Episode 256: Platypus

Your Greek Word On A Sunday

(Intro & Piano music)
The internet reads for this creature; a duck billed, beaver tailed, otter footed, egg laying, aquatic creature native to Australia. Then, what is it doing bearing a Greek name? Before the Natural History Museum in London became the great institution it is today, it was part of the British Museum and its keeper, George Shaw, was the first to describe and accept this creature as a real animal, in 1799. He named it based on the look of its feet but that name was already taken by a beetle, so, in 1803 Johann Friedrich, Blumenbach, publish another description and named it 'Ornithorinchus Paradoxus' ,which is also Greek and means 'Paradoxical bird-snout. I think we'd all agree that, that's too long to remember let alone ,say. And that's why we call it what George Shaw named it. Πλατύς (platys) in ancient and modern Greek means 'wide' and πούς (pous), in ancient Greek, means 'foot. ΠΛΑΤΥΠΟΥΣ/PLATYPUS

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