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The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), [4] sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, [5] is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus , though a number of related species ...
Male platypuses have sharp spurs on their back legs shaped like a canine tooth. These hollow spurs measure 0.59 to 0.71 inches long and connect to crural glands in the animal’s upper thighs.
The platypus has an average body temperature of about 31 °C (88 °F) rather than the averages of 35 °C (95 °F) for marsupials and 37 °C (99 °F) for placentals. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] Research suggests this has been a gradual adaptation to the harsh, marginal environmental niches in which the few extant monotreme species have managed to survive ...
Despite their awkward appearance, the platypus has a superpower-like sixth sense that it uses to hunt. With a beaver’s tail, webbed feet, and a duck’s bill, platypuses are one of the world’s ...
Platypus foot. Some semiaquatic mammals have webbed feet. Most of these have interdigital webbing, as opposed to the syndactyly found in birds. Some notable examples include the platypus, the beaver, the otter, and the water opossum. [19] [20] [21] Capybaras have slightly webbed feet, [22] while hippopotamuses have webbed toes. [23]
The platypus venom has a broadly similar range of effects and is known to consist of a similar selection of substances to reptilian venom, and appears to have a different function from those poisons produced by lower vertebrates.
In anteaters and pangolins, the fingers have large claws for opening the mounds of social insects. Platypus fingers have webbing that extend past the fingers to aid in swimming, thus knuckle-walking is used to prevent stumbling. [16] Knuckle-walking of chimpanzees and gorillas, arguably, originally started from fist-walking as found in ...
Rheobatrachus, whose members are known as the gastric-brooding frogs or platypus frogs, is a genus of extinct ground-dwelling frogs native to Queensland in eastern Australia. The genus consisted of only two species, the southern and northern gastric-brooding frogs, both of which became extinct in the mid-1980s.