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Project Folktale: 

A multicultural resource for librarians, educators, and storytellers

Australian Tales

How Platypuses Came to Australia


How Platypuses Came to Australia

Background 

This story is, as the title indicates, the story of how platypuses came to exist in Australia. Against the warnings about Mulloka (the water devil) from her tribe, a young, adventuresome duck went off swimming and was captured by Biggoon, a water rat. He forced her to live with him, and she decided to pretend she intended to stay with him forever, so he would begin to trust her. One day, he fell asleep and she seized the opportunity and escaped. She was very happy to be free, and life went on as usual until all the mother ducks' eggs began to hatch. Instead of hatching ducklings, she hatched animals that were part-duck, part-rat. No one in her tribe would accept them, and she was afraid to return to Biggoon because he might kill her children. So, she swam up to the mountains. There, they lived and thrived. And so the platyupus can be found in mountain creeks and elsewhere still today. There are many stories about how various animals came to be or to have certain characteristics. 

Suggested Lessons and Activities 

1. Since some children may never have seen a platypus, bring in pictures. Discuss the characteristics of a duck, rat, and the platypus. Make a chart of similarities and differences. Do they think this could really happen? What other animals look like combinations of more than one animal. 

2. Discuss evolution. 

3. Find and color pictures of different animals. Divide each picture into thirds (horizontal lines) and cut on each line. Make a cover for your book. You may then flip pages to make interesting creatures. (See the picture below.) 

[sample page from booklet image]

4. Visit a zoo or visit a museum to learn about evolution and how different animals lived in different eras. 


Citation 

Cole, Joanna, ed. Best-Loved Folktales Around the World. New York: Anchor Press, 1982. 

 

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www.oocities.org/Athens/Agora/8623
c. 1998 by Deborah Angiolieri
Comments to: debbi@csonline.net
Deborah M. Angiolieri
Elementary Library Media Specialist
Franklin Area School District
Franklin, PA 16323
United States of America
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