Dec. 23 (UPI) — An Australian angler spotted what he initially thought to be a massive trout and ended up capturing video of something even stranger: a pink platypus.
Victoria resident Cody Stylianou said he was casting his line in Gippsland when he came across the unusually-colored mammal, which he dubbed Pinky.
“The bill and feet are super obviously pink,” Stylianou told The Guardian. “When he did go a bit further into sunlit areas, he was easy to follow underwater, which is how I got so many videos of him surfacing.”
He said the platypus stood out from the others of its species that he’s spotted in the area.
“I’ve seen other platypus in the same river system, just regular colored ones,” he said. “Probably about five to eight of them over the years, from memory. Normally, they just pop up at the top of the water and then disappear once they see me.”
The videos sparked speculation that the playpus could have a pigmentation mutation like albinism or leucism, but researchers said that does not appear to be the case.
“Platypus do vary a lot in color,” Jeff Williams, director of the Australian Platypus Conservancy, said. “And this one’s at the extreme end of the light ones. It’s not one that we consider should be added to the list of albino and leucistic ones.”
EnviroDNA wildlife ecologist Josh Griffiths said the platypus’ unusual coloration most likely doesn’t have much affect on its lifestyle.
“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 told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.