A platypus normally spends a lot of time in an underground burrow, so it’s not surprising that the animals will travel through pipes and culverts of considerable length. For example, radio-tagged individuals have been found to travel routinely through a 45-metre-long concrete culvert carrying creek water through an embankment (Serena et al. 1999). Although a platypus will enter a pipe that’s only 10 centimetres in diameter, it apparently finds it problematic to back up or turn around in such a confined space (and can therefore die if the far end is blocked) (Taylor et al. 1991).
Problems can also arise if a culvert or other structure in the channel has a vertical face or protruding outfall lip that forces a platypus to leave the water to travel past the barrier (Tyson 1980; Otley and le Mar 1998; Mooney and Spencer 2000).
The platypus’s short legs means that these animals are generally unable to ascend a vertical surface that’s more than around 15 centimetres high (Musser et al. 2024).
While moving across land to avoid a culvert, a platypus may be run over by a car or killed by a fox or other predator. Cases are also known where a platypus has drowned after becoming wedged in a narrow opening in an irrigation gate or between overlapping wire mesh panels placed across a creek to catch leaves (Serena and Williams 2010).
Also see Culverts & Pipes in Platypus Management Guidelines.
Photos: APC
LITERATURE CITED
Mooney N and Spencer C (2000) Why did the platypus cross the road? Australian Mammalogy 21, 264.
Musser A, Grant T and Turak E (2024) Movement of platypuses around and through instream structures and natural barriers in the Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve, New South Wales. Australian Mammalogy in press, doi: 10.1071/AM23031.
Otley HM and le Mar K (1998) Observations on the avoidance of culverts by platypus. The Tasmanian Naturalist 120, 48-50.
Serena M, and Williams G (2010) Factors contributing to platypus mortality in Victoria. The Victorian Naturalist 127, 178-183.
Serena M, Williams G, Thomas J and Worley M (1999) Effect of a flood retarding basin culvert on movements by platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus. The Victorian Naturalist 116, 54-57.
Taylor R, Mooney N and Lange K (1991) Observation on platypus. The Tasmanian Naturalist 105, 1-3.
Tyson, R. M. (1980). Road killed platypus. The Tasmanian Naturalist 60, 8.