Platypus - Cultural References

Cultural References

The platypus has been featured in the Dreamtime stories of indigenous Australians, who believed the animal was a hybrid of a duck and a water rat. According to one story, all the major animal groups, the land animals, water animals and birds, all competed for the platypus to join their respective groups, but the platypus ultimately decided to not join any group, feeling that he did not need to be part of a group to be special.

Since the introduction of decimal currency to Australia in 1966, the embossed image of a platypus has appeared on the reverse (tails) side of the 20-cent coin.

The platypus has been used several times as a mascot: "Syd" the platypus was one of the three mascots chosen for the Sydney 2000 Olympics along with an echidna and a kookaburra, "Expo Oz" the platypus was the mascot for World Expo 88, which was held in Brisbane in 1988, and Hexley the platypus is the mascot for Apple Computer's BSD-based Darwin operating system, Mac OS X. The platypus is also the mascot for the currently inactive Wenatchee Valley Venom arena football team located in Wenatchee, Washington.

The Platypus Trophy was made as an award for the winner of the college rivalry between the Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers.

The platypus has also been featured in songs, such as Green Day's "Platypus (I Hate You)" and Mr. Bungle's "Platypus". It is the subject of a children's poem by Banjo Paterson, and it also frequently appears as a character in children's television programmes, for example, the Platypus Family on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Perry the Platypus on the show Phineas and Ferb, and Ovide, the star of the cartoon Ovide and the Gang.

In the 1980s, the platypus was the main animal featured on promotional ads for the educational animal encyclopedia Wildlife Treasury. In the advertisement, an excited young boy exclaims: "The duck-billed platypus has feet like a duck, but it's furry! It's all in my Wildlife Treasury!"

The platypus is sometimes jokingly referred to as proof that God has a sense of humour (at the beginning of the film Dogma, for example; Robin Williams implied he was also stoned on marijuana at the time.) It is also often used humorously (along with the camel) to describe something designed by committee. For the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" novel Q-Squared, the titled character claims (in private) to a disbelieving Capt. Picard he personally influenced God's decision to create/evolve the platypus.

The platypus is also a pet in the massively multiplayer online role playing game RuneScape.

Platypus Man was a short-lived, 1995 sitcom aired on Fox Television and/or UPN in the United States. Fox also had an animated program called Taz-Mania, featuring the Platypus Brothers.: Daniel and Timothy.

In the episode, "The Truth in the Myth" on Bones, when the team was studying a murdered victim who was supposed to be killed by the cryptic animal, chupacabra, Dr. Saroyan questions the very existence of such a creature, in which intern Vincent Nigel-Murray responded, "I'd be skeptical if you told me there was a venomous, egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed mammal, and yet the platypus, it does exist."