#A PICTURE OF A DUCK BILLED PLATYPUS HOW TO#
#A PICTURE OF A DUCK BILLED PLATYPUS ISO#

You need to consider that they are deceptively quick, a faster ISO is required to get a faster shutter speed. Platypus are more active during the early hours and late afternoon, so chances are the light might not always be that great. However, depending on circumstances, you could get by with a 24-105mm lens and a little post-processing magic. Ideally, a 70-300mm or 100-400mm lens with a 1.4 or 2 x converter would provide the best opportunities. Platypus are relatively small, and it is unlikely, although not impossible, that they will swim close to you.

Platypus are most active during the early morning or late afternoon. Here are a few things to consider when photographing the duck-billed platypus: Continue on Lyell Highway for 33km then turn left onto B61 / Gordon River Rd then follow for 23km. At the roundabout, instead of crossing the Derwent River, continue onto Lyell Highway/ A10.

#A PICTURE OF A DUCK BILLED PLATYPUS HOW TO#

How to get there: From Hobart head north along the Brooker Highway towards Bridgewater. A Walk along the Tyenna River will often yield results. The park is roughly 70km north-west of Hobart. If You’re closer to Hobart, then Mount Field National Park would be your best option. How to get there: If you’re traveling on the Bass Highway through Burnie turn onto Massey-Greene Drive. Once on the reserve follow the trail along the Emu river and you’re bound to see them. Once in Latrobe head down Hamilton road off Gilbert Str (main road through town).įollow Hamilton Rd (becomes Shale rd) for 3.9km to reach Warrawee.Īnother option would be Fernglade Reserve in Burnie. How to get there: Latrobe is about 95km north of Launceston and roughly 15km south of Devonport.

On our first visit there we managed to see five different individuals (our first being within seconds of exiting the car). My first choice would be the Warrawee Reserve located on the Mersey river.

Seeing them in the natural habitat, however, is by far more rewarding. Sure you can go to wildlife parks such as the “Platypus House” in Beauty Point north of Launceston where an up close and personal experience with a platypus is guaranteed, along with heaps of information on the little critters. Finding it, however, may prove to be a little more difficult than expected. The species itself in Tasmania is common and relatively widespread inhabiting most rivers, streams, lakes, and dams. Tourists arrive in their thousands hoping to catch a glimpse of this elusive aquatic egg-laying mammal that at first glance seems to be a cross between a duck and a beaver. The platypus is one of those iconic little animals that can only be described as a “lifer” to any nature and wildlife enthusiast. They probably will not appear in the scientific literature for a few years yet, but I am looking forward to learning the truth about these new fossils.One of the first thoughts to cross my mind when my wife and I decided to move to Tasmania, was that I would finally get to see and hopefully get the chance of photographing the duck-billed platypus…. Translation difficulties aside, it sounds like the site is a treasure trove of significant new fossils. If there was a creature with a 52-foot wingspan, it certainly is a significant find, but I can say with certainty that it was not a platypus or a hadrosaur. Even so, the largest estimated wingspan for a pterosaur belongs to Quetzalcoatlus at a maximum of about 33 feet. Hadrosaurus did not have wings, but pterosaurs (which were not dinosaurs) did. A platypus is an egg-laying mammal (a monotreme), and “duck-billed dinosaurs” were hadrosaurs like Edmontosaurus. A r eport of the finds released by the news service AFP, and widely reproduced at sites like Yahoo!, said: Included in the find was the largest 'platypus'-or 'duck-billed dinosaur' in Chinese-ever discovered measuring nine metres high with a wingspan wider than 16 metres, the report said.Īs amusing as the image of a platypus with a 52 foot wingspan is, something has definitely been lost in translation here. The problem with international discoveries, however, is that reporting agencies are not always adept at translating what scientists have to say. Among the recovered fossils is part of the six-feet-wide skull of a horned dinosaur like Styracosaurus as well as bones of other dinosaur types seen from the Cretaceous of Asia and North America. Announcements of new fossil discoveries are always exciting, and remains found from a site in eastern Shandong Province in China are no exception.

A picture of a duck billed platypus