The Time Australia Tried To Make Platypus Diplomacy a Thing

The devious plan to woo the world with adorable platypi

(By John Gould / Henry Constantine Richter — Gould, J. (1863) The Mammals of Australia. I. London: Taylor and Francis. Plate 1., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1172588)

The platypus is a unique animal that hails from a land of unique animals. Australia is no stranger to fanciful creatures that wow and delight. From cuddly koala bears to bouncy kangaroos and fuzzy wombats, Australia is a continent brimming with biodiversity. And the platypus is one of the strangest and most recognizable of these.

The platypus is an enigma. It looks like an animal made up of pieces of other animals. It has a bill, webbed feet, and the body of an otter, but it lays eggs and only lives in a narrow swath of Western Australia. Its babies are called puggles or platypups, which is equal parts adorable and ridiculous.

Unlike its Australian peers, the platypus is rarely found outside of Australia proper. They don’t travel well. This is a fact that was painfully discovered in the midst of World War II when Australia attempted to launch a program that is now described as “Platypus Diplomacy.”

In 1942, there were many in Australia who feared that the Japanese would invade and seize the continent. At the time, this fear wasn’t as outrageous as it seems today. Japan was rampaging through the Pacific, and Australia had large swaths of undefended coastline that would be ripe…