What is the difference between a dolphin and a platypus?

Answer 1

A duck is a bird. It has feathers and can fly.

A Platypus is a completely different animal. It is a monotreme (egg-laying mammal) with a bill, fur and a thick, beaver-like tail.

Other differences include:

• The platypus's bill is flatter and broader than a duck's, and serves a quite different function. It is equipped with electroreceptors, with which it detects the electrical impulses of tiny crustaceans, and it uses its bill to shovel away the dirt and mud to reach its food.
• The platypus is completely carnivorous, but a duck is omnivorous, feeding on aquatic plant life as well as insects, small fish, worms and small amphibians.
• While ducks have permanently webbed feet, the platypus has retractable webbing on its feet. The webbing is there to help it swim, but it retracts when the platypus needs to dig its burrow.
• Platypuses live and raise their young in burrows dug in the side of riverbanks. Ducks do not burrow, but build nests in which to lay their eggs.
• Platypuses are unique to Australia. Ducks are found all over the world.
• Ducks migrate; platypuses do not.

Answer 2

• A beaver is a rodent which bears live young; a platypus is a monotreme (egg-laying mammal)
• A beaver has large front teeth; platypuses have a bill with no teeth, but grinding plates
• Platypuses live in Australia and beavers live in North America and Canada.
• A platypus digs a burrow in the side of a riverbank or creekbank, with an extra chamber at the end for incubating and raising its young; a beaver chews down trees to eat and makes a dam to raise its young.
• The platypus is the only venomous mammal - the male has a spur on its hind leg with which to inject poison that is extremely painful and has long-lasting effects
• The beaver's tail is broader and flatter than a platypus's, and covered with special scales. The platypus's tail is covered with dense fur.
• Their tails serve different purposes. The beaver's tail is used to help propel it along in the water. The platypus's tail is used as a rudder, for steering when it is swimming.

Answer 3

Although ducks are birds and platypuses are mammals, they have a limited number of similarities. Both are warmblooded vertebrates that breathe using lungs and a respiratory system.

Ducks and platypuses both lay eggs, although ducks lay hard-shelled eggs and platypuses lay soft-shelled, leathery eggs.

Ducks and platypuses both have a bill, but the platypus's bill is broader and flatter than a duck's bill, and it is equipped with electroreceptors for detecting tiny electrical impulses from crustaceans and larvae that live on the bottom of creeks and rivers.

Both ducks and platypuses make frequent dives to find food. In the case of the platypus, however, it will make hundreds of dives a day in order to find the food it needs.

Both creatures have webbed feet, but again there is a difference, because the webbing on platypuses' feet is retractable, allowing them to use their sharp claws to dig burrows.

Answer 4

They are not even remotely related, even though both lay eggs.

Birds are birds, meaning they have a different physiological strcuture, and they are covered with feathers. They have wings, even the ones that are flightless, and they walk on two legs. They regurgitate their food in order to feed their young.

A platypus is a mammal, specifically a monotreme. It is covered with dense fur, and feeds its young on mothers' milk. It walks on four legs and is an adept swimmer.

Answer 5

There is very little that is similar between ducks and platypuses, as ducks are birds and platypuses are mammals.

However, they are both warm-blooded, air-breathing vertebrates. The platypus is a monotreme, or egg-laying mammal, so both ducks and platypuses lay eggs in order to reproduce. They both feed in the water, although what they eat is completely different. The platypus is said to have a bill like a duck, but in reality, its bill is very different, being broader, flatter, and having the sense of electroreception.

Answer 6

There are numerous differences.

• Platypuses are monotremes (egg-laying mammals) but dolphins are placental mammals, meaning they give birth to live young.
• Platypuses are native to Australia alone, while dolphins are found in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical waters all over the world.
• Platypuses live only in fresh water; dolphins live only in oceans and seas.
• Platypuses feed on small invertebrates, crustaceans and insect larvae; dolphins eat fish.
• Platypuses close their eyes when hunting, and they are solitary feeders, seeking out food using electroreceptors in their bill. Dolphins, on the other hand, keep their eyes open underwater, and do not have electroreceptors, but they use echolocation underwater to communicate with each other.
• Platypuses have fur; dolphins just have smooth skin.
• Platypuses have four limbs so they can walk on land, but dolphins have only flippers, and they canot exist on land for any length of time.
• Platypuses dig burrows for shelter, but dolphins do not.

Answer 7

There is no such species as the "duck billed platypus". A platypus is simply a platypus, and the concept that its unique bill is anything like a duck's is false. The structure, function and even the material of which its bill is made are all very different. This animal was called "duckbill" in the early years of settlement in Australia, but the name no longer applies.

Answer 8

No, there is no difference whatsoever. Platypus is the correct name for the so-called duck-billed platypus. 'Duckbilled' is a misnomer.

Answer 9

A duck is a bird. A platypus is a mammal, even though it does lay eggs like a bird does.