Platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus semi-aquatic mammal eastern Australia Tasmania. echidna, monotreme mammal lay egg Ornithorhync
Illustrated travels a record of discovery geography and adventure edited by h w bates assistant secretary of the royal geographical society with engravings from original drawings by celebrated artists cassell petter and & galpin London paris new york. When the Platypus was first discovered by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to the United Kingdom by Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of New South Wales. The British scientists were at first convinced that the attributes must have been a hoax. George Shaw, who produced the first description of the animal in the Naturalist's Miscellany in 1799, stated that it was impossible not to entertain doubts as to its genuine nature, and Robert Knox believed it may have been produced by some Asian taxidermist. It was thought that somebody had sewn a duck's beak onto the body of a beaver-like animal. Shaw even took a pair of scissors to the dried skin to check for stitches. The common name, Platypus, is Latin derived from the Greek words πλατύς ("platys", flat, broad) and πους ("pous", foot), meaning "flat foot". Shaw assigned it as a Linnaean genus name when he initially described it, but the term was quickly discovered to already belong to the wood-boring ambrosia beetle (genus Platypus). It was independently described as Ornithorhynchus paradoxus by Johann Blumenbach in 1800 (from a specimen given to him by Sir Joseph Banks) and following the rules of priority of nomenclature it was later officially recognised as Ornithorhynchus scientific name Ornithorhynchus is derived from ορνιθόρυνχος ("ornithorhynkhos"), which literally means "bird snout" in Greek, and anatinus, which means "duck-like" in Latin. There is no universally agreed upon plural of "platypus" in the English language. Scientists generally use "platypuses" or simply "platypus". Colloquially, "platypi" is also used for the plural, although this is pseudo-Latin; the Greek plural would be "platy
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