An Unknown Object

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"The first Australian colonists to see the platypus [...] saw it as a mole, and in fact they called it the "water mole," but this mole had a beak, and therefore it was not a mole [...] The platypus was discovered in Australia at the end of the eighteenth century and was first named "water mole," "duck mole," or "duck-billed platypus." In 1799, a stuffed specimen was examined in England, and the naturalists could not believe their eyes, with the result that some insinuated it was a practical joke on the part of a taxidermist."

 

Umberto Eco