ornitorrinco

In 1943, a camouflaged ship departed from Australia to England with an ultrasecreta load to the peculiar: An ornithorrinco called Winston, a diplomatic gift for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The creature died during the trip and for 82 years a German submarine was blamed. Some researchers They have discovered What really happened. Winston was not loaded by the Germans. Australian students They have resolved the enigma After examining the archives of the naturalist David Fleay, who captured the animal. The boat’s temperature records reveal that Winston died due to thermal stress by crossing Ecuador, not because of enemy attacks. Temperatures exceeded 27 degrees Celsius for a week, well above the survival limit of the species. Why Australia gave an ornitorrinco. In the middle of World War II, Australia felt abandoned by Great Britain while Japan approached the Pacific. Australian Foreign Minister Herbert Evatt knew that Churchill collected exotic animals and thought that an ornitorrinco, a creature that many considered at the time a taxdermic hoax, could tip the balance in favor of Canberra military support requests. The trip that should never have done. Winston was captured near Melbourne and embarked on a specially designed container, with burrows lined with hay, Australian stream water and 50,000 worms for the 45 -day path. David Fleay, the naturalist in charge, opposed from the beginning: no ornitorrinco had ever survived such a long trip and exports of the species were prohibited. The cause of “official” death. When Winston appeared dead in his tank, Churchill wrote to the Australian prime minister expressing his “pain” for loss. To avoid a diplomatic incident, death was hidden for years. When it finally came to light, the version that the Ornitorrinco had died from the stress of the attacks of the German submarines, a story that Fleay himself supported publicly. The clues of the logbook. Harrison Croft, a doctoral student at Monash University, agreed to files in Canberra and London that included interviews with the caretaker of the Ornitorrinco. “They made a kind of autopsy and he was very concrete: there was no explosion, everything was calm on board,” Croft explains. In parallel, an Australian museum team Digitized the collection Fleay staff, where they found the daily temperature record that revealed the real cause of death. Ship’s logbook. Image: Australia Museum Ornitorrincos Based Diplomacy. Australia tried again in 1947, sending three ornithorrincos to the New York Bronx Zoo. Betty died soon after arriving, but Penelope and Cecil managed to arrive healthy and saved to the country, even becoming authentic celebrities and a hook for the press at that time. The media expected them to be reproduced, but after a four -day “romance”, the thing did not go as expected. Image: Australia Museum The way to reproduce from an ornitorrinco is fascinating, since they are monoturem mammals, which means that, despite being mammals, they put eggs. In fact, they are one of the only five species of mammals that do this (the other four belong to species of Equidas). So when they saw that Penelope did not end up reproducing, it became a fun scandal at the time. In 1957 he disappeared mysteriously and Cecil died the next day of “broken heart”, according to the press. Since then, Australia strictly prohibited the export of ornitorrincos. Only two have left the country In 70 years, both to the San Diego Zoo in 2019. Cover image | Yousuf Karsh and Michael Jerrard In Xataka | If Spain believes that velutinas are a problem is because it does not know what the US has found: radioactive wasps