How the mystery of Winston Churchill’s dead platypus was finally solved

In 1943, a ship that set out to England from Australia, which carries a single young Plypus, was a camouflaged ship.

The Second World War was an unprecedented gift from a country trying to do desperately goodness because the Second World War expanded to the Pacific and came to its door.

But days after Winston arrival, as the war emerged in the seas around him, Puggle was found dead in the “Plaftypuser” made of specially made.

Winston’s death – with the presence of Winston, who feared a potential diplomatic event, was swept under his carpet.

He was protected, filled and quietly shelved by rumors that he died of crust shock from Nazi-Submarine.

The mystery of who or what really killed, has survived the world since then – so far.

The world has always been captivated by Plaftypus. The face and feet of a duck, an otter -shaped body and a tail inspired by a swap, many of them thought that creatures were a detailed scam; A dedicated cheat.

For Churchill, an enthusiastic collector of rare and exotic animals, Platypus’s intrigue made him more desperate to get one or six.

And in 1943 he said to Australian Foreign Minister HV ‘Doc’ Evatt.

In the eyes of Evatt, it was difficult to overcome the fact that his country had banned the export of the creatures – or that they were famous for a malicious way and that no one gets rid of such a long journey.

Australia felt gradually abandoned by the Motherland as the Japanese approached – and if a Plaftypus pose helps Churchill reacts more positively to Canberra’s support demands.

David Fleay, the protection expert who was asked to help the mission, was less appropriate.

In his 1980 Paradoxical Pladypus, “Imagine Any Man’s Responsibilities with Humanity on the Rafa in Europe and Asia, he found time to find time to ask for half a dozen duck -bills.”

In his account of Mr. Fleay, his politicians managed to talk to someone from six platforms, and soon after he was caught by a young Winston from a river near Melbourne.

For him, a detailed Platypuser was built with straw -covered nests and fresh Australian creek water; 50,000 worm menu and duck egg custard – prepared as treatment; And during the 45 -day journey, an officer was hired to wait for every need.

In front of the Pacific, Winston went from the Panama Canal and to the Atlantic Ocean – before hitting the tragedy.

In a letter to Evatt, Churchill said that he was “upset” to report that Platipus had died in the last away of the “gentle” journey sent to him.

“The loss is a great disappointment for me,” he said.

The failure of the task was kept hidden for years to avoid any public explosion. But in the end, reports about Winston’s death would begin to emerge in the newspapers. The ship had encountered a German U-bot, they claimed, and the Plaftypus was shaken in the middle of an explosion threshold.

Mr. Fleay cannot hope to cope with human -making sizes such as severe explosions.

“It was so clear that, but for the misfortunes of the war, a good, developing, healthy small Plaftypus would create history as a number of its species to reside in England.”

“This is an attractive story, right?” Harrison Croft, a doctoral student, tells the BBC.

But something for a long time with doubts.

And last year, Mr. Croft He went on his journey: searching for a truth.

Monash University student, who reached the archives in both Canberra and London, found a lot of records from the ship’s team, including the Platonian officer who was accused of keeping Winston alive.

“They made some kind of death after death and was very special. There was no explosion, it was very calm and quiet on board,” he was very sure. “

One state was looking for Winston’s life in Sydney. David Fleay’s personal collection was donated to the Australian Museum, and desperate to know if the staff around the building responded.

“You will ride from memmalogy to elevators and a doctor … [would ask] Robert Doley, the archive manager of the museum, said to BBC, “What archival evidence has Winston died of depth charges?”

“This is something that has been curious for a long time.”

With the help of a team of trainees from Sydney University, they began to digitize all Fleay’s records.

Even until the 1940s, people knew that the Pla are the glutton eaters. The legend of the appetite of the species was so great that British officials offered to pay to deliver them to capture worms for young men and to deliver them to feed Winston at their arrival.

In the registry of the PLAYPUS official, the trainees found evidence that their rations decreased when some worms began to disappear.

However, the water and air temperatures that are noted at 8 and 18:00 every day held the key to solving the mystery.

These readings were taken in two of the more cool points of the day, and as the ship equator passed for about a week, the recorded temperatures rose beyond 27C – the safe threshold for the Platypus trip we know now.

With extra 80 years of scientific research on Gez and Species – Sydney University team determined that Winston was essentially cooked live.

Even though they cannot exclude the submarine shell shock story, they only say that the effect of these long -term high temperatures will be enough to kill Winston.

“Instead of saying that we haven’t fed enough, we weren’t much easier to change, or we didn’t correctly regulate the temperature.”

Paul Zaki, “History depends entirely on the story,” Paul Zaki adds.

Australia would try again in 1947 so that it would not be deterred from its first attempt to Platypus diplomacy.

A Platypus for the first time, a success that would not be higher than the success of reproduction for the first time – Mr. Fleay convinced the Australian government to allow the Bronx Zoo to have three living things to deepen relations with the United States.

Unlike Winston’s secret journey in the Pacific, this journey attracted great attention. Betty, Penelope and Cecil became very fanfare to Boston before accompanying the New York until New York, where the Australian ambassador to the Australian ambassador expects to feed the first worm through the limousine.

Betty would die shortly after arriving, but Penelope and Cecil quickly became famous. The crowds took a look at animals. A wedding was planned. Tableids are obsessed with every movement.

Platypus is only creatures, but New York was promised. And when Cecil was loving, Penelope was apparently tired of love. In the media, he was painted as “brazen Hussy”, “one of the spoiled women who likes to hold a man on a rope.”

Until 1953, a four -day launch of the couple – very sadly defined as “the organs of love all night” – “plenty of cerevit and worm” fueled by.

Unfortunately, Penelope soon began to nest and the world was excitedly waiting for the platips that would be a great scientific milestone – Only the second was under captivity and was grown outside the first Australia.

After a four -month princess treatment and double ration for Penelope, Zookepers checked his nest in front of an exciting reporters.

But they couldn’t find a baby – a dissatisfied penelope, accused of imitating pregnancy in a false way to provide more worms and less attraction.

“It was a whole scandal,” says Mr. Cowan – Penelope’s reputation never healed.

Years later, in 1957, he survived the one -week search and rescue mission in the zoo, which declared “lost and probably died”.

One day after the calling of penelope hunting, Cecil died of what was diagnosed as the “broken heart” of the media.

There was a real future for the Platypus diplomacy laid to rest with the couple.

Although the Bronx Zoo tried to increase the change with more Plaft in 1958, Finnicky monsters lasted below one year and Australia soon tightened the laws that prohibited exports. Only two people who have left the country since then have been living in San Diego Zoo since 2019.