Buckles Blog: TARONGA #9

Thursday, January 24, 2019

TARONGA #9

10 comments:

Chic Silber said...: In my early youth the Bronx Zoo

had a pair of Platypusses and

they seemed pretty small but

the few exhibited at Taronga

were not any larger; 24 January, 2019 11:15
Paul Gutheil said...: Yes, the Bronx in the '50's. They were such a sensation back then that they had their own mobile exhibit which as I recall when I saw it, was parked by the Elephant House. There was also a special fee of , as I recall, 10 cents.; 24 January, 2019 11:51
Jim Alexander said...: I saw a platypus at the Bronx Zoo in the early, a most by accident. I was 10 or 11 and my father was loving enough to take me to the Bronx Zoo while the rest of the family group toured Manhattan. We just happened to be passing the "Platypusary" we paid 10 cents and saw one platypus swimming about. Much later in life I was perusing Crandall's (Bronx Gen. Curator) book, Management of Wild Mammals in Captivity, to refresh my platypus experience. Among all the information I found that the platypus was only on display from 3:30 to 4:00. Trivia: the last platypus exhibited in the US died on March 25, 1959 at the Bronx.; 24 January, 2019 13:17
Richard Reynolds said...: No zoo outside Australia has ever had a platypus except the Bronx. There are rumors that San Diego zoo is to get one or more.

I saw platypuses at the Bronx zoo in August 1947. As mentioned, they were on exhibit only during certain hours.

During the winter, they were removed from the platypusary and housed in the basement of the Heads and Horse Museum on the zoo's quadrangle.

Winston Churchill is said to have been interested in them, and two were sent by sea from Australia to England during WWII but died en route.; 24 January, 2019 15:40
Richard Reynolds said...: Should have been Heads and Horns !; 24 January, 2019 15:41
Richard Reynolds said...: Correction - - The winter quarters for the Bronx platypuses was in the basement of the big bird house - - not the Heads and Horns Museum. See Crandall 1964.; 24 January, 2019 16:20
Roger Smith said...: The male has a hard stinger under his back paws which deliver a severely painful poison. I saw a doc of a man who said his experience with snakebites did not compare with the agonies suffered from the platypus venom. National Geographic tells us humans generally won't die of it, but adults will be critically debilitated.; 24 January, 2019 17:09
Jim Alexander said...: Slightly related to the discussion. The Heads and Horns building Richard mentioned was a collection of mounted heads at the Bronx Zoo by then Director Wm. T. Hornaday. It didn't fit the zoo of the early 1970s and was closed. The collection was move to a few different museums is now partially displayed at the Wonders of Wildlife Museum in Springfield, MO.; 24 January, 2019 19:54
Roger Smith said...: The famed Buckhorn Saloon, on West Houston, in San Antonio, had horns and heads of every description, mostly of animals native to Texas, jamming the vast interior.; 25 January, 2019 02:44
Tony Greiner said...: It's still there in San Antonio. My Uncle Nicky was bartender there in the mid-20th century, when it was the house saloon of Lone Star Beer.; 26 January, 2019 00:36

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