Richard Feidler

Winston Churchill wanted to get hold of some platypuses during World War II.

What's the story behind that?

Well, he was an animal lover.

I think he had a pet goat for a while.

He had cats and dogs around Chartwell.

He also took care to make sure there were ravens in the Tower of London during the war and that the monkeys were in Gibraltar as well.

We talked a little bit about the fact that platypuses suckle the young, but they don't have nipples and they have these strange, well, not strange, but enormously large mammary glands that sort of seem to encircle their bodies, I think you were saying.

Tell me about the whole process of platypus courtship, if you can.

How does the course of platypus love run between a lady and a man, platypus who are loving each other very much?

He's a deadbeat.

Deadbeat dad.

And so once she's impregnated, then she digs a burrow then, does she?

I think it's that way around.

And these eggs, are they like, I don't know, chicken eggs or ostrich eggs?

I'm going to ask you a very unscientific question here, but you are prepared to sort of be a bit subjective about things.

Are their babies adorable?

Something else I didn't know until I read your book is that the male platypus has venom.

A mammal with venom?

Slow lorises are venomous?

Yep, they are.