He has the weirdest job at the zoo, and it's making a real difference

Mr Witcombe is Taronga Western Plains Zoo's platypus keeper.

As well as looking after ambassador platypus Mackenzie, who can be seen by any visitors, Mr Witcombe also looks after four platypuses behind the scenes who are part of a research program.

Being their keeper involves breeding maggots, flies and yabbies for the platypuses to eat. Mr Witcombe has both a maggot room and a fly room at the Dubbo zoo in NSW's Central West.

While Mr Witcombe acknowledges it's a weird job, he also believes he cares for one of the weirdest animals.

"They've got such a lot to teach us and that's why when Europeans first saw these creatures they went, what on earth is this? And they sent them back to the UK and someone said, 'oh no way does that thing exist'. They've always puzzled everyone that's worked on them. They're still holding onto their secrets," he said.

One of the platypus keeper's biggest focuses is on getting the animals to breed. While they've been in zoos for more than 100 years, they often haven't been given the space to demonstrate their natural behaviours.

"Since 1943 there's only been 21 platypus ever born in zoos and that was in 11 breeding events so they're really hard to breed in zoos. We don't know if they're missing the secret sauce or they need a candlelit dinner or we've got the wrong music, we really don't know," Mr Witcombe said.

"If we did breed some platypus here it would be a really special moment. We'd have to pop a bottle of champagne."

Mr Witcombe is as hands-off as possible with the research platypuses. He mostly watches them through the cameras and already the zoo has seen hibernation patterns in platypuses that haven't been documented before.

Research is also being undertaken into platypus venom.

"There's a peptide in there called PLG-1. It's a peptide they found in the Gila monster, which is a North American lizard, in 2005 which went to the creation of Ozempic. The platypus has got the same peptide in their venom, and they're hoping to create the next generation of diabetes treatments from platypus venom," Mr Witcombe said.

"Even their milk, they've found new antibodies in platypus milk which are unknown to science at the moment, so they're hoping to synthetically recreate those into antibiotics to combat superbugs in hospitals because they're new antibiotics."

But Mr Witcombe's favourite fact, and the one he finishes every platypus talk on, is that platypuses and echidnas are the only animals that can make their own custard because they produce both eggs and milk.

Mr Witcombe's love for the zoo started when he was 14. He did the meerkat encounter at the zoo for his birthday and the keeper mentioned the Youth at the Zoo volunteer program.

He went from a volunteer at Taronga Zoo to undertaking his certificate two in animal studies and my certificate three in captive animal management at the Taronga Training Institute.

Mr Witcombe was a casual keeper going wherever he was needed, but ended up working on the platypus round in Sydney. In 2021 when Taronga's sister zoo in Dubbo needed extra staff, he put his hand up to move out west for three months. Five years later he's still in Dubbo.

"It gives me a lot of fulfilment working with this kind of program because I can see the difference that it's making day-to-day It's so great to work with so many other animals in the zoo because you do build that close connection with them but to work on such a tangible program is something that's really special to me," Mr Witcombe said.