The wartime British PM was due to receive a monotreme named after him but it mysteriously died en route. German submarines were blamed – but was that the truth?
There is a photo – or at least a “fabled” photo – that would tie up a lot of loose ends in the strange story of Winston Churchill’s platypuses.
Recent research has revived the tale of how the British prime minister asked Australia to send him a live monotreme at the height of the second world war. Sadly his namesake, Winston, died just two days before landing in England in 1943 in now disputed circumstances.
But Associate Prof Nancy Cushing, an environmental history specialist at the University of Newcastle, says Winston’s journey would never have happened without the knowledge gained from a second platypus, Splash, that was also sent to Churchill – albeit after it had died and been stuffed.
Cushing describes the connection between Churchill and the platypuses as “weirdly compelling”. Splash sat on Churchill’s desk while Operation Platypus – a series of reconnaissance missions in Borneo – was under way, academic research has found.
