When Europeans first saw the platypus, they were incredulous. This strange creature, with the tail of a beaver and the bill and feet of a duck, must surely be a hoax, spluttered the worthies of the Royal Society.

But the platypus — Ornithorhynchus anatinus, to dress it up in its full scientific plumage, or Mulanggang in Ngunnawal — is stranger than they realised.

It’s a mammal — but, like a bird, it lays eggs. It’s a monotreme, one of only five such species in the world, alongside the Australian and New Guinean echidnas. It’s venomous: the males carry spurs they use for territorial disputes. It uses electrical and pressure signals to triangulate where prey are, while it swims with its eyes, ears, and nostrils closed. Its webbed feet are like retractable gloves: the webbing folds back so it can use its claws to dig burrows.

“They’re incredible,” says ecologist Daniel Harris-Pascal, citizen science facilitator with the ACT Government. “We’ve got a lot of incredible creatures in Australia, but because platypus are elusive and cryptic, they spark people’s interest in seeing one.”

And Canberrans can not only see one, but are encouraged to look for them (be the plural platypus, platypuses, platypi, or platypodes) in August. Otherwise known as Platypus Month, an annual community monitoring program run by Upper Murrumbidgee Waterwatch to understand platypus populations and waterway health. The community collects information on platypus presence, activity, and distribution.

“It’s an opportunity to see platypus, raise awareness of the fact that they live here in our city, and it’s a citizen science undertaking,” Mr Harris-Pascal said.

The public should also look out for the rakali, or native water rat. Historically persecuted as pests and hunted for their pelts, they won the ABC’s underrated animals countdown last year. They are top-order aquatic predators, adaptable enough to live in urban wetlands. And, like otters, they can be seen swimming on their backs or holding food on their stomachs and eating with their front paws, Mr Harris-Pascal says.

August is chosen as Platypus Month because the animals become more active as they prepare for the September breeding season, and are easy to observe at dawn and dusk (around 6 to 6.30am and 4.30 to 5.30pm).

Platypus Month begins on Saturday with a launch party at the Jerrabomberra wetlands, running from 9am to 1pm. There will be two guided platypus walks, face painting, and community art.

Throughout the month, there will be guided platypus walks and 34 surveys along regional waterways, including Queanbeyan River, Murrumbidgee River, Namarag Nature Reserve, Tidbinbilla Sanctuary, Cooma Creek, Point Hut Crossing, and Jerrabomberra Wetlands.

Volunteers need no experience. They will learn how to spot a platypus, what to look for, and hopefully see one, Mr Harris-Pascal said.

“We do try to call ahead and get the platypus to show up, but sometimes they’re there, sometimes they’re not there, depending on the day.”

Participants, stationed 100 metres apart, record sightings or signs every 10 minutes. Watchers should be patient and quiet, and watch for concentric bullseye rings or V-shaped wakes in the water. Platypuses can, however, remain underwater for four minutes, and emerge 100 metres away, far upstream or downstream.

Platypus and rakali sightings can be reported at any time using the Platy & Ratty Portal. Around 60 per cent of portal submissions are rakali sightings; only about 40 per cent are platypus.

The World Wide Fund for Nature warns that platypuses are nearing localised extinction in many areas, but the ACT’s population is stable, Mr Harris-Pascal said: roughly 30 individuals are seen every year at eight surveyed sites. Queanbeyan River is the region’s biggest hotspot.

In the ACT, too, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve supports an established platypus population in its protected wetlands, the Sanctuary.

Platypuses are a yardstick of the health of a waterway. They need good quality water, Mr Harris-Pascal explains. A platypus must eat roughly a third of its body weight each day — or approximately 40,000 water bugs (macroinvertebrates that live in water and are sensitive to pollution).

“If we get too much turbidity in the water, erosion, pollutants being washed in, those water bug numbers will decrease, and then that’ll be more difficult for the platypus to persist,” Mr Harris-Pascal said.

The platypus needs vegetation around the riverbanks it lives in, because it needs to build burrows and have a haven from predators.

The ACT’s Healthy Waterways program has decreased stormwater runoff and improved water quality, but the public should pick up litter, make sure that only rain goes down the stormwater drain, and keep circular litter — such as rubber bands, plastic bottle rings, and discarded fishing lines — out of the water.

“The platypus is a mammal and it needs to breathe,” Mr Harris-Pascal said. “Because it forages underwater with its eyes closed, using its sixth sense to find all of the water bugs that it needs to eat, if there’s a rubber band or a hair tie on the bottom, it could forage through it and then get entangled. If it can’t come to the surface, it won’t take very long before it drowns. Or similarly, if the band gets stuck around it, it doesn’t really have a good mechanism to remove it.

“So, making sure that we have clean water, low levels of litter, and good habitat spots for platypus are the three things that they need.”

A documentary, The Platypus Guardian, will be shown atthe National Film and Sound Archive on Tuesday 18 August, followed by a Q&A with its subject, conservationist Pete Walsh, ‘the platypus whisperer’.

For more information, visit act.waterwatch.org.au/programs/platypus-month. The people can sign up to events here: eventbrite.com.au/o/upper-murrumbidgee-water-watch-121381376291?aff=ebdsshcopyurl