Richard Feidler

You've seen snow leopards in the world, which is an incredible privilege.

Like I had the snow leopard expert on some years ago.

I think it took years before he'd seen one.

But they saw you as well.

They're so beautiful, aren't they?

They are so incredibly beautiful.

What's it like to watch them move with that authority and confidence?

A large part of your book, Jack, is the strange things that happened when Europeans spotted the platypus for the first time when they first came to Australia and how...

how much chaos and confusion it caused in the scientific world and in the larger world in general, just by the very existence of an animal like the platypus, which suckles its young and yet lays eggs and seems to be, to a European's eyes, an amalgam of a whole bunch of other animals.

You've got a picture in your book that comes from the second governor of New South Wales, John Hunter.

It's a picture of a platypus.

Tell me the story of how he came to make that drawing and what became of that platypus.

So this poor woman was suddenly drenched and draped in alcohol and...

pickled platypus and wombat remains.

That'd be a really stupid way to die, wouldn't it?

It'd be an amusing obituary, but she did survive this week.

She was unhappy, though.

I think we can sort of guess that.

You've got a story that sort of continues this story of Europe's strange relationship with the platypus.

Winston Churchill.