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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
No. Platypuses are solitary hunters and feeders.
They sometimes dive and feed in small family groups.
Do platypuses live in Virginia?
Platypuses are endemic to Australia alone, meaning they are found nowhere else in the wild.
However, platypuses could quite conceivably live alongside freshwater creeks and rivers in Maine in summer time. They could not live there in winter if watercourses ice over, as platypuses need daily access to the water to hunt for food.
All animals have an anus because all animals need to defecate.
Why does a platypus have a sensitive bill?
The platypus is a very sensitive animal. Although it is able to adapt to a variety of climatic types, from tropical to sub-alpine, it is very sensitive to environmental changes. It is also sensitive in another way: its bill has finely tuned electro-receptors that pick up the tiny electrical impulses from bottom-dwelling crustaceans on river and pond floors, enabling it to scoop them up for food.
During winter, platypuses do exactly the same as they do during summer. They continue to hunt for food during the night, diving in creeks and rivers to find their food. During the day, they sleep in their burrows dug into the riverbank. The temperature in their habitat does not change significantly during winter, as water temperatures and ground temperatures do not change as much as the air temperature changes. Platypuses also have a double layer of insulating fur to help keep them warm and dry at their skin level.
Platypuses reproduce via sexual reproduction.
Platypuses reproduce by laying eggs, which hatch into young platypuses that initially feed off mothers' milk. The platypus is a monotreme, or egg-laying mammal, just like the echidna, and quite unique to Australia. Platypuses lay eggs in a chamber at the end of a burrow dug into a riverbank or next to a creek.
Their young, once hatched, drink milk from grooves on the mother's abdomen where it seeps from glands, rather than attaching to teats.
platypuses are strange in that way,there like mammals becaus thay nurse there young with milk but unlike mammals they lay eggs.
How does a platypus behave with other animals?
Platypuses are shy creatures which do not readily interact with other animals.
What do a platypus and a waratah have in common?
Beyond both being mammals, coyotes and platypuses have nothing more in common. They are both warm-blooded vertebrates, covered in fur, which bathe air using lungs, and that feed their young on mothers' milk. This is where the similarities end.
Platypuses are monotremes, or egg-laying mammals, while coyotes are eutherians, or placental mammals. They do not have the same diet or hunting habits, and they do not even live on the same continent.
What are some factors that affect growth for a platypus?
there are many abiotic factors in a platypuses environment, since it interacts with everything. here are a few examples: logs, water, sun, shells, rocks, sand, dirt, vegetation such as plants, trees, etc. almost anything that isn't living platypuses interact with - even human trash that pollutes the place where it lives.
What insects do platypuses eat?
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.
To catch their prey, platypuses must make several hundred dives a day in order to catch enough food. They use the fine, sensitive electroreceptors on their bills, which detect the tiny electrical impulses made by underwater creatures. After locating their prey, they dig up the mud with their bill to grasp them, crushing the creatures between grinding plates in their bills.
Baby platypuses drink mother's milk.
It should be noted that platypuses do not generally eat frogs, tadpoles, fish or plants. Analysis of platypus pellets has - rarely - indicated the presence of fish or frog parts, but on the whole, platypuses do not feed on these creatures.
the sides of the river. the dip part. :)
i hope that kinda helps..
Does the platypus have competitors?
Yes, they do fight.
The breeding season is between August and October, which is Australia's late winter-early spring. Platypuses are solitary animals that only come together to mate. When they do they become very aggressive towards other platypuses. That only goes for the males, they are fighting for the chance to breed with a female and pass on their genes. When a male platypus fights for a female, territory, or even food he uses his venomous spurs locate on the back of each of his heels. This venom can be fatal to other platypuses and a few mammals. It's not fatal to humans though, all it does is cause extreme pain which cannot be relieved.
Is a platypus predator or prey?
Platypuses eat small crustaceans such as yabbies that live on the bottom of creeks and rivers. They also eat other kinds of small aquatic invertebrates, such as worms, freshwater crayfish, insect larvae, and freshwater shrimps.
Platypuses catch their food in the water. They may make hundreds of dives 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.
A platypus lays eggs, and the eggs hatch into tiny baby platypuses. Platypuses are mammals, despite being egg-laying. Together with the echidna, they are the only monotremes, or egg-laying mammals.
Is a platypus radial bilateral or asymmetrical?
Platypuses have bilateral symmetry. This means they have symmetry across one plane (known as the sagittal plane, and directly down the centre of their body), which means one side of their body approximately mirrors the other side.
Only adult male platypuses are venomous.
Male platypuses have a venomous spur on each of their hind legs, through which they can deliver a venom 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.
Female platypuses do not have venom, but they are born with spurs. These spurs fall off by the time the young female is about a year old.
Does a real platypus sound like perry the platypus?
well, it kind of hard, try it in steps.
- open your mouth (you should keep it open throughout this
entire thing.)
- press the back of your tongue against the squishy part of
your mouth in the back where the hard roof ends.
- then take your tongue slightly off the roof ( it should still
be very close though.)
- slowly exhale from your mouth, you should feel a slight
thumping sensation in your throght.
- if you don't hear it ajust you tongue closer to the roof of
your mouth, to make the sound more like perry try arching your
tongue to make the sound deeper and louder.
Does the female platypus have poison claws?
No. The female platypus is not dangerous in any way.
The male platypus has a venomous spur, but young females lose their spur by the time they are twelve months old, and it is never venomous.
The platypus can reach a length of up to 55cm.
Average head-body length is 30-40cm, and tail length is 10-15 cm.
Most species of Australian mammals are nocturnal, and this is usually an adaptation over time to help them avoid their main predtaors, which are birds of prey and snakes.
Platypuses are mainly nocturnal feeders, and can usually only be observed at dawn and the in the very early morning, and dusk/late evening. This behaviour is known as "crepuscular".
What is the function of the bill in a Platypus?
The platypus uses its bill to find food. It closes its eyes when underwater, and uses its bill to detect movements. Equipped with electroreceptors, the sensitive bill can sense electrical impulses, even the tiniest of movements made by underwater crustaceans.
The bill is also used to shovel up the soil on the bottom of the river or creek in order to find the food. Once found, the platypus uses grinding plates in its bill, rather than teeth, to crush the food before eating it.
Is the platypus the only mammal in Australia?
The platypus is found only in Australia. However, both species of echidna are found in New Guinea. The long-beaked echidna is found in New Guinea but not Australia, while the short-beaked echidna is found in a small corner of Papua New Guinea, but all over the Australian continent.
Yes. Platypuses are one of only two types of mammals to lay eggs. Fertilised platypus eggs stay in the mother's body for around 28 days. The egg is incubated by the mother curling around it and keeping it warm and dry in the chamber of the burrow for another 10 days.
