Platypus
Oceania
The platypus is a truly strange animal with a duck's bill, a beaver's tail, and an otter's feet. It's a mammal, but it lays eggs! It finds food by sensing electric signals in the water with its bill.
Quick facts
- Habitat
- It lives in the rivers and lakes of eastern Australia.
- Diet
- It eats water insects, shrimp, and worms.
- Size and weight
- Length 40–50cm, weight 0.7–2.4kg.
- Lifespan
- About 12 years
- Conservation status
- Near Threatened
- Fun facts
- Males have venomous spurs on their feet! That's very rare for a mammal.
It closes its eyes and finds food underwater using only its bill.
Learn more
An egg-laying mammal with a duck's bill and venomous spurs
The platypus, nature's most perfect and bizarre hybrid creation
- It has a duck's bill and webbed feet.
- It has a broad, beaver-like tail.
- It's a mammal, but lays eggs instead of giving live birth.
The strangest mammal in the world
It nurses its young with milk, yet doesn't give birth to them
- It's a rare egg-laying mammal classified as a monotreme.
- The mother keeps the egg warm for about 10 days until it hatches.
- With no nipples, it secretes milk through sweat glands in the skin to feed its young.
- Its milk contains a special antimicrobial protein (MLP) that prevents bacterial infection.
A gluttonous hunter that closes its eyes to hunt
It uses a sixth sense underwater
- When it enters water, it seals its eyes, ears, and nose completely shut before diving.
- Its bill has 40,000 "electroreceptors" that detect the faint electrical signals given off by prey.
- It eats an enormous amount of food each day, up to 28% of its own body weight.
- With no true stomach, its esophagus connects directly to its intestines.
Fur that glows under UV light
A surprising 2020 discovery that stunned scientists
- Under UV light in the dark, its fur glows a beautiful blue-green color.
- This is thought to be a form of camouflage, absorbing UV light to help it avoid predators' eyes.
- This trait mainly appears in nocturnal animals active at night or dawn.
- It may be a primitive trait inherited long ago from the common ancestor of all mammals.
A hidden venom behind its cute looks
The male's hind feet carry a fearsome weapon
- Only males have a sharp spur on the hind foot that can inject venom.
- It's mainly used when males compete with each other during mating season or defend their territory.
- It's not lethal to humans, but causes excruciating pain that even morphine can't relieve.
- Its venom is chemically similar to reptile venom, yet it's a remarkable result of independent evolution in a mammal.
A fossil that survived from the age of dinosaurs
It carries over 100 million years of evolutionary history
- It's one of the oldest mammals on Earth, having existed since about 115 million years ago.
- While humans have 2 sex chromosomes, the platypus has an astonishing 10.
- The only egg-laying mammals (monotremes) left on Earth are the platypus and the echidna.