Full name: Platypus: The Extraordinary Story of How a Curious Creature Baffled the World

Author: Ann Moyal Year: 2001 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Non Fiction, Science, Animals, History Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780801880520 9781560989776 0801880521 1560989777

When the first platypus specimen reached England from Australia in 1799, the scientific community claimed that it was a hoax. On closer investigation, dubious European naturalists eventually declared it to be real, though in an age obsessed with classification, the category-defying platypus sparked heated debates across Europe for a century. In Platypus, Ann Moyal provides a unique biography of one of the world's most famously strange creatures and tells the incredible story of how it became the focus of the great scientific debates of the nineteenth century. Eloquent and concise, Platypus uncovers the earliest theories and latest discoveries about this delightfully odd member of the animal kingdom.