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VIDEO: Twin baby platypuses make debut

A pair of baby boy platypuses have emerged from their burrow at Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria 133 days after hatching.

By AG Staff Writer • Reading Time: < 1

Image credit: courtesy Healesville Sanctuary

A PAIR OF BABY platypuses have emerged from their underground burrow approximately 133 days after hatching at Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria.

The yet-to-be named twins were originally discovered by a “burrow cam”, which provided keepers with 24-hour vision – the first of its kind at the sanctuary, located about an hour’s drive north-east of Melbourne.

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“It was like a sneak peak through the nursery window at a maternity ward or a mum seeing an ultra sound of her baby for the very first time,” said senior keeper, Jessica Thomas.

The twins’ 13-year-old mum, Binarri and six-year-old dad Tarrabi were spotted courting late last year, and before long Binarri started nesting.

The twins emerged within days of each other and are now fully independent. Meanwhile, Binarri “is eating more than half her bodyweight in food to recondition, now that the twins are totally weaned,” said Jessica.

“They emerged more than half her size, and she was feeding both of them just from her own milk supply,” she explained.

Healesville Sanctuary was the first place in the world to breed platypuses in captivity, with the first born in captivity there in the 1940s and making front-page news in London and New York at the time.

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