![]() No robust estimates of total population size (except Kangaroo Island) (Furlan et al.Today's populations thought to number in the thousands or tens of thousands (Grant 2015).Platypus has experienced large declines since 1890s (Hawke et al.Until recently, considered common over much of its range (except South Australia) (Grant 2015), but growing evidence of higher risk of declines and local extinctions than previously thought (Bino et al.Abundance difficult to quantify (Woinarski and Burbidge 2016).Platypuses need intact riverbanks, says Gilad, because it’s where they burrow and nest (platypuses don’t have a pouch, so the female will curl herself around the egg to keep it warm).ĭroughts that could be worsened by climate change affect the freshwater habitats, as waterways dry out or become too shallow. Water extraction from rivers and creeks, the building of dams and weirs that create obstacles, and river bank erosion from land clearing all have an impact. Gilad says its modern-day threats are compounding. ![]() They’re a monotreme – an egg-laying mammal – and have an evolutionary history going back at least 120m years. The platypus is known to exist from far north Queensland to Tasmania – a distance of about 2,900km (1,800 miles) – in freshwater rivers across a range of habitats from tropical to semi-arid, temperate and alpine areas. Most Australians have never seen one,” he says. He says there are historic newspaper reports of people describing seeing “platypus migrations”, with dozens seen at once. Once gone from these suburban waterways, Brunt says it’s unlikely platypus could find their way back in.ĭr Gilad Bino, a platypus researcher at the University of New South Wales Centre for Ecosystem Science, helped compile research that went to the Australian federal government to ask the platypus be listed as a vulnerable species. “Because of how elusive they are, we could be losing them without knowing because we’re just not regularly monitoring them,” says Brunt. In 21 of the waterways, they had records of platypus sightings between 19.īy analysing water samples for the DNA of platypuses (excreted mainly in poo and wee), researchers can tell if the animal is in the water without having to see them. That makes them not only hard to see, but difficult to monitor.īrunt and her colleagues used a new environmental DNA sampling technique to check 28 rivers and creeks for platypuses. They’re nocturnal, skittish and tend not to make a literal splash. The researchers joined conservationists to nominate the platypus for threatened species status. In November, researchers at the University of New South Wales found the habitat for platypus had shrunk by almost a quarter in the past 30 years. “It’s scary to think that we have already had these populations disappear under our noses,” Tamielle Brunt, lead author and a researcher at the University of Queensland, says.īrunt runs the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland’s PlatypusWatch network. Brisbane’s Kedron Brook, where researchers took water samples in their search for platypusesĪ new study, in the journal Australian Mammalogy, is further evidence the once widespread mammal is in trouble in Australia – it’s only home on the planet.
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