![]() Newborn platypuses are helpless, blind, hairless, and are the size of a lima bean! After about one month, the mother will lay the soft, lizard-like eggs and will then nurture them for ten days before they hatch. Two to three eggs will develop in the female platypus after successfully mating. When a platypus is two years old, it is ready to mate. But they are considered Mammals! Let’s talk about this egg-laying process. So…these animals have fur like mammals, feet like birds, and lay eggs like reptiles? Yes. They also have incredible bills that can sense the sounds of other animals to help them hunt! Cool huh? In addition to laying eggs, they have legs on the sides instead of underneath their bodies and they have webbed feet with tough claws for swimming and digging. There are many features about the Duck-Billed Platypus that lead people to believe they are actually reptiles. It is the only living member of the Ornithorhynchidae family, which dates back to 146 million years ago – WOW! This unique mammal is considered to be one of the most evolutionary distinct organisms alive today. When I drop this line to my students, their jaws drop in disbelief and their brains overflow with curiosity.Įgg Laying Mammals are called Monotremes and there are only five living species left in the world.One of these species is our friend, the Duck-Billed Platypus. That’s right, some mammals actually lay eggs! They are warm-blooded, they have hair on their bodies, they give milk to their babies, and MOST of them give live birth. ![]() We end up with a list of traits describing what makes a mammal a mammal. “Although this research focuses on the past of these remarkable mammals, we also want to highlight the urgent need for protection of our modern platypuses and echidnas, which are under threat and in decline as a result of human-induced habitat degradation,” Flannery says.What are the characteristics of a mammal?When I present this question to my students, they are instantly excited to share their knowledge of these awesome creatures. ![]() Though the history of our iconic monotremes is varied and diverse, Flannery notes that today’s monotremes are the last, vulnerable strongholds of a vibrant lineage. “ Murrayglossus roamed the Australian landscape in the Pleistocene epoch with megafauna like gigantic kangaroos, the marsupial lion and the Diprotodon,” Helgen says. Murrayglossus was named in honour of Peter Murray, a now-retired Australian palaeontologist who wrote extensively on echidna fossils. “Weighing 30kg in size, roughly the size of a wombat, this massive monotreme would have been many times the size of modern Australian echidnas,” says Helgen. The largest egg-laying mammal ever discovered, this 30-kg animal may have specialised in eating termites. Murrayglossus hacketti, a giant echidna of the Pleistocene of Western Australia. This frigid polar landscape, perhaps surprisingly, still had forests which withstood at least three months of freezing darkness each year. The researchers found that the oldest-known monotreme, Teinolophos trusleri, lived some 130 million years ago when south-eastern Australia lay close to the South Pole. The research, published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, involved examining every significant monotreme fossil currently known, to chart their history and evolution. ![]() Now, a team of scientists, headed up by Australian Museum (AM) Chief Scientist Kristofer Helgen and AM honorary associate Tim Flannery, has unravelled the monotremes’ origin story, tracing them back to the chilly polar forests of an ancient world. ![]() Today, they comprise just two species: the echidna and the platypus.īut these strange creatures are the last survivors of a much larger and more diverse set of species that once roamed the southern continents. Platypus venom may treat type 2 diabetesĪustralia’s mysterious monotremes are the world’s only living, egg-laying mammals.An ancient fish with a nose for business.Tricks of nature, with and without light.Platypus: the preposterous platypus is no joke. ![]()
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