Platty the Hand Crocheted Tassie Platypus (with carers sheet)

Platty the Platypus is a gorgeous soft toy celebrating the many platypus who live in Tamania. Your Platty comes with a fact sheet.

Here are some things you might like to know about me:

• I was hand-crocheted by Zoey in a small town in Tasmania.
• It took Zoey about 4 hours to make me, so I have a bit of love and a lot of attention in every single stitch.
• My posh name is Ornithorhynchus anatinus, but even I can’t say that.
• We are an egg-laying, semi-aquatic mammal that lives in Tasmania and along the eastern coast of mainland Australia.
• I live in alpine streams and ponds that freeze in winter, to the tepid waters of tropical north Queensland.
• I use cool electro-receptors in my rubbery bill to find food on the bottom of freshwater streams, lakes and ponds.
• The boys have venomous spurs; we girls secrete milk through our skin, and our babies are born in burrows dug into the banks.
• Us and echidnas are the only existing species of monotremes (egg-laying mammals) on earth! Pretty darn cool!
• We are unusual due to our soft, toothless rubbery bill, webbed feet and fur.
• Adults can be from 45 cm to 60 cm long, with us girls generally smaller than the boys.
• Average platypus size increases with latitude, with the platypuses in north Queensland generally being the smallest where males average about 1 kg. Us Tasmanians are relatively huge, with some men platypus weighing up to 3 kg.
• I have two layers of fur - a dense waterproof outer coat and a grey woolly underfur to provide insulation.
• I have a very cool smooth swimming action, a low body profile and no visible ears, which makes me very unique.
• I spend around half my day resting in short, oval-shaped burrows of about 3 to 8 m long that I dig into banks around rivers, lakes or streams.
• Us girls dig elaborate nesting burrows around 20 m long with multiple chambers and earth plugs which we share with our babies.
• I use my webbed front feet for swimming.
• I have powerful front legs and use them for both paddling and digging.
• My back legs are used mainly for steering and treading water while I chew food on the surface.
• My tail acts as a rudder when swimming to steer me and to store much of my body fat.
• I have good eye sight and hearing.
• Mating takes place in the water and, after about 21 days, between one and three eggs are laid in a nesting burrow constructed by the Mumma.
• The eggs are incubated between the belly and the tail of the female and hatch after about 10 days.

Please take good care of me as I’m very precious. I hope one day you can come to Tasmania and visit all my relatives and friends.

Info: Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania

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