AssetID: 54949516
Headline: 82-Year-Old Mystery Of The Death Of Winston Churchill's Pet Platypus Solved
Caption: 82-Year-Old Mystery Of The Death Of Winston Churchill's Pet Platypus Solved. Students from the University of Sydney have solved the mystery of the premature death of Winston Churchill’s pet platypus. Despite being busy leading the U.K. in the Second World War, Churchill had an unusual hobby - collecting exotic animals - creatures he kept at London Zoo. In 1943 he asked Australia for one of its most charismatic critters - a duckbilled platypus. Australia’s government tried to oblige him, enlisting naturalist David Fleay to catch one - which was then to be shipped to Churchill in the U.K. Fleay captured one he called “truly a little beauty” and named Winston after its new master, and built a “platypusary” to keep the animal safe during the five-week sea voyage to England. Tragically, however, Winston never made it to meet his namesake. On 4 November 1943, just two days before the ship reached England, the vessel’s logbook records the journey ending abruptly with the words: “Platypus found dead in water.” Contemporary media reports claimed Winston died of “shell shock” after a German submarine blas but the Sydney University students found that placing the blame for the platypus’s death was likely a cover-up. Instead, they found that Winston’s death was caused by overheating while on the ship. The ship’s logbook, part of Fleay’s archive, contains detailed temperature records. “We found very good evidence to suggest Winston died of heat stress due to high temperatures as the ship travelled through the Panama Canal,” said Paul Zaki, a third-year Bachelor of Psychology student. “It’s somehow even sadder than death by submarine detonation. But it feels pretty incredible that we were able to solve a historical whodunnit.”
Keywords: Offbeat,mystery,death,Winston Churchill,pet,Platypus,solved,students,University of Sydney,U.K.,Second World War,hobby,exotic,animals,creatures,London Zoo,Australia,critters,duckbilled,government,David Fleay,platypusary,England,ship,water,vessel,namesake,archive,Panama Canal
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