What is a platypus's need and how does it meet it?

Answer 1

In order to survive, the platypus needs a clean, freshwater creek with a ready food supply, as platypuses must eat the equivalent of their own body weight every day.

It is almost impossible for any animal sanctuary or zoo to replicate the exact needs of a platypus. While platypuses can be kept safe and alive in selected animal sanctuaries, in the last fifty years, only two platypuses have ever been born in captivity. No captive breeding programme has ever been successful.

Answer 2

The platypus needs a clean, freshwater creek with a ready food supply, as platypuses must eat the equivalent of their own body weight every day.

Platypuses are carnivores that eat small water animals such as aquatic insect larvae, fresh water shrimp, annelid worms, yabbies and crayfish. In order to meet this need, they must make hundreds of dives in freshwater creeks and rivers in a single day. The bill of a platypus has sensitive electroreceptors which pick up tiny nerve and electrical impulses generated by crustaceans and other animals that inhabit the bottom of the creek or river. The platypus then uses its bill to shovel away the dirt, and find the food.

Platypuses also need shelter. They live in burrows that they dig on the banks of freshwater creeks, rivers, lakes and dams. The female digs a chamber at the end of a long burrow where she shelters her young.

Answer 3

Platypuses are carnivores. They are predators; they eat small water animals such as aquatic insect larvae of caddisflies, mayflies and two-winged flies, fresh water shrimp, annelid worms, yabbies and crayfish. During summer, they eat more than during winter, in order to build up reserves of fat.