Escaped from a zoo or smuggled from Australia via Schiphol? These scenarios, among others, were reviewed when the NH editorial staff came across a photo of a platypus in the Kagerplassen. A search for the exotic animal yielded a surprising explanation.
Platypus in the Kagerplassen? – NH News
Platypuses are among the few egg-laying mammals in the world, are the only mammals with a beak, and occur exclusively down under for. “If this is true, it is more special than an alligator,” said NH Nature reporter Stephan Roest when seeing the photo.
And so NH reporters Celine Sulsters and Thijs-Jan van Aalst were there like the chickens this morning to capture the exotic. But when they take a look at the harbor of Watersport Academy De Kaag, where the platypus is said to have been spotted, they do not see it swimming.
Mira Bruijninckx of the water sports association comes with the redeeming answer: it is a joke. The image has been manipulated by some instructors to fool each other and kids from the summer camp.
Read more below the image
“It started as a joke (from instructors, ed.) That we are not allowed to swim in the harbor because of the platypus,” says instructor Mira in front of NH’s camera.
Fake warnings for the not entirely innocent creature had also been posted in the association’s clubhouse. “Do not swim in the water because of an escaped Pegasus”, it read. It caused some ‘frightened faces’ in children who were learning to surf or sail for the first time.
But not only children fell for it. “The joke has started to roll and has reached the parents. And has been taken more seriously by some parents than intended.”