”). When it was later found out that the scientific name “Platypus” had already been applied to a group of beetles, the specimen was renamed Ornithorhynchus anatinus, with the first word meaning “bird-like snout” (Moyal 2001).
Because the word “platypus” is derived from Greek words, its plural should (strictly speaking) be “platypodes”. However, this has never caught on for some reason (we can’t imagine why not). Instead, the preferred plural is either “platypus” or “platypuses”, depending on which dictionary you consult. The term “platypi” – a Latin plural – is definitely incorrect.
There is no officially accepted term – equivalent to pup or cub – to describe a baby platypus. In part, this reflects the fact that it’s quite difficult to identify a young platypus by the time it first emerges from the nesting burrow, as first-year animals will by then have grown to around 85% of their adult length and otherwise differ from adults only in fairly minor ways (for example, in having somewhat longer fur and a slightly stubbier-looking bill).
The best way to refer to a juvenile platypus that is still developing within a nesting burrow is that it’s a “nestling” – this has a well-established history of use and references a clearly defined and biologically meaningful stage of development. Alternatively, since 2003 the word “puggle” has sometimes been used to refer to a young platypus after the term was adopted by staff at Taronga Zoo to publicise the successful captive rearing of platypus twins there.
Drawing by Frederick Nodder, used to illustrate Shaw’s (1799) paper
LITERATURE CITED
Moyal A (2001) Platypus. Allen and Unwin: Crows Nest NSW.