When Melbourne fisherman Cody Stylianou made the long drive to a quiet river in Victoria’s east a few months ago, he expected a routine day of exploring.<\/p>\n
Instead, he found himself face to face with a rare sight \u2014 a pink platypus suspected of having albinism. Only a dozen such sightings have been confirmed in about 200 years.<\/p>\n
The unusual colouring first appeared as a pale shape drifting beneath the tannin-rich surface, moving differently to the fish that Mr Stylianou had been tracking.<\/p>\n
“I was fishing early morning and thought I’d seen a huge trout moving under the water, but quickly realised it was the platypus as it was only a couple metres in front of me,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cody Stylianou captured footage of an albino-looking pink platypus in September. (Supplied: Cody Stylianou)<\/p>\n
When it surfaced, the animal’s features were unmistakable: light fur, a soft pink bill and pink feet, signs of a rare genetic quirk that interrupts normal pigmentation.<\/p>\n
Mr Stylianou nicknamed the albino platypus “Pinky”.<\/p>\n
Research from experts say colour variations of this kind, whether caused by albinism or leucism, are exceptionally uncommon in platypuses.<\/p>\n
Possible second encounter with Pinky<\/p>\n
For Mr Stylianou, the moment carried a sense of familiarity.<\/p>\n
Several years earlier, in a similar area, he encountered a smaller platypus with the same distinctive pink colouring.<\/p>\n
He believed the animal he spotted in September was the same one, now older and considerably larger.<\/p>\n
“Though that first time I only got a glimpse before he left out of sight,” Mr Stylianou said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cody Stylianou is keeping the location secret. (Supplied: Cody Stylianou)<\/p>\n
“The recent time seeing him, he was happily feeding in front of me for 15 minutes or so, being that he was almost a yellow glow in the tannin-stained water.<\/p>\n
“I could track him quite well and get some good footage of the surface.”Loading…Location kept a secret<\/p>\n
To protect Pinky from being disturbed, Mr Stylianou has chosen not to reveal the location, a remote stretch of river in East Gippsland that he enjoys visiting.<\/p>\n
The isolation has likely played a role in Pinky surviving unnoticed for so long, and the brief encounter has left Mr Stylianou hopeful he may see him again on future travels.<\/p>\n
“I was pretty stoked to finally back up what I told people I saw a few years prior,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I knew he [Pinky] was super rare as again, when I’d seen it the first time, I quickly realised pictures of them with pink bills and feet didn’t exist.”<\/p>\n
The discovery adds an entry to scientific records and highlights just how little is known about colour variation in one of Australia’s most iconic species.<\/p>\n
‘Very solitary’ species, ecologist says<\/p>\n
EnviroDNA wildlife ecologist Josh Griffiths said spotting a regular platypus in the wild was already uncommon enough, so to encounter an albino-looking platypus made the sighting more extraordinary.<\/p>\n
“They’re just often difficult to see in the wild because they’re mostly active at night, so they don’t sort of hang out in large groups,” Mr Griffiths said.<\/p>\n
“They’re very solitary creatures. So generally, they’re just difficult to see.<\/p>\n
“They’re still fairly widespread throughout.”<\/p>\n
Mr Griffiths said albino animals did not survive long as their light appearance made them easy prey.<\/p>\n
But he said albino platypuses may live longer as they do not have any natural predators trying to hunt them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Josh Griffiths says regular platypuses are difficult to spot, making an albino platypus sighting very rare. (ABC: Brett Worthington)<\/p>\n
“Because platypuses are in rivers, they’re usually the apex predator in these rivers [and] there’s nothing really that eats them. So they’re generally pretty safe in that regard,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Griffiths said he believed it was most likely that Mr Stylianou had spotted Pinky on both occasions.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know how far apart those sightings were, but it means that this animal has survived for that period of time,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And it’s probably that platypus’ home range, and so it’s not moving too far out of that area.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Melbourne fisherman Cody Stylianou made the long drive to a quiet river in Victoria’s east a few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[196931,196935,196936,196937,64,63,134,98564,96706,124700,196934,196933,196932],"class_list":{"0":"post-361402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-albino","9":"tag-albino-animals","10":"tag-albino-platypus","11":"tag-animal-sighting","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-exotic-animals","16":"tag-platypus","17":"tag-rare","18":"tag-rare-animal","19":"tag-rare-animal-sighting","20":"tag-rare-platypus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}