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The mystery of Winston Churchill's dead platypus was finally solved
- pimlottc 1y agoWorth reading just for the discovery of the word “platypusary”
- OisinMoran 1y agoI'm an even bigger fan of "platypups"!
- raverbashing 1y agoAlso "platypus attendant" But in the end the cause of death didn't bring me any comfort
- gjsman-1000 1y agoA platypus? Winston the platypus?
- comrade1234 1y ago"platypusary" -note to self, do a google image search when I'm no longer at work for "platypusary".
- pxeger1 1y agoWhy can you use Hacker News but not Google Images at work?
- throw4747935 1y agoThe lede is buried, tl;dr: During WWII, a platypus named Winston Churchill was shipped from Australia to the UK (on behalf of its namesake). On the last leg of the journey, after the panama canal, the platypus nursery got too hot (above 27 degrees Celsius) and the platypus died.
- codezero 1y agothanks, I was trying to find that even though I read most of the article lol
- tragiclos 1y agoCrazy that 27 C is deadly. I imagine most of Australia is hotter than that during any given summer.
- rmunn 1y agoBut does the water reach 27°C during Australian summers, or just the air? Water will remain cooler than air for a long time, as anyone who's jumped into a swimming pool in summer knows. It was the sustained water temperature of 27°C that was the deadly issue for Winston the platypus.
- bcraven 1y agoThe platypus was called Winston. Winston Churchill was the British Prime Minister at the time. The two should not be confused.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- oliyoung 1y agoThat is a series of words I never thought I'd see together