ZSL London Zoo London Platypus

[Nanook]

I know there has been some discussion on here about whether or not a live duck-billed platypus has ever been kept at London Zoo. But the subject has come up again.

A friend of mine is convinced that he saw a platypus in one of the large tanks in the zoos aquarium on the right, on one occasion, and not for very long, sometime between the mid- 1960s and mid 1970s.

He is very knowledgeable and it's not as if you can mistake a platypus for anything else, so perhaps there may be something in this.....?

 

[Tim May]

A friend of mine is convinced that he saw a platypus in one of the large tanks in the zoos aquarium on the right, on one occasion, and not for very long, sometime between the mid- 1960s and mid 1970s.

I am certain that there was never a platypus exhibited in London Zoo's Aquarium sometime between the mid 1960s and mid 1970s (or at any other time).

 

[zooboy]

I am certain that there was never a platypus exhibited in London Zoo's Aquarium sometime between the mid 1960s and mid 1970s (or at any other time).

Tim May is certainly correct on this. One can only but speculate what was considered to look like a platypus in the Aquarium in the 1960s/70s. But it is worth noting that London Zoo had been interested in obtaining a platypus in the 1920s/30s. When the Bronx Zoo, New York, obtained the first living platypus in the USA in 1922, 5 animals had been exported from Australia; had they survived perhaps one, at least, could have ended up in London. The famous animal collector Cecil S. Webb was commissioned by the Zoological Society of London to collect a wide range of Australian animals, including a platypus, in 1934. One was caught and was in transit back to London by ship but died shortly before arrival in Bombay. Curiously, in "Golden Days - Historic Photographs of the London Zoo" there is a platypus photograph (p.25) dated 1928.

 

[Tim May]

...The famous animal collector Cecil S. Webb was commissioned by the Zoological Society of London to collect a wide range of Australian animals, including a platypus, in 1934. One was caught and was in transit back to London by ship but died shortly before arrival in Bombay..

Webb describes his experiences with the platypus in his book A Wanderer in the Wind: The Odyssey of an Animal Collector (Cecil S. Webb; 1953) which is well worth reading. (Amongst many interesting items, Webb records seeing a living thylacine in Hobart Zoo and describes obtaining the first captive picathartes.)

 

[Nanook]

Thank you, yes perhaps the passage of time is playing memory tricks ? I don`t know, but I thought it was worth asking for him as he seemed quite convinced about it.

 

[Dassie rat]

I don't remember seeing any species of mammals displayed in the Aquarium in the 1960s and 1970s. Decades ago, the Aquarium kept manatees, but they are much larger than a platypus.

 

[Tim May]

I don't remember seeing any species of mammals displayed in the Aquarium in the 1960s and 1970s. Decades ago, the Aquarium kept manatees, but they are much larger than a platypus.

There were still manatees in the London Zoo Aquarium in the early 1960s; I saw them there when a young child.

 

[TNT]

There were still manatees in the London Zoo Aquarium in the early 1960s; I saw them there when a young child.

Where on earth did they fit manatee?

 

[FBBird]

Where on earth did they fit manatee?

I believe there was a floor level pool in the Aquarium

 

[Tim May]

Where on earth did they fit manatee?

You may remember a large tank in the far righthand corner of the aquarium (at the opposite end of the building to the aquarium entrance); that was where the manatees were housed in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s.

Earlier manatees were kept in the old Reptile House (now the Bird House) in a floor pool originally built for crocodiles.

 

[FBBird]

You may remember a large tank in the far righthand corner of the aquarium (at the opposite end of the building to the aquarium entrance); that was where the manatees were housed in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s.

Earlier manatees were kept in the old Reptile House (now the Bird House) in a floor pool originally built for crocodiles.

Silly me. Yes, I remember that tank, in my time I think there were things like Red-tailed Catfish and Arowana in it?
I remember those bird house pools after aviaries had been built over them. Those manatees can’t have had a lot of space.