In addition to liberty, freedom, and the 4th of July, the American Revolution resulted in another, lesser-known consequence of the victory.

No longer able to transport British prisoners to their American colonies, the Brits decided that the Land Down Under would suffice.

John Hunter, formally of His Majesty’s Navy, was the governor in charge. Hunter was fascinated by Australian plants and animals, so peculiar and unknown to an Englishman.

To Hunter, the native flora and fauna were far more interesting than squelching the illegal alcohol trafficking co-run by prisoners and military officers.

Hunter spent an entire day watching an Aboriginal hunter track the most peculiar animal he’d ever seen. Eventually, Hunter captured one of the critters himself, pickled it (likely in some of that illegal alcohol), and sent it back to England’s most famous zoologist, George Shaw.

Shaw thought he’d been punked – and with good reason: “science” hoaxes weren’t unheard of in the day. An 18th century English woman gained fame by giving birth to rabbits, and only stopped birthing bunnies when she was placed under constant supervision.

After Shaw determined that the creature was legit and not a sewn-together fraud, he set about to study it.

The creature had fur like a mammal, but no nipples. Its babies simply licked milk off the mom’s fur. It had a duck-like beak, but no teeth. And curiously, the Aborigines claimed the creature laid eggs. What’s more, those eggs were laid through a single, all-purpose opening for waste, reproduction, and egg-laying.

The platypus, found only in Australia, is a member of an ancient lineage of mammals called monotremes (“one opening”).

In the days before dinosaurs, a lineage of egg-laying animals split into two major branches: the reptiles on one side and a lineage that eventually led to the mammals on the other.

The platypus and its monotreme kin, the echidnas, have changed very little since the split.

Monotremes retain several “basal” traits – traits like those found in mammals very near the “base” of the family tree. Monotremes lay eggs through a single opening like their reptile cousins but produce milk and have fur like mammals.

I have no idea if Shaw received that first platypus on April 1, but it would have been a great Fools-Day discovery.

Happy April Fools Day from the enigmatic platypus!

(and btw, this is an Easter egg for my new book . . .!)