1. The platypus is a mammal that is found only in eastern Australia, including the island of Tasmania.
2. The shape of the platypus is extremely unique: it has claws, webbed front legs, a beaver-like tail and a duck-like beak.
3. Platypus belongs to the order monotreme – mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth like marsupials or other mammals.
4. In the late 1700s, when the first specimen of the platypus was sent to Europe, naturalists thought the animal was a fake when someone sewed a duck’s beak onto a duck’s body. objects like beavers.
5. Although the female platypus lays eggs, when the baby platypus is born, it will still suckle its mother’s milk just like other mammals.
6. Its beak is not like that of a duck. The beak of a duck is very hard, in contrast, the beak of a platypus is very soft and flexible so that it can feed in the water.
7. Both male and female platypuses are born with ankle spurs, but only male spurs produce venom.
8. The adult platypus has no teeth, so when it catches its prey it will keep it in its beak along with some gravel. It then dives into the water and uses gravel to grind its food until soft enough to swallow.
9. The platypus is an excellent swimmer and the adult platypus has a waterproof coat. In contrast, baby platypuses do not have such plumage.
10. Most people didn’t know about the platypus until National Geographic magazine published a picture of it in 1939.
Unusual features
Despite its odd look, the platypus is perfectly adapted to its environment. It has a furry, otter-like body, a tail the same shape as a beaver’s, and a mouth reminiscent of a duck’s.
In his 1802 book, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Colonel David Collins wrote of the webbed and clawed feet that allowed the animal to swim and burrow with ease.
He was also fascinated by the platypus’s bill, noting, ‘the most extraordinary circumstance observed in its structure was, it having instead of the mouth of an animal, the upper and lower mandibles of a duck.’
Before this account, when a skin and illustration of the animal were first sent to Europe, some suspected the strange animal was a hoax – perhaps a taxidermy construction of a duck’s bill attached to the body of a mole.
A watercolour illustration of two platypuses by Ferdinand Lucas Bauer during the HMS Investigator expedition to Australia, 1801-1803
The nineteenth century saw a number of hoax animals on display, such as P T Barnum’s Fiji (Feejee) Mermaid and Albert Koch’s Missouri Leviathan. But the platypus, as it was soon realised, was not among these.
How the platypus got its name
George Shaw, keeper of the natural history collections at the British Museum (which were to later become the Natural History Museum), accepted the platypus as a real animal. In 1799 he was the first to scientifically describe it, assigning it the species name Platypus anatinus, meaning flat-footed duck.
However, Platypus was already in use as the name of a genus of wood-boring ambrosia beetles. So in 1803 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach published another description of the animal under the name Ornithorhynchus paradoxus – ‘paradoxical bird-snout’.
The animal later became recognised as Ornithorhynchus anatinus, meaning bird-snouted flat-foot. This hybrid name was accepted in accordance with the rules of priority when classifying animals with scientific names.
