The Platypus is a very curious animal. Since its discovery it has been very difficult to classify it since it has very different animal characteristics. It has fur, a duck's beak, lays eggs and also nurses its young.
It is an endemic species of eastern Australia and the island of Tasmania. Its name derives from the Greek ornithorhynkhos, which means "like a duck".
In this article on our site we will talk about this strange animal. We will learn how it hunts, how it reproduces and why it has such different characteristics. Keep reading and discover curiosities about the platypus:
What is the platypus?
The platypus is a monotreme mammal Monotremes are an order of mammals with reptilian characteristics, such as laying eggs or having a cloaca. The cloaca is the hole in the back of the body where the urinary, digestive and reproductive systems meet.
There are currently 5 living species of monotremes. The Platypus and Edquinas Edquinas are similar to common sea urchins but share the curious characteristics of monotremes. They are all solitary and elusive animals, which only interact with each other during mating season.
They are poisonous
The platypus is one of the few mammals in the world that have poison The males have a spuron its hind legs that releases the poison. It is secreted by the crural glands. Females are also born with them but they do not develop after birth and disappear before adulthood.
It is a poison with many different toxins produced by the animal's immune system. It is lethal to small animals and very painful to humans. Cases have been described of caregivers experiencing severe pain for several days.
There is no antidote for this poison, the patient is only given palliatives to combat the pain of the sting. If you want to know more about the poison of these animals, read Is platypus poison deadly?
Electrolocation
The platypus uses a electrolocation system to hunt its prey. They can detect the electrical fields generated by prey by contracting their muscles. They can do this thanks to the electrosensory cells they have in the skin of their snout. They also have distributed throughout the snout mechanoreceptor cells, cells specialized for touch.
These cells act together to send the brain the information needed to navigate without needing to use smell or sight. The system is very useful, since the platypus closes its eyes and barely hears underwater. It dives into shallow water and burrows into the bottom with the help of its snout.
Prey moving through the ground generates small electric fields that are detected by the platypus. It is capable of distinguishing living beings from the inert matter around it, this being another of the most outstanding curiosities about the platypus.
It is a carnivorous animal, it feeds mainly on insect larvae, small crustaceans, earthworms and other annelids.
They lay eggs
As we said before, platypuses are monotremes They are mammals that lay eggs. The females reach sexual maturity from the first year of life and lay one egg per year. After copulation, the female takes refuge in deep burrows built at different levels to maintain temperature and humidity. This system also protects them from floodwaters and predators.
They make a bed with leaves and deposit between 1 and 3 eggs of 10-11 millimeters in diameter. They are small eggs more rounded than those of birds. They develop inside the mother's uterus for 28 days and after 10-15 days of external incubation the pups are born.
When the little platypuses are born they are very vulnerable. They are hairless and blind. They are born with teeth, which they will lose after a short time, leaving some horny plates.
They nurse their young
The fact that they breastfeed their young is something common in mammals. However platypuses lack nipples. So how do you breastfeed them?
Another of the curiosities about the platypus is that the females have mammary glands that are located in the abdomen. Lacking nipples, they secrete milk through pores in their skin. In that region of the abdomen they have grooves where this milk is stored as it is expelled, so that the young lick this milk from their skin. The period of lactation of the pups is 3 months.
Locomotion
As an animal semi-aquatic is an excellent swimmer. Although it has 4 webbed feet, it only uses the front ones to swim. The rear ones are folded together with the tail and it is used to direct itself in the water like the tail of a fish.
On land they walk similar to a reptile. In this way, and as a curiosity about the platypus, we see that they have their legs located on the sides and not on the bottom as it happens with other mammals. The skeleton of the platypus is quite primitive, with short limbs, similar to those of an otter.
Genetics
By studying the genetic map of the platypus, scientists discovered that the mixture of traits present in the platypus was also reflected in its genes.
They have characteristics only seen in amphibians, birds and fish. But the most curious thing about platypuses is their sex chromosome system. Mammals like us have 2 sex chromosomes. However, platypuses have 10 sex chromosomes
Their sex chromosomes are more similar to those of birds than to those of mammals. It also lacks the SRY region, which is what determines the male sex. So far it has not been discovered exactly how sex is determined in this species.
