With a duck bill, beaver tail, webbed feet and a pouch, the platypus is one of the strangest, yet cutest critters around.
Unfortunately, while they may be iconic, we don’t yet have enough information about platypus numbers or distribution. We know that the areas where they still live are shrinking, and that platypus populations are declining. Despite this, we’ve been unable to prove that the rates of decline meet the federal government’s formal threshold to be listed as a threatened species. What this means is that even though they are struggling, platypus need to be formally listed as threatened before they can be nationally protected and receive additional conservation support.
Luckily, there are incredible people on the ground working to gather that critical data.
In partnership with UNSW platypus researcher Dr Gilad Bino, ACF has been running the citizen scientist-powered platy project for the past five years. As part of this year’s project, we joined Gilad on a platypus survey in the upper reaches of the Nerang River in the beautiful Gold Coast Hinterland in South-east Queensland.
Using a gillnet, Gilad carefully caught four platypuses. He then sedated them in order to safely collect samples including DNA, blood, hair, poo and even food from inside their cheek pouches! It’s in these pouches that platypuses store the water bugs they catch before grinding them between the rough pads in their soft rubbery bills.
