Duck - Billed Platypus
The platypus is among nature’s most unlikely animals.in
fact, the first scientists to examine a specimen believed they were the victims
of a hoax.
The animal
in best described as a hodgepodge of more familiar species: the duck (bill and
webbed feet), beaver (tail), and otter (body and fur). Males are also venomous.
They have sharp stinger on the heels of their rear feet and can use them to
deliver a strong toxic blow to any foe.
Platypuses
hunt underwater, where they swim gracefully by paddling with their front webbed
feet and steering with their hind feet and beaver like tail. Folds of skin
cover their eyes and ears to prevent water from entering, and the nostrils close
with a watertight seal. In this posture, a platypus can remain submerged for a
minute or two and employ its sensitives bill to find food
These Australian
mammals are bottom feeders. They scoop up insects and larvae, shellfish, and
worms in their bill along with bits of gravel and mud from the bottom. All this
material is stored in cheek pouches and, at the surface, mashed for consumption.
Platy-puses do not have teeth, so the bits of gravel help them to “chew” their
meal.
On land,
platypuses move a bit more awkwardly. However, the webbing on their feet
retracts to expose individual nails and allow the creatures to run. Platypuses use
their nails and feet to construct dirt burrowed at the water’s edge.
Platypuses
reproduction is nearly unique. It is one of only two mammals (the echidna is the
other) that lay eggs.
Females
seal themselves inside one of the burrow’s chambers to lay their eggs. A mother
typically produces one or two eggs and keeps them warm by holding them between
her body and her tail. The eggs hatch n about ten days, but platypus infants
are the size of lima beans and totally helpless. Females nurse their young for
three to four months until the babies can swim on their own
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