Species | Platypus |
---|---|
Sex | Female |
Born | Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast, Australia |
Died | Disappeared July 1957 New York City |
Owner | David Fleay, Bronx Zoo |
Residence | Bronx Zoo |
Penelope (disappeared July 1957) was a platypus at the Bronx Zoo known for faking a pregnancy and abandoning her mate, Cecil. [1] In 1947, when she and two other platypuses were sent to New York City, they became the only platypuses living in captivity outside of Australia at the time. [2] Penelope made headlines for her repeated refusal to mate with the zoo's male platypus, Cecil. The New York Times said that Penelope was not lovesick but "sick of love" when she escaped from the zoo's platypusary in 1957, never to be seen again. [3]
On April 25, 1947, three platypuses along with Burleigh zoologists David and Sigrid Fleay arrived at the Bronx Zoo. The platypuses were named Penelope, Cecil, and Betty. The zoo built a platypusary for them to live in, where each animal had its own swimming pool and private burrows. [4] However, Betty died of a cold after arriving to the United States, so just Penelope and Cecil, who weighed two and four pounds respectively, lived in the enclosure. [2] Cecil and Penelope slept during the days except for their hour-long break to see visitors. At night, they came out to eat dinner of "25 to 35 live crayfish, 200 to 300 worms, one frog, several scrambled eggs," and mud. [2]
Zookeepers tried, over and over, to get the platypuses to mate. However, Penelope resisted Cecil's advances. "Penelope does not like Cecil, so their engagement is off, at least until next autumn", wrote the Townsville Bulletin on June 17, 1952. [5] According to Time magazine, Cecil would court Penelope by biting onto her flat tail and holding on as Penelope waddled around the pool, dragging him in circles. Penelope did not appear to like him. [2] [6]
Zookeepers were eager to see captive platypuses mate. [6] At this time only one platypus couple, Jack and Jill, had bred in captivity, and that was in their native Australia. [7] In the spring of 1951, when zookeepers put Cecil in Penelope's enclosure, she began behaving with erratic aggression: "scratching furiously with all of her 20 sharp claws," running into the water, and rolling over. The next year, during the North American spring, Penelope was more receptive to Cecil's presence. This time, when they were near each other, Penelope did not behave unusually. [6]
Penelope made headlines when she began behaving like an expectant mother, as she would have been the first platypus to lay a batch of eggs away from the species' homeland of Australia. Zookeepers became certain that Penelope was guarding young in the mound of dirt where she lived. [6] [2] The first indication of Penelope's pregnancy was when she took eucalyptus leaves into her burrow, since those are the leaves that wild platypuses use to make breeding nests. [6]
Then, on July 9, Penelope retreated to her burrow and remained there for six days. She then ate a meal that Time magazine described as "enormous". At this point, zookeepers prepared themselves for the possibility of platypus eggs or young, hairless platypus infants who were in the nursing stage. Penelope began eating larger quantities of worms and larvae. Australian zoologists, including David Fleay, expected the young to be ready for the outside world in seventeen weeks. [2] [6]
After sixteen weeks, zookeepers made plans to explore the mound to see the potential offspring. In the presence of fifty newspaper reporters and photographers, zookeepers dug through the 250 cubic feet (7.1 m3) of earth for hours. [6] [8] However, they did not find any young platypuses – only Penelope. Despite her maternal behavior and increased food consumption, she had not been rearing any young. Zookeepers reported that they "had been duped" by Penelope, calling her a "faker" and accusing her of "posing as an expectant mother just to lead a life of luxury on double rations". [9]
Representatives of Penelope sent a cable to Fleay that said: "No babies this year. There's always next year. — Penelope." [9] Fleay believed that Penelope had indeed hatched young but that "something apparently went wrong". [9]
In July 1957, Penelope disappeared and the zoo assigned a fifteen-person team to search nearby waters including the Bronx River. Though male platypuses have a venomous spur, females do not, making them more vulnerable in the wild. [3] On July 26, 1957, the Bronx Zoo stopped its weeks-long search through the ponds and streams on the premises and announced her "presumed lost and probably dead". The New York Times wrote that Penelope was "believed to have scrambled out of her burrow and escaped over a wire fence in resisting the advances of her mate, Cecil". [1]
Cecil appeared affected by her disappearance. He spent considerable time scratching his head, an activity he had never done before. [3] He lost weight and died one day after the search for Penelope was called off. [10]
On August 19, 1957, a Time magazine article wrote that she was "one of those saucy females who like to keep a male on a string". [2]
Several weeks after Penelope disappeared, Australian zoologist David Fleay expressed his disappointment with Penelope and agreed to send more platypuses to New York. [11]
In 1958, the Bronx Zoo received three more platypuses named Paul, Patty, and Pamela. All three died within their first year in North America. [12] The United States did not get another platypus until 2019, when a pair arrived at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. As of 2019, [update] they are the only platypuses on display outside of Australia. [13] [14]
The platypus, sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus, though a number of related species appear in the fossil record.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park, originally named the San Diego Wild Animal Park until 2010, is an 1800-acre zoo in the San Pasqual Valley area of San Diego, California, near Escondido. It is one of the largest tourist attractions in San Diego County. The park houses a large array of wild and endangered animals from every continent, except Antarctica; this includes the largest, most comprehensive collection of hoofed mammals (ungulates) in the world. The park is in a semi-arid environment, about 30 miles (48 km) inland from the Pacific Ocean, giving it a year-round ‘feeling’ of being in Africa, with one of its most notable attractions being the Africa Tram, a half-hour guided tram ride which showcases the expansive ‘grassland’ exhibits. These free-range enclosures house the majority of the park's larger species, such as numerous antelopes, giraffes, buffalo, cranes, and rhinoceros, among others. The park is also noted for its California condor breeding program. When booked in-advance, the park also offers several longer, more in-depth safari options, some of which involve riding in an open-top truck to feed the animals in the field enclosures.
Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes belonging to the family Tachyglossidae, living in Australia and New Guinea. The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs and the only surviving members of the order Monotremata. The diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not closely related to the American true anteaters or to hedgehogs. Their young are called puggles.
The Bronx Zoo is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States by area, comprising 265 acres (107 ha) of park lands and naturalistic habitats separated by the Bronx River. On average, the zoo has 2.15 million visitors each year as of 2009. The zoo's original permanent buildings, known as Astor Court, were designed as a series of Beaux-Arts pavilions grouped around the large circular sea lion pool. The Rainey Memorial Gates were designed by sculptor Paul Manship in 1934 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Healesville Sanctuary, formally known as the Sir Colin MacKenzie Sanctuary, is a zoo specialising in native Australian animals. It is located at Healesville in rural Victoria, Australia, and has a history of breeding native animals. It is one of only two places to have successfully bred a platypus, the other being Sydney's Taronga Zoo. It also assists with a breeding population of the endangered helmeted honeyeater.
Taronga Zoo is a government-run public zoo located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in the suburb of Mosman, on the shores of Sydney Harbour. The opening hours are between 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Taronga is an Aboriginal word meaning "beautiful view".
The Central Park Zoo is a 6.5-acre (2.6 ha) zoo located at the southeast corner of Central Park in New York City. It is part of an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In conjunction with the Central Park Zoo's operations, the WCS offers children's educational programs, is engaged in restoration of endangered species populations, and reaches out to the local community through volunteer programs.
David Howells Fleay was an Australian scientist and biologist who pioneered the captive breeding of endangered species, and was the first person to breed the platypus in captivity.
Dallas Zoo is a 106-acre (43 ha) zoo located 3 mi (5 km) south of downtown Dallas, Texas, in Marsalis Park. Established in 1888, it is the oldest and largest zoological park in Texas and is managed by the non-profit Dallas Zoological Society. It is home to over 2,000 animals representing 406 species. It is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), and is a member of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).
Panda diplomacy(Chinese:熊猫外交) is the practice of sending giant pandas from China to other countries as a tool of diplomacy and wildlife conservation. From 1941 to 1984, the Chinese government gifted pandas to other countries. Since 1984, they have been leased rather than gifted due to a PRC policy change.
David Fleay Wildlife Park is a heritage-listed wildlife park at Fleays Wildlife Park Conservation Park, Tallebudgera Creek Road, Tallebudgera, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1952 to 1983. It is also known as Fleays Wildlife Park. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 23 February 2001.
Henry (Harry) James Burrell OBE was an Australian naturalist who specialised in the study of monotremes. He was the first person to successfully keep the platypus in captivity and was a lifelong collector of specimens and contributor of journal articles on monotremes.
A nocturnal house, sometimes called a nocturama, is a building in a zoo or research establishment where nocturnal animals are kept and viewable by the public. The unique feature of buildings of this type is that the lighting within is isolated from the outside and reversed; i.e. it is dark during the day and lit at night. This is to enable visitors and researchers to more conveniently study nocturnal animals during daylight hours.
Zookeeper is a 2011 American fantasy comedy film directed by Frank Coraci, with a screenplay by Nick Bakay, Rock Reuben, Kevin James, Jay Scherick, and David Ronn, from a story by Scherick and Ronn, and produced by Todd Garner, James, Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, and Walt Becker. The film stars James, Rosario Dawson, and Leslie Bibb with supporting roles by Ken Jeong, Donnie Wahlberg, Joe Rogan, Nat Faxon, and Tom Woodruff Jr., alongside the voices of Cher, Nick Nolte, Sandler, Sylvester Stallone, Judd Apatow, Jim Breuer, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Richie Minervini, Maya Rudolph, and Bas Rutten. It is about an unlucky zookeeper and the talking animals at his zoo who break their silence to help him find love.
Pattycake, also known as Patty Cake was a female western lowland gorilla born to Lulu and Kongo at the Central Park Zoo in New York City. She was the first baby gorilla successfully born in captivity in New York. Months after her much publicized birth, Pattycake's arm was broken when it got stuck in her cage as her mother grabbed her away from her father. The incident was sensationally anthropomorphized in the media as a domestic dispute between Lulu and Kongo, but in reality experts thought it was a simple accident.
John Tee-Van was an American ichthyologist and zoologist. He began his career as an apprentice zookeeper at the New York Zoological Park and ended it as its General Director.
The Zookeeper's Wife is a 2017 American war drama film directed by Niki Caro and written by Angela Workman. It is based on Diane Ackerman's non-fiction book of the same name. The film tells the true story of how Jan and Antonina Żabiński rescued hundreds of Polish Jews from the Germans by hiding them in their Warsaw zoo during World War II. It stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl and Michael McElhatton.
Ellis Stanley Joseph was a collector and trader in wildlife in the early part of the 20th century. He also trained some of his captured wildlife, exhibiting them to the public in order to fund his other activities.
Karta was a Sumatran orangutan, who is best remembered for her attempts to have a living baby and care for it herself, first at San Diego Zoo in the United States, and later at Adelaide Zoo in Australia.
Helen Damrosch Tee-Van was a German-American illustrator best known for her precise scientific illustrations. She participated in 13 international expeditions with the New York Zoological Society between 1922 and 1963 to document new species.