The Melbourne Water waterways monitoring program (Urban Platypus Program) recently recaptured a 24-year-old male platypus – the oldest ever recorded in the wild. The platypus was first caught and tagged as a sub-adult in November 2000, and is believed to have lived his entire life in Monbulk Creek. The oldest previously known platypus was a female in the upper Shoalhaven River in New South Wales at 21 years old.Â
The Urban Platypus Program, in association with Ecology Australia and Cesar performs sampling to gather population health data of these cryptic monotremes. Â
