This is a platypus (duck-billed platypus), a hodgepodge of more familiar species - sporting a bill like a duck, a tail like a beaver and feet like an otter. This patchwork of creation lives in the deciduous forests of Australia, where it inhabits rivers, lagoons and streams. Although a mammal, it lays eggs and feeds its young milk from flat mammary patches on its skin, instead of from teats. This semi-aquatic animal spends most of its day holed up in a dry burrow near water, because it moves about rather clumsily on land with its webbed feet. However, it is an excellent swimmer, hunting for its food underwater, using its bill to sense the electrical signals and mechanical waves made by its prey. It scoops up gravel with its prey, which aids in digestion, because it has neither teeth nor a stomach - its oesophagus (gullet) is connected directly to its intestines. To defend itself or to kill rival males, this little abomination of evolution uses a poisonous spur, which can even inflict some serious pain on a human. Finally, although the name platypus sounds Latin, it is actually of Greek origin, so the correct plural form of the word should be platypodes, although platypus or platypuses is generally accepted as the correct way to pluralize it. Biology lesson over....
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 12:30:10 +0000
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