Platypus: Anomalous

Some years ago, we Armstrongs were camping in the Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland, Australia.  Someone in our camping party mentioned that there were wild platypus to be seen, at daybreak, if one was very, very lucky and stealthy.  Well!  That's all it took for me: we WERE going to arise before dawn and hike a few miles to a spring somewhere-or-other, and sit quietly.  We could pretend that we were part of Wild Kingdom.  Our kids didn't know what Wild Kingdom was, but our kids have always been game for just about anything.  Hunting platypus in the wild was just one more thing to experience, they supposed.  (They were about 5, 7, and 9 at the time, I think.)

We DID get to see a platypus swimming merrily in the morning light.  We've been told since then that most Aussies don't ever see a platypus in the wild - only zoos and such.  Here is a cute photo of a couple of baby platypus: 

 I like the duck-billed platypus

Because it is anomalous.

I like the way it raises its family

Partly birdly, partly mammaly.

I like its independent attitude.

Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

by Ogden Nash