The mystery of the dead platypus by Winston Churchill is finally solved

In 1943, a camouflaged ship ran from Australia to England with top confidential cargo – a young platypus.

The rare single, named after he might be his owner, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, is an unprecedented gift for a country eagerly trying to court as World War II expanded into the Pacific and reached its doorstep.

But as the ocean wars around him broke out in the oceans around him, the man was discovered, and it was discovered that it was death in the water of the platypus he made specifically.

Winston’s death and his survival – fearing that diplomatic events might occur, being swept under the carpet.

He was preserved, stuffed and quietly placed in his last name office, and whispered softly, rumored that he died of a shell shock induced by Nazi-Submarine.

Since then, the mystery of who or what really killed him has avoided the world.

The world has always been fascinated by platypus. Egg drizzled with mammals, duck’s face and feet, otter-shaped body and a beaver-style tail, many people think the creature is a delicate scam. An animal specimen measures.

For Churchill, an avid collector of rare and exotic animals, the Platypus plot only made him more desperate to have one or six for his Menagerie.

In 1943, he said a lot to Australian Foreign Minister HV’Doc’Evatt.

In Evatt’s view, the fact that his country prohibits exporting these creatures – or as we all know, they are difficult to transport, and none of them survived, it was a long journey – just a challenge to overcome.

As the Japanese get closer, Australia is increasingly abandoned by the motherland – if the Platonic Plato will help Churchill respond more favorably to Canberra’s request for support, then that’s it.

David Flearey, a conservationist who was asked to help with the mission, was not very suitable.

He wrote in 1980’s Carnival Pladypus: “Imagine that anyone who has any responsibility Churchill takes on humanity on the shelf of Europe and Asia, even taking the time to think, let alone a platypus that wants six ducks.”

In Mr Fleare’s account, he managed to chat politicians from six platypus to one, and Young Winston was soon caught from a river near Melbourne.

A well-designed platypus was built for him – a cave with hay-lined lining and fresh Australian creek water. A menu of 50,000 worms was prepared – Duck Egg Ust as a treat; throughout the 45-day voyage, a waiter was hired to wait for all his needs.

Throughout the Pacific Ocean, crossing the Panama Canal and entering the Atlantic Ocean Winston-before the tragedy.

Churchill said in a letter to Evat that he was “sad”, reporting that Plato, whom Pratpus “treats” him, died in the last part of his journey.

“I was very disappointed by its losses,” he said.

The failure of the mission has been kept secret for many years to avoid any public protests. But eventually, reports about Winston’s death will begin to pop up in the newspapers. They claimed that the ship encountered a German U-shaped ship, and the platypus was shocked in the bomb barrage.

“On a dark, dark night, equipped with nerve-packed, super sensitive bills, even subtle movements on mosquitoes at the bottom of the stream, can’t hope to cope with artificial irritability, such as violent explosions,” Mr Fleare wrote.

“It’s obvious, but for the misfortune of the war, a good, prosperous, healthy little Plato would have made history and become the number one living in England.”

“It’s a seductive story, isn’t it?” doctoral student Harrison Croft told the BBC.

But this has long been aroused doubts.

Last year, Mr. Croft embarked on his own journey: looking for the truth.

Monash University students visited Canberra and London archives and found numerous records from the crew, including interviews with Pat Modern waiters responsible for keeping Winston alive.

“They did a kind of autopsy, and he was special. He was very sure there was no explosion, and it was all very calm and quiet.”

One state, another team in Sydney is also studying Winston’s life. David Fleare’s personal collection has been donated to the Australian Museum, and staff throughout the building are eager to know if it has an answer.

“You’ll ride a lift and some mammalian doctors… (ask) ‘What archival evidence is Winston dead from the deep allegation explosion?'” Robert Dooley, the museum’s archives manager, told the BBC.

“This is something that has attracted people for a long time.”

With the help of a team of interns at the University of Sydney, they set out to digitize all of Fleare’s records to find out.

Even as early as the 1940s, people knew that platypus were avid diners. The species’ appetite legend is so great that British authorities drafted a notice asking young boys to fish for worms and ship them to Winston upon arrival.

In the platypus log, the intern found evidence that his rations were decreasing as some of the worms began to perish.

But every day at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. is the water and air temperature, which is the key to solving this mystery.

These readings were made at two cool points of the day, but as the ship crossed the equator about a week, the recorded temperature rose to 27 degrees Celsius – what we know now is the safety threshold for Platypus Travel.

The University of Sydney team determined that Winston was basically alive.

Although they can’t explicitly rule out the stories of submarine shells, they say that those long-term prolonged heats are enough to kill Winston.

“It’s easy to blame the Germans, not to say we don’t feed it enough, or we don’t adjust its temperature correctly,” Ewan Cowan told the BBC.

Paul Zaki added: “History is entirely up to who is telling the story.”

Australia will dissuade in the initial attempt of platypus diplomacy, and Australia will try again in 1947.

High status, successfully imprisoned the platypus for the first time – a feat that will never be replicated in 50 years – Mr Fleary convinced the Australian government to have three creatures in order to deepen ties with the United States.

Unlike Winston’s secret journey across the Pacific, the voyage attracted great attention. Betty, Penelope and Cecil reportedly docked in Boston, with the three reportedly escorting to New York City through limousines, where the Australian ambassador waited to feed their etiquette first worm.

Betty died shortly after he arrived, but Penelope and Cecil quickly became celebrities. The crowd heard a loud glimpse of the animals. A wedding is planned. The tabloids are obsessed with their every move.

Platypus are lonely creatures, but New York is guaranteed to be lovers. When Cecil was acquaintance, Penelope was obviously tired of love. In the media, she is portrayed as a “crazy Hussei”, “one of those sly women who like to hide men on the strings”.

Until 1953, when the couple had a four-day escape–it was fueled by “a large number of crayfish and worms.”

Alas, Penelope will soon start building a nest, and the world is excited to wait for her Plato, which will be a huge scientific milestone – Only the second breeding in captivity, and the first one outside Australia.

After four months of princess treatment and Penelope’s double evaluation, the zoo keeper checked her nest in front of a group of excited journalists.

But they found no baby – only a dissatisfied Penelope, who was accused of forging pregnancy to fix more worms and fewer Cecil.

“It’s an overall scandal,” Cowan said. Penelope’s reputation has never recovered.

A few years later, in 1957, she was about to disappear from the fence, triggering a week-long search and rescue mission that climaxed in the zoo, declaring that she was “presumed to be lost and probably dead.”

On the second day of the hunt for Penelope, Cecil died from the media being diagnosed as a “sad heart”.

Rest with two is any real future for platypus diplomacy.

Although the Bronx Zoo will try to pass more platypus replication exchanges in 1958, Finnick’s beast lasted for a year, and Australia soon tightened laws banning exports. The only two people who left the country have lived at the San Diego Zoo since 2019.