What’s the Plural of Platypus? Plus More Platypus Facts!
Part-Time Genius
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
They’re nature’s biggest weirdo: adorable egg-laying mammals that can inflict some serious pain. Today Will and Mango drop nine facts about the platypus, including the actual correct pluralization (hint: it’s not what you think it is) and the time scientists were convinced its existence was a prank. Which, fair!
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Drawing of a platypus (1809) via the New York Public Library Digital Collections.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:18.7 | You're listening to Part-Time Genius, |
| 0:20.8 | the production of kaleidoscope and IHeart Radio. |
| 0:28.1 | Guess what, Will? |
| 0:29.5 | What's that, Mango? |
| 0:30.5 | So I just found out that we have a platypus working at PTG. |
| 0:35.8 | So what do you mean by that? |
| 0:41.1 | We have a real live platypus working on the show, or maybe an honorary platypus, because I'm talking about our longtime friend and writer, |
| 0:47.9 | Gabe. Oh, that's right. I see where you're going. His alma mater is this small liberal |
| 0:52.8 | art school in Annapolis called St. John's College. |
| 0:56.1 | And, you know, the school doesn't have this official mascot, but it claims the platypus as an |
| 1:01.6 | unofficial one. And they've actually put the little guys on branded college t-shirts, water bottles. |
| 1:06.7 | Gabe says when he attended, they even sold plush ones in the campus bookstore. |
| 1:10.4 | So I'm curious though, like, why did a school in Maryland choose the platypus for a mascot? Yeah, so, of course, we all know that the platypus is a total weirdo, right? Like, it's got a bill like a duck, a tail like a beaver, it's clawed, it has wet feet like an otter. It is obviously a mix of everything. And St. John's is, I don't think, as strange as that, but it is an outlier compared to, like, most of the other schools. So all of its classes are discussion-based. There are no majors or minors. Every student follows the same curriculum, and instead of prepping students for a single career track, |
| 1:44.8 | the goal is to give them this really well-rounded education. But also, there's this long-running |
| 1:50.6 | joke on campus about the lack of majors. And they say St. John's students are like platypuses |
| 1:55.2 | because neither one knows what it wants to be when it grows up. |
| 1:58.7 | I kind of love that, actually. And at least they have a |
| 2:01.5 | sense of humor about it. Yeah, but Gabe told me there's actually been a big push in recent years for |
| 2:07.3 | St. John's to adopt another weirdo animal that's equally beloved, I think, the axolot. Apparently, |
| 2:14.1 | the school breeds them as part of a science program. So people think they make more sense as a mascot. |
... |
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