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Platypuses
One of Australia's most unique and unusual native animals, the platypus is an egg-laying mammal which lives on land and hunts for food in the freshwater creeks and rivers of eastern Australia. Once incorrectly thought to be the most primitive mammal, it is now regarded as a superb example of adaptation. Questions and answers about platypuses can be found here.
996 Questions
A animal starting with a d is a mammal lays eggs has a poisonous spike on its leg?
There is no such animal.
The platypus is a monotreme (egg-laying mammal) and it has a venomous spur on its leg.
If the answer is supposed to be "duck-billed platypus", this is not the proper name for this creature.
What animal does a platypus look like?
Platypuses are only small creatures. A male platypus is 50-60 cm in length, whilst the female is smaller, averaging 40-50 cm in length. They are very lightly built creatures, with females weighing as little as 900 grams, and males around 2kg.
Whilst some may say the platypus has a unique appearance similar to that of part beaver, part otter and part duck, it really does not look like that at all. It is covered in fur, and its head is flat and streamlined for swimming under the water's surface.
The colour of a platypus's fur is dark brown over most of its body, with a grey undercoat. Its belly is gold-coloured or silky grey.
Its bill is different in shape to that of a duck, so even the term "duck-billed platypus" is a misnomer. It has webbed feet, claws and a flat tail, and lives in burrows in riverbanks. Its feet are not permanently webbed, as the membrane that stretches to help it swim swiftly retracts for the purpose of digging.
The bizarre appearance of this egg-laying mammal with a bill baffled naturalists when it was first discovered, with some considering it an elaborate fraud. It is one of the few venomous mammals; the male Platypus has a spur on the hind foot which delivers a poison capable of killing a small dog or causing severe pain to humans.
See the related link for pictures of the platypus.
Yes and no. Platypuses are semi-aquatic. They are land animals, as they live in dry burrows above the waterline of creeks and rivers.
Platypuses are also completely dependent upon the water for their food. They make hundreds of dives daily, in order to find the freshwater crustaceans and annelid worms they need to eat.
How does a platypus obtain oxygen?
The platypus frog is also known as the Gastric brooding frog. Like other frogs, when they are tadpoles, they breathe using gills and a spiracle. When they have completed their metamorphosis, they breathe using lungs, and through their skin while they are in the water.
What can you do to help the platypus?
Platypuses are not really in need of any help. Since they have been protected by law, their numbers are estimated to have returned to the same levels they were when European settlement first began in Australia. Their biggest threat is habitat loss and being entangled in fishing nets, but increased awareness of these problems is reducing their effects on the platypus population.
Because platypuses are now a protected species, fortunately there are fewer dangers to them than there were when they were being hunted for their pelts. However, things we can do are:
- Ensure we do not use fishing nets around freshwater rivers, lakes and creeks. Many platypuses have died horrible deaths after becoming entangled in fishing nets.
- Do what we can to keep our waterways clean and clear of pollution of any type.
- After floodwaters have gone through a creek or river system, check for baby platypuses, which are vulnerable to being swept out of their burrows and drowned.
Where do you find a domestic Platypus in the US?
Platypuses live throughout eastern coastal Australia and its island state of Tasmania, particularly within heavily wooded and protected regions. They are found from the cooler sub-alpine areas in the south, such as Victoria and the Tasmanian highlands, north through New South Wales to tropical far north Queensland. Platypuses live in bushland as well as tropical, sub-tropical and temperate rainforests.
Does a platypus mark or protect its territory?
Yes. Platypuses are both territorial and solitary. Males, in particular, are territorial, especially during breeding season. Males tend to have a linear territory that extends for up to three kilometres along a creek or riverbank, while the females' territory extends around 1 km in length. This means that the male often has territorial rights over more than one female.
No. Platypuses are native to Australia, and there are no "jungles" in Australia.
Platypuses live in burrows alongside creeks and rivers in eastern Australia, including its island state of Tasmania. Thus, their habitat varies. They can be found in tropical rainforests and cool temperate rainforests; they are also found in eucalyptus bushland, both wet sclerophyll and dry sclerophyll.
What does duckbill platypus do in the deciduous forest?
The platypus does not live in the deciduous forest. Platypuses are native to Australia, and are most commonly found in native bushland and rainforest, neither of which are deciduous. Therefore, they do not affect the ecosystem an area where they do not live.
Male platypuses have a venomous spur on each of their hind legs, through which they can deliver a poison strong enough to kill a small dog, and to cause almost paralysing agony to an adult human. It is possible that a very small child could be killed (though a tiny child would be unlikely to engage in behaviour threatening to a platypus), and it is also possible that the shock of the pain in an unhealthy, weakened adult could well result in their death. Also, platypus venom contains a protein which lowers blood pressure, also inducing shock.
People who have been "spurred" by a platypus report that the pain is strong enough to cause vomiting that may last for days, weeks or sometimes even months. The pain cannot be relieved by morphine and other standard pain-killing drugs. It seems the only way it can be relieved is through anaesthesia of the main nerve from the spur site.
What is a group of platypuses called?
There is no word for a group of platypuses, as platypuses do not congregate in groups. They are solitary animals.
Because they do not form social groupings or families, there has been little need for a collective noun to describe such groups.
What other animals are found where a platypus lives?
The only mammal which shares the platypus's immediate environment is the water rat: platypuses and water rats are the only mammals which live in burrows in freshwater riverbanks or creek banks.
Other mammals may be found in nearby bushland, but do not dig in the riverbanks. These animals include the wombat, bandicoot, red-necked wallaby and swamp wallaby, to name a few.
Other members of the animal kingdom which are not mammals can be found in the platypus's environment. Kingfishers and water lizards such as the eastern water dragon can be found in platypus's habitat, as well as frogs and various freshwater turtles. There may be moorhens, swamp hens, kookaburras and kingfishers. Nearby, you may find a variety of lyrebirds, rosellas, lorikeets and cockatoos. Because platypuses are not restricted to rainforest, but are equally found in general bushland and scrubland where there are rivers, native marsupials such as kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, koalas, potoroos, quolls and bandicoots may share the habitat. In Tasmania, the Tasmanian devil is a near-neighbour. Echidnas are found all over Australia, so will readily be found in platypus habitat also.
Lizards such as the eastern water dragon, and green tree snakes may also live in the same region, as may pythons, brown snakes, red bellied black snakes and so on. Turtles and frogs also may live in the same waterways as platypuses.
Why is the platypus not a typical mammal?
A platypus is a mammal.
Mammals include three types of animals.
- Placental mammals (warm blooded, milk producing animals which provide a placental supply of nutrients during the maturing process of their young before birth), and the subgroups
- monotremes (warm blooded, egg laying, milk producing animals) and
- marsupials (warm blooded, milk producing mammals which bear young at an early stage and have them mature outside of the womb without a placenta)
The platypus is a monotreme and therefore a mammal.
If platypuses keep their eyes closed under water how do they find their burrow?
Platypuses dig burrows in the banks of the freshwater creeks, rivers or lakes where they do their hunting. The entrances are disguised beneath overhangs, or by tree roots and other vegetation.
Platypuses have webbed feet with retractable webbing which enables them to dig their burrows. Burrows can be over 30m in length (100 feet). During breeding season, the female digs a chamber at the end of a burrow, which is where she incubates her eggs.
Why do you call platypus duck-billed platypus?
They are not.
Platypuses are not called duckbilled platypuses. This is a nickname only applied by non-Australians. It is used by non-Australians who are of the mistaken belief that the platypus has a bill like that of a duck when, in fact, it is shaped quite differently.
All three species of monotremes, which comprise the platypus, short-beaked echidna and long-beaked echidna, reproduce sexually. Monotremes are egg-laying mammals, so platypuses and echidnas lay eggs in order to reproduce.
Are platypuses affected by a disease?
Tasmanian platypuses were first observed to be subject to platypus fungal disease, or Mucormycosis in 1982. This fungal disease causes ugly skin lesions or ulcers to develop on various parts of the platypus's body, including their backs, tails and legs. These lesions become quite large, and are ultimately fatal. Death comes from secondary infection, and from the fact that the platypus's ability to maintain body temperature and forage efficiently for food is affected. It's not yet known how the disease spreads from platypus to platypus, but the mainland creatures are not affected.
Yes. The platypus has ears, and an acute sense of hearing. Platypuses have no external earlobes, so in that sense they have invisible ears. They have external openings to the ear which are located either side of the base of the jaw.
What animal has a tail like a beaver?
The platypus looks a bit like that.
The platypus, however, is a completely independent animal which is not made up of beavers, ducks or any other creature. Its tail is vastly different to that of a beaver's, and even its bill is a different shape and size to a duck's. So in reality, the platypus looks nothing like the description in the question.
What can a platypus do that no other mammal can do?
The platypus is the only mammal with the sense of electroreception. It has a bill which is equipped with special electroreceptors, which enable the platypus to sense electrical impulses from tiny crustaceans and insect larvae at the bottom of creeks and rivers. This is quite different from echolocation, which bats and some marine mammals have.
While it is true that the platypus is unique for being an egg-laying mammal, it is not the only mammal that lays eggs. The echidna is also a monotreme, or egg-laying mammal.
Where did the platypus originate?
The platypus originated from, and is native to, Australia. It is not found in any other country. It is endemic to Australia's eastern states, including the southern island state of Tasmania.
How are platypus similar to reptiles and mammals?
No. Fossil evidence indicates that platypuses have always existed more or less in their current form. Ancient platypuses were larger and had teeth, unlike modern platypuses, but platypuses do not provide any sort of evolutionary link between reptiles and mammals.
Kangaroos koalas and platypuses a a few of the unique animals that are native to which continent?
These creatures are all endemic to Australia.
