One year of PlatyTracker · 25 September 2026

PlatyTracker Data Explorer

A closer look at our creeks.

A platypus swimming across dark water, seen from above. — Photography: Brandon Rooney

All-program totals

994: completed surveys
374: sessions with a sighting
620: sessions with no sighting

Timeline: 25 September 2025–22 September 2026 · These are monitoring records, not a count of individual platypus.

Map

Explore the monitoring map

Find a creek or river to see where our volunteers have monitored and what they recorded. Points mark monitoring locations; they don’t show where a particular platypus lives.

Find a waterway by name

Filter by drainage basinSome hinterland creeks drain inland toward the Brisbane River system.

Choose a waterway

Waterways

At least one sighting recordedNo sightings recordedPrivate property — no public access permittedWaterwayNumbers show completed monitoring sessions

Choose a waterway above to see its monitoring places, or select a numbered marker.

Monitoring places

How to read the map

Zoomed out, the map groups monitoring sessions into place markers; zoom in to see each session at its recorded position. These creeks belong to different catchments; some never join each other.

It cannot map every platypus, prove absence, count the population or trace animal movement.

GPS locations may not be exact. Some volunteers monitor on private property with permission; those places are not open to the public. How locations are handled →

Location and access notes

Monitoring places group sessions associated with a named site. A place marker is a representative position; zoom in to see recorded session positions. GPS can be imprecise. Private-property surveys have the landholder’s permission, but no public access is permitted. No burrow locations are mapped. Waterway lines are not animal tracks.

Data

What volunteers recorded

Explore when volunteers visited, what they saw and the habitat they described. Sightings are records of visits, not a count of individual platypus.

Timeline: 25 September 2025–22 September 2026

Figures count surveys from 25 September 2025, when PlatyTracker started.

All waterways · These charts show the whole program, regardless of your map selection.

Explore the data

Loading the public survey summary…

Reading the results & data sources

Completed surveys include visits with and without a sighting. Repeated sightings may be the same animal. Survey effort varies between places and months: these results cannot estimate population size, prove absence or demonstrate a cause. No sighting does not prove a platypus was absent.

PlatyTracker started on 25 September 2025. Earlier test surveys are not included in any figure, chart or map. The record runs from 26 September 2025 to 22 September 2026; the final month may be incomplete.

Source: ECOllaboration PlatyTracker volunteer monitoring records. Program information at ECOllaboration.

How to read these charts

Check how many visits were made when comparing sightings. Finding two things in the same records doesn’t tell us that one caused the other.

How to interpret these results →

Connections

What does a platypus need?

Follow the connections between a platypus, its food and a healthy creek. Then explore what happens when conditions change.

Educational illustration of a platypus swimming fully underwater, with bank roots on the right and stones, leaves and wood on the creek bed

AI-generated educational illustration, informed by photography by Brandon Rooney (Ecollaboration volunteer).

Connections

Start with the platypus

Select the platypus to find out what it eats, where it shelters and how people can help.

About this illustration

The connections come from research about freshwater habitats. They don’t tell us the condition of a particular creek or the location of an animal or burrow.

The illustration is general ecological guidance, not a map of animals or burrows, a habitat assessment, or evidence of local cause and effect. Healthy creeks can look different. Roots are not proof of a burrow.

Recorded by PlatyTracker: Volunteer observations from this program, not population estimates.
Established ecology: Published knowledge about platypus and freshwater habitats.
Regional evidence: Research from the wider region, not a diagnosis of this creek.
Illustrated mechanism: An explanation of how a change could work, not a measured local outcome.

Evidence labels explain the scope of each connection. The research sources below support the ecology and scenarios.

Research sources

Suspended particles are material carried in the water. Deposited fine sediment has settled onto the stream bed; these are different stages of the Changes scenario.