The platypus is a symbol of Australia. The platypus is the most unusual mammal Population status and protection

When scientists discovered the platypus in Australia, the very fact of its existence dealt a fatal blow to the theory of evolution: only the Lord God could definitely have created such an unusual creature in every sense.

The nose of this amazing animal surprisingly strongly resembled the beak of a duck (hence the name), and on each foot it had five toes connected by webbed toes. The creature's paws, like those of a reptile, were located on the sides, and spurs were found on the hind legs, like those of a rooster.

The tail of the animal was not much different from the tail of a beaver, and it also turned out that it carried eggs and was capable of poisoning an enemy with its own poison! And this is not a complete list of the amazing features of the animal, which is an unofficial symbol of the Australian continent and is depicted on a twenty-cent coin.

These amazing animals are waterfowl mammals, the only representatives of the platypus family that belong to the order Monotremes. This order is noteworthy in that it includes the echidna, platypus and echidna, and the main feature of its representatives is that the urogenital sinus and intestines of animals do not exit through separate passages, but flow into the cloaca.

The platypus lives in eastern Australia, on Kangaroo Island and in Tasmania, which is 240 km from the Australian coast towards Antarctica. It prefers to live in fresh water, the temperature of which ranges from 25 to 29.9°C.

Previously, this animal could be found throughout the continent, but many of them were exterminated by poachers, and the remaining animals, due to too much environmental pollution, moved to more environmentally friendly regions.

Description

The body of the platypus is tightly knit, short-legged, covered with thick, pleasant to the touch, dark brown hair, which acquires a grayish or reddish tint on the belly. Its head is round in shape, its eyes, as well as its nasal and ear openings are located in recesses, the edges of which meet tightly when the platypus dives.

The animal itself is small:

• Body length is from 30 to 40 cm (males are a third larger than females);
• Tail length – 15 cm;
• Weight – about 2 kg.

The animal's legs are located on the sides, which is why its gait is extremely reminiscent of the movement of reptiles on land. The animal’s paws have five toes, which are ideally suited not only for swimming, but also for digging: the swimming membrane connecting them is interesting because, if necessary, it can bend so much that the animal’s claws will be on the outside, turning a swimming limb into a digging limb.

Since the membranes on the animal’s hind legs are less developed, when swimming it actively uses its front legs, while it uses its hind legs as a rudder, with the tail acting as a balance.

The tail is slightly flat and covered with hair. Interestingly, it can be used to very easily determine the age of the platypus: the older it is, the less fur it has. The animal’s tail is also notable for the fact that it is in it, and not under the skin, that fat reserves are stored.

Beak

The most remarkable thing in the appearance of the animal will, perhaps, be its beak, which looks so unusual that it seems that it was once torn off from a duck, repainted black and attached to its fluffy head.

The beak of the platypus differs from the beak of birds: it is soft and flexible. At the same time, like a duck, it is flat and wide: with a length of 65 mm, its width is 50 mm. Another interesting feature of the beak is that it is covered with elastic skin, which contains a huge number of nerve endings. Thanks to them, the platypus, while on land, has an excellent sense of smell, and is also the only mammal that senses weak electric fields that appear during muscle contraction of even the smallest animals, such as crayfish.

Such electrolocation abilities enable an animal that is blind and deaf in the aquatic environment to detect prey: to do this, while under water, it constantly turns its head in different directions.

An interesting fact is that the platypus is poisonous (besides it, among mammals, only slow lorises, shrews and shrews have such abilities): the animal has toxic saliva, and males also have poisonous horny spurs. At first, all young animals have them, but in females they disappear at the age of one, while in males they grow further and reach one and a half centimeters.

Each spur, through a special duct, connects to a gland located on the thigh, which, during the breeding season, begins to produce poison of such strength that it is quite capable of killing a dingo or any other medium-sized animal (the animals use it mainly to fight other males). The poison is not fatal to humans, however, the injection is extremely painful, and a large tumor appears in its place. The swelling goes away after some time, but the pain may well be felt for several months.

Way of life and nutrition

Platypuses live near swamps, near rivers and lakes, in warm tropical lagoons, and even despite all their love for warm water, they can live in cold high-mountain streams. This adaptability is explained by the fact that the animals have an extremely low metabolism, and their body temperature is only 32°C. The platypus knows how to regulate it very well, and therefore, even while in water, the temperature of which is 5°C, thanks to the acceleration of metabolism several times, the animal can easily maintain the desired body temperature for several hours.

The platypus lives in a deep hole about ten meters long, in which there are two entrances: one is under water, the other is disguised by thickets or located under the roots of trees. Interestingly, the entrance tunnel is so narrow that when the platypus passes it to get into the inner chamber, the water is squeezed out of the host's coat.

The animal goes hunting at night and spends almost all its time in water: for its full existence, the weight of food eaten per day must be at least a quarter of the animal’s weight. The platypus feeds on insects, crustaceans, frogs, worms, snails, small fish and even algae.

It searches for prey not only in water, but also on land, methodically turning over stones with its beak or claws in search of small animals. As for underwater hunting, it is not easy for the prey to escape from the animal: having found the prey, it instantly takes off, and it usually takes him only a few seconds to grab it.

Having caught food, it does not eat it immediately, but stores it in special cheek pouches. Having collected the required amount of food, the platypus swims to the surface and, without going ashore, grinds it with horny plates, which it uses instead of teeth (only young animals have teeth, but they are so fragile that they wear out very quickly).

Reproduction and offspring

It is not known exactly how long platypuses live in the wild, but in captivity their life expectancy is about ten years. Therefore, the ability to reproduce offspring in platypuses appears already at the age of two years, and the mating season always begins in the spring.

Interesting fact: before the start of the mating season, platypuses always hibernate for no more than ten days. If before the start of the breeding season males do not contact females, during the mating season a considerable number of contenders gather near her, and the males fight fiercely with each other, using poisonous spurs. Despite fierce fights, platypuses do not form permanent pairs: the male immediately after mating goes in search of other females.

The female does not lay eggs in her own hole, but deliberately digs out a new hole, which is not only longer than her home, but also has a specially designated place for the nest, which the expectant mother makes from leaves and stems.

The female usually lays two eggs fourteen days after mating. These eggs are off-white in color, and their diameter is about 11 mm (interestingly, almost immediately the eggs stick together with the help of a special sticky substance covering them).

The incubation period lasts about ten days, during which time the mother almost never leaves the hole and lies curled up around the eggs.

The baby gets out of the egg using a special egg tooth, which falls off as soon as the baby makes its way through. Small platypuses are born blind, without hair, about 2.5 cm long. The mother, lying on her back, immediately places her newborn babies on her stomach.

The animals do not have nipples at all: the female feeds the babies with milk, which comes out through the pores located on the stomach. Milk, flowing down the mother's fur, accumulates in special grooves, from where small platypuses lick it. The female leaves her cubs only to get food for herself. Leaving the hole, it clogs the entrance hole with earth.

The babies' eyes open quite late - at the end of the third month of life, and at seventeen weeks they begin to leave the hole and learn to hunt, while feeding with mother's milk ends.

Relationships with people

While in nature this animal has few enemies (sometimes it is attacked by a python, a crocodile, a bird of prey, a monitor lizard, a fox, or a accidentally swam seal), at the beginning of the last century it found itself on the verge of extinction. The hundred-year hunt did its job and destroyed almost everyone: products made from platypus fur turned out to be so popular that poachers had no mercy (about 65 skins are needed to sew one fur coat).

The situation turned out to be so critical that already at the beginning of the last century, hunting for platypuses was completely prohibited. The measures were successful: now the population is quite stable and is not in danger, and the animals themselves, being indigenous to Australia and refusing to breed on other continents, are considered a symbol of the continent and are even depicted on one of the coins.

,platypus(lat. Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is a waterfowl mammal of the order Monotreme, native to Australia. It is the only modern representative of the platypus family ( Ornithorhynchidae); together with echidnas it forms a detachment of monotremes ( Monotremata) - animals, in a number of characteristics close to reptiles. This unique animal is one of the symbols of Australia; it appears on the reverse of the Australian 20 cent coin.

The platypus was discovered in the 18th century. during the colonization of New South Wales. A list of the colony's animals published in 1802 mentions "an amphibian animal of the genus of moles... Its most curious quality is that it has a duck's beak instead of an ordinary mouth, enabling it to feed in the mud like birds."

The first platypus skin was sent to England in 1797. Its appearance gave rise to fierce debate among the scientific community. At first, the skin was considered the product of some taxidermist who had sewn a duck's beak to the skin of an animal similar to a beaver. George Shaw managed to dispel this suspicion by examining the parcel and coming to the conclusion that it was not a fake. The question arose as to which group of animals the platypus belongs to. After it received its scientific name, the first animals were brought to England, and it turned out that the female platypus does not have visible mammary glands, but this animal, like birds, has a cloaca. For a quarter of a century, scientists could not decide where to classify the platypus - to mammals, birds, reptiles, or even to a separate class, until in 1824 the German biologist Meckel discovered that the platypus still has mammary glands and the female feeds her young with milk. The fact that the platypus lays eggs was proven only in 1884.

The zoological name for this strange animal was given in 1799 by the English naturalist George Shaw - Ornithorhynchus, from the Greek. ορνιθορυγχος, "bird's nose", and anatinus, "duck". Aboriginal Australians knew the platypus by many names, including mallangong, boondaburra and tambreet. Early European settlers called it duckbill, duckmole, and watermole. The name currently used in English is platypus, derived from the Greek platus (flat) and pous (paw).

Appearance

The body length of the platypus is 30-40 cm, the tail is 10-15 cm, and it weighs up to 2 kg. Males are about a third larger than females. Fat reserves are deposited in the tail of the platypus. The beak is not hard like that of birds, but soft, covered with elastic bare skin, which is stretched over two thin, long, arched bones. The oral cavity is expanded into cheek pouches, in which food is stored during feeding. Down at the base of the beak, males have a specific gland that produces a secretion with a musky odor. Young platypuses have 8 teeth, but they are fragile and quickly wear out, giving way to keratinized plates.

The platypus has five-fingered feet, adapted for both swimming and digging. The swimming membrane on the front paws protrudes in front of the toes, but can bend in such a way that the claws are exposed, turning the swimming limb into a digging limb. The membranes on the hind legs are much less developed; For swimming, the platypus does not use its hind legs, like other semi-aquatic animals, but its front legs. The hind legs act as a rudder in the water, and the tail serves as a stabilizer. The gait of the platypus on land is more reminiscent of the gait of a reptile - it places its legs on the sides of the body.

Its nasal openings open on the upper side of its beak. There are no auricles. The eyes and ear openings are located in grooves on the sides of the head. When an animal dives, the edges of these grooves, like the valves of the nostrils, close, so that under water its vision, hearing, and smell are ineffective. However, the skin of the beak is rich in nerve endings, and this provides the platypus not only with a highly developed sense of touch, but also with the ability to electrolocate. Electroreceptors in the beak can detect weak electrical fields, which arise, for example, when the muscles of crustaceans contract, which helps the platypus in searching for prey. Looking for it, the platypus continuously moves its head from side to side during underwater hunting.

Features of the senses

The platypus is the only mammal with developed electroreception. Electroreceptors have also been found in the echidna, but its use of electroreception is unlikely to play an important role in searching for prey.

Platypus poison

The platypus is one of the few venomous mammals (along with some shrews and sawtooths) that have toxic saliva.

Young platypuses of both sexes have the rudiments of horny spurs on their hind legs. In females, by the age of one year they fall off, but in males they continue to grow, reaching 1.2-1.5 cm in length by the time of puberty. Each spur is connected by a duct to the femoral gland, which produces a complex “cocktail” of poisons during the mating season. Males use spurs during mating fights. Platypus venom can kill dingoes or other small animals. For humans, it is generally not fatal, but it causes very severe pain, and swelling develops at the injection site, which gradually spreads to the entire limb. Painful sensations (hyperalgesia) can last for many days or even months.

Other oviparous animals - echidnas - also have rudimentary spurs on their hind legs, but they are not developed and are not poisonous.

Lifestyle and nutrition

The platypus is a secretive, nocturnal, semi-aquatic animal that inhabits the banks of small rivers and standing ponds in Eastern Australia.

The platypus lives along the banks of reservoirs. Its shelter is a short straight hole (up to 10 m long), with two entrances and an internal chamber. One entrance is underwater, the other is located 1.2-3.6 m above the water level, under tree roots or in thickets.

The platypus is an excellent swimmer and diver, remaining underwater for up to 5 minutes. He spends up to 10 hours a day in water, since he needs to eat up to a quarter of his own weight in food per day. The platypus is active at night and at dusk. It feeds on small aquatic animals, stirring up the silt at the bottom of the reservoir with its beak and catching living creatures that have risen. They observed how the platypus, while feeding, turns over stones with its claws or with the help of its beak. It eats crustaceans, worms, insect larvae; less often tadpoles, mollusks and aquatic vegetation. Having collected food in its cheek pouches, the platypus rises to the surface and, lying on the water, grinds it with its horny jaws.

In nature, the platypus' enemies are few in number. Occasionally, he is attacked by a monitor lizard, a python, and a leopard seal swimming into the rivers.

Reproduction

Every year, platypuses enter a 5-10-day winter hibernation, after which they enter the breeding season. It lasts from August to November. Mating occurs in water. The male bites the female’s tail, and the animals swim in a circle for some time, after which mating occurs (in addition, 4 more variants of the courtship ritual have been recorded). The male covers several females; Platypuses do not form permanent pairs.

After mating, the female digs a brood hole. Unlike a regular burrow, it is long, up to 20 m, and ends with a nesting chamber. A nest of stems and leaves is built inside; The female wears the material with her tail pressed to her stomach. Then she seals the corridor with one or more earthen plugs 15-20 cm thick to protect the hole from predators and floods. The female makes plugs with the help of her tail, which she uses like a mason’s spatula. The inside of the nest is always moist, which prevents the eggs from drying out. The male does not take part in building the burrow and raising the young.

2 weeks after mating, the female lays 1-3 (usually 2) eggs. Platypus eggs are similar to reptile eggs - they are round, small (11 mm in diameter) and covered with an off-white leathery shell. After laying, the eggs stick together with the help of an adhesive substance that covers them on the outside. Incubation lasts up to 10 days; During incubation, the female rarely leaves the burrow and usually lies curled up around the eggs.

Platypus cubs are born naked and blind, approximately 2.5 cm long. The female, lying on her back, moves them to her belly. She does not have a brood pouch. The mother feeds the cubs with milk, which comes out through the enlarged pores on her stomach. Milk flows down the mother's fur, accumulating in special grooves, and the cubs lick it off. The mother leaves the offspring only for a short time to feed and dry the skin; leaving, she clogs the entrance with soil. The cubs' eyes open at 11 weeks. Milk feeding lasts up to 4 months; at 17 weeks, the cubs begin to leave the hole to hunt. Young platypuses reach sexual maturity at the age of 1 year.

Several researchers looked into the hole with newborn platypuses using a special video camera. They watched them for some time. In the video you can also hear what sounds platypuses make (video in English):

The lifespan of platypuses in the wild is unknown; in captivity they live an average of 10 years.

Platypuses were previously hunted for their valuable fur, but at the beginning of the 20th century. hunting them was prohibited. Currently, their population is considered relatively stable, although due to water pollution and habitat degradation, the platypus' range is becoming increasingly patchy. It was also caused some damage by the rabbits brought by the colonists, who, by digging holes, disturbed the platypuses, forcing them to leave their habitable places.

The platypus is an extremely strange animal. It lays eggs, has poisonous spurs, detects electrical signals and is completely toothless, but it does have a beak. Since it is not so easy to see a platypus in nature, we have compiled a gallery of photographs of these unusual animals.

When the platypus skin was first brought to England at the very end of the 18th century, scientists initially thought it was something like a beaver with a duck beak sewn onto it. At that time, Asian taxidermists made a lot of similar chimeric crafts (the most famous example is the mermaid from Fiji). Having finally become convinced that the animal was real, zoologists for another quarter of a century could not decide who to classify it as: mammals, birds, or even a separate class of animals. The confusion of British scientists is quite understandable: the platypus is a mammal, but a very strange mammal.

First, the platypus, unlike normal mammals, lays eggs. These eggs are similar to the eggs of birds and reptiles in the amount of yolk and the type of division of the zygote (which is related precisely to the amount of yolk). However, unlike bird eggs, platypus eggs spend more time inside the female than outside: inside for almost a month, and outside for about 10 days. When the eggs are outside, the female “incubates” them, curling up around the clutch. All this happens in a nest that the female builds from reeds and leaves in the depths of a long brood hole. Hatching from the egg, small platypuses help themselves with an egg tooth - a small horny tubercle on the beak. Birds and reptiles also have such teeth: they are needed to break through the egg shell and fall off soon after hatching.

Secondly, the platypus has a beak. No other mammal has such a beak, but it is also not at all similar to the beak of birds. The platypus's beak is soft, covered with elastic skin and stretched over bony arches formed above by the premaxillary bone (in most mammals this is a small bone on which the incisors are located) and below by the lower jaw. The beak is an organ of electroreception: it picks up electrical signals generated by the contraction of the muscles of aquatic animals. Electroreception is developed in amphibians and fish, but among mammals only the Guiana dolphin, which, like the platypus, lives in turbid water, has it. The platypus' closest relatives, the echidnas, also have electroreceptors, but they, apparently, do not particularly use them. The platypus uses its electroreceptor beak to hunt, swimming in the water and swinging it from side to side in search of prey. He does not use either vision, hearing, or smell: his eyes and ear openings are located on the sides of his head in special grooves that close when diving, just like the valves of his nostrils. The platypus eats small aquatic animals: crustaceans, worms and larvae. At the same time, he also has no teeth: the only teeth in his life (only a few on each jaw) are worn out a few months after birth. Instead, hard horny plates grow on the jaws, with which the platypus grinds food.

In addition, the platypus is poisonous. However, in this it is no longer so unique: among mammals there are several more poisonous species - some shrews, gap-toothed lorises and slow lorises. Venom in the platypus is secreted by horny spurs on the hind legs, into which the ducts of the poisonous femoral glands emerge. Both sexes have these spurs at a young age, but the females soon fall off (the same thing, by the way, happens with the spurs of echidnas). In males, the poison is produced during the breeding season, and they kick with spurs during mating fights. The basis of platypus venom is made up of proteins similar to defensins - peptides of the mammalian immune system designed to destroy bacteria and viruses. In addition to them, the poison contains many more active substances, which in combination cause intravascular blood coagulation, proteolysis and hemolysis, muscle relaxation and allergic reactions in the bitten person.

Platypus venom was also recently found to contain glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). This hormone, produced in the intestines and stimulating the production of insulin, is found in all mammals and is usually destroyed within a few minutes after entering the bloodstream. But not the platypus! In the platypus (and echidna), GLP-1 lives much longer, and therefore, scientists hope, in the future it can be used to treat type 2 diabetes, in which regular GLP-1 “does not have time” to stimulate insulin synthesis.

Platypus venom can kill small animals like dogs, but is not fatal to humans. However, it causes severe swelling and excruciating pain, which develops into hyperalgesia - an abnormally high sensitivity to pain. Hyperalgesia may persist for several months. In some cases, it does not respond to painkillers, even morphine, and only blocking the peripheral nerves at the site of the bite helps to relieve pain. There is also no antidote yet. Therefore, the surest way to protect yourself from platypus poison is to beware of this animal. If close interaction with the platypus is unavoidable, it is recommended to lift it by the tail: this advice was published by an Australian clinic after the platypus stung an American scientist who was trying to study it with both of its spurs.

Another unusual feature of the platypus is that it has 10 sex chromosomes instead of the usual two for mammals: XXXXXXXXXX in the female and XYXYXYXYXY in the male. All these chromosomes are connected in a complex, which in meiosis behaves as a single whole, so males produce sperm of two types: with XXXXX chains and with YYYYY chains. The SRY gene, which in most mammals is located on the Y chromosome and determines the development of the body according to the male type, is also not found in the platypus: this function is performed by another gene, AMH.

The list of platypus oddities goes on for a long time. For example, the platypus has mammary glands (after all, it is a mammal, not a bird), but no nipples. Therefore, newborn platypuses simply lick milk from the mother’s belly, where it flows through enlarged skin pores. When the platypus walks on land, its limbs are located on the sides of the body, like those of reptiles, and not under the body, like other mammals. With this position of the limbs (it is called parasagittal), the animal seems to be continuously doing push-ups, spending a lot of strength on it. Therefore, it is not surprising that the platypus spends most of its time in the water, and once on land, it prefers to sleep in its hole. In addition, the platypus has a very low metabolism compared to other mammals: its normal body temperature is only 32 degrees (at the same time, it is warm-blooded and successfully maintains body temperature even in cold water). Finally, the platypus gains fat (and loses weight) with its tail: it is there that, like the marsupial Tasmanian devil, it stores fat reserves.

It is not surprising that scientists had to place animals with so many oddities, as well as their equally bizarre relatives - echidnas - into a separate order of mammals: oviparous, or monotremes (the second name is due to the fact that their intestines, excretory and reproductive systems open into a single cloaca). This is the only order of the infraclass cloacal, and cloacal is the only infraclass of the subclass Prototheria. The primal beasts are contrasted with animals (Theria) - the second subclass of mammals, which includes marsupials and placentals, that is, all mammals that do not lay eggs. Protobeasts are the earliest branch of mammals: they split from marsupials and placentals about 166 million years ago, and the age of the oldest monotreme fossil, Steropodon ( Steropodon galmani), found in Australia, is 110 million years old. Monotremes came to Australia from South America, when both of these continents were part of Gondwana.

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) belongs to the Australian waterfowl mammals from the order Monotremes. The platypus is the only living representative of the platypus family.

Appearance and description

The body length of an adult platypus can vary between 30-40 cm. The tail is 10-15 cm long, most often weighing about two kilograms. The male's body is about a third larger than the female's.. The body is squat, with rather short legs. The tail part is flattened, with accumulation of fat reserves, similar to a beaver tail covered with hair. The fur of the platypus is quite thick and soft, dark brown on the back, and with a reddish or gray tint on the abdominal part.

This is interesting! Platypuses have a low metabolism, and the normal body temperature of this mammal does not exceed 32°C. The animal easily regulates body temperature, increasing its metabolic rate several times.

The head is rounded, with an elongated facial section, turning into a flat and soft beak, which is covered with elastic skin stretched over a pair of thin and long, arched bones. The length of the beak can reach 6.5 cm with a width of 5 cm. A feature of the oral cavity is the presence of cheek pouches, used by the animal to store food. The lower part or base of the beak in males has a specific gland that produces a secretion with a characteristic musky odor. Young individuals have eight fragile and quickly worn teeth, which over time are replaced by keratinized plates.

The five-toed paws of platypuses are perfectly adapted not only for swimming, but also for digging in the coastal zone. The swimming membranes located on the front paws protrude in front of the toes and are capable of bending, revealing fairly sharp and strong claws. The webbed part on the hind legs is very poorly developed, therefore, when swimming, the platypus is used as a kind of stabilizer rudder. When the platypus moves on land, the gait of this mammal is similar to the gait of a reptile.

The nasal openings are located on the top of the beak. A special feature of the structure of the platypus's head is the absence of ears, and the auditory openings and eyes are located in special grooves on the sides of the head. When diving, the edges of the auditory, visual and olfactory openings quickly close, and their functions are taken over by the skin on the beak, rich in nerve endings. A kind of electrolocation helps the mammal easily detect prey during underwater hunting.

Habitat and lifestyle

Until 1922, the platypus population was found exclusively in its homeland - the territory of eastern Australia. The distribution area stretches from the territory of Tasmania and the Australian Alps to the outskirts of Queensland. The main population of the oviparous mammal is currently distributed exclusively in eastern Australia and Tasmania. The mammal, as a rule, leads a secretive lifestyle and inhabits the coastal part of small rivers or natural reservoirs with standing water.

This is interesting! The closest species of mammal related to the platypus is the echidna and the proechidna, together with which the platypus belongs to the order Monotremata or oviparous, and in some ways resembles reptiles.

Platypuses prefer water with temperatures ranging from 25.0-29.9°C, but avoid brackish water. The mammal's home is represented by a short and straight burrow, the length of which can reach ten meters. Each such hole must have two entrances and a well-equipped internal chamber. One entrance is necessarily underwater, and the second is located under the root system of trees or in fairly dense thickets.

Platypus feeding

Platypuses are excellent swimmers and divers, and can stay underwater for up to five minutes. This unusual animal is able to spend a third of the day in the aquatic environment, which is due to the need to eat a significant amount of food, the volume of which often amounts to a quarter of the total weight of the platypus.

The main period of activity occurs at dusk and night hours. The entire volume of food of the platypus consists of small aquatic animals that fall into the beak of the mammal after it stirs up the bottom of the reservoir. The diet can be represented by various crustaceans, worms, insect larvae, tadpoles, mollusks and various aquatic vegetation. After food is collected in the cheek pouches, the animal rises to the water surface and grinds it with the help of horny jaws.

Platypus breeding

Every year, platypuses go into hibernation, which can last five to ten days. Immediately after hibernation, mammals enter a phase of active reproduction, which occurs from August to the last ten days of November. Mating of a semi-aquatic animal occurs in water.

To attract attention, the male lightly bites the female on the tail, after which the pair swims in a circle for some time. The final stage of such peculiar mating games is mating. Male platypuses are polygamous and do not form stable pairs. Throughout his life, one male is able to cover a significant number of females. Attempts to breed the platypus in captivity rarely end successfully.

Hatching eggs

Immediately after mating, the female begins to dig a brood burrow, which is longer than a regular platypus burrow and has a special nesting chamber. Inside such a chamber, a nest is built from plant stems and foliage. To protect the nest from attacks from predators and water, the female blocks the burrow corridor with special plugs made from the ground. The average thickness of each such plug is 15-20 cm. To make an earthen plug, the female uses the tail part, wielding it like a construction trowel.

This is interesting! Constant humidity inside the created nest allows you to protect the eggs laid by the female platypus from destructive drying out. Oviposition occurs approximately a couple of weeks after mating.

As a rule, there are a pair of eggs in one clutch, but their number can vary from one to three. Platypus eggs resemble reptile eggs in appearance and are round in shape. The average diameter of an egg, covered with a dirty-whitish, leathery shell, does not exceed a centimeter. The laid eggs are connected by an adhesive substance that covers the outside of the shell. The incubation period lasts approximately ten days, and the female incubating the eggs rarely leaves the nest.

Baby platypus

When born, platypus cubs are naked and blind. The length of their body does not exceed 2.5-3.0 cm. To hatch, the cub breaks through the shell of the egg with a special tooth, which falls off immediately after exiting. Turning over on her back, the female places the hatched cubs on her belly. Milk feeding is carried out using greatly enlarged pores located on the female’s abdomen.

Milk flowing down the hairs of the fur accumulates inside special grooves, where the cubs find it and lick it off. Small platypuses open their eyes after about three months, and milk feeding continues until four months, after which the babies begin to gradually leave the hole and hunt on their own. Sexual maturity of young platypuses occurs at the age of twelve months. The average lifespan of a platypus in captivity does not exceed ten years.

Enemies of the platypus

Under natural conditions, the platypus does not have many enemies. This very unusual mammal can become quite easy prey for pythons and sometimes swim into river waters. It should be remembered that platypuses belong to the category of poisonous mammals and young individuals have the rudiments of horny spurs on their hind limbs.

This is interesting! To catch platypuses, dogs were most often used, which could catch the animal not only on land, but also in water, but most of the “catchers” died immediately after the platypus began to use poisonous spurs for protection.

By the age of one year, females lose this method of protection, but in males, on the contrary, the spurs increase in size and reach one and a half centimeters in length by the stage of puberty. The spurs are connected through ducts to the femoral glands, which produce a complex toxic mixture during the mating season. Such poisonous spurs are used by males in mating fights and for the purpose of protection from predators. Platypus venom is not dangerous to humans, but can cause quite a

The platypus is an amazing animal that lives only in Australia, on the island of Tasmania. This strange miracle belongs to mammals, but, unlike other animals, it lays eggs like an ordinary bird. Platypuses are oviparous mammals, a rare species of animal that survives only on the Australian continent.

History of discovery

Strange creatures boast an unusual history of their discovery. The first description of the platypus was given by Australian pioneers in the early 18th century. For a long time, science did not recognize the existence of platypuses and considered the mention of them to be an inept joke by Australian residents. Finally, at the end of the 18th century, scientists at a British university received a parcel from Australia containing the fur of an unknown animal, similar to a beaver, with paws like an otter, and a nose like an ordinary domestic duck. Such a beak looked so ridiculous that scientists even shaved the hair on the face, believing that Australian jokers had sewn a duck nose to the skin of a beaver. Finding no seams or traces of glue, the pundits simply shrugged their shoulders. No one could understand where the platypus lived or how it reproduced. Only a few years later, in 1799, the British naturalist J. Shaw proved the existence of this miracle and gave the first detailed description of the creature, which was later given the name “platypus.” Photos of the bird beast can only be taken in Australia, because this is the only continent on which these exotic animals currently live.

Origin

The appearance of platypuses dates back to those distant times when modern continents did not exist. All land was united into one huge continent - Gondwana. It was then, 110 million years ago, that platypuses appeared in terrestrial ecosystems, taking the place of recently extinct dinosaurs. Migrating, platypuses settled throughout the continent, and after the collapse of Gondwana, they remained to live on a large area of ​​the ex-continent, which was later named Australia. Due to the isolated location of their homeland, the animals have retained their original appearance even after millions of years. Various species of platypuses once inhabited the vast expanses of the entire land, but only one species of these animals has survived to this day.

Classification

For a quarter of a century, the leading minds of Europe puzzled over how to classify the overseas beast. Particularly difficult was the fact that the creature had a lot of characteristics that are found in birds, animals, and amphibians.

The platypus stores all its fat reserves in the tail, and not under the fur on the body. Therefore, the tail of the animal is solid, heavy, and is capable of not only stabilizing the movement of the platypus in the water, but also serves as an excellent means of defense. The weight of the animal fluctuates around one and a half to two kilograms with a length of half a meter. Compare with a domestic cat, which, with the same dimensions, weighs much more. Animals do not have nipples, although they produce milk. The temperature of the bird beast is low, barely reaching 32 degrees Celsius. This is much lower than that of mammals. Among other things, platypuses have one more literally amazing feature. These animals can infect with poison, which makes them quite dangerous opponents. Like almost all reptiles, the platypus lays eggs. What makes platypuses similar to snakes and lizards is their ability to produce poison and the arrangement of their limbs, like those of amphibians. The gait of the platypus is amazing. It moves by bending its body like a reptile. After all, its paws do not grow from below the body, like those of birds or animals. The limbs of this either a bird or an animal are located on the sides of the body, like those of lizards, crocodiles or monitor lizards. High on the animal's head are the eyes and ear openings. They can be found in depressions located on each side of the head. There are no auricles; when diving, it covers its eyes and ears with a special fold of skin.

Mating games

Every year, platypuses hibernate, which lasts 5-10 short winter days. After this comes the mating period. Scientists have recently discovered how the platypus reproduces. It turns out, like all the main events in the life of these animals, the courtship process takes place in water. The male bites the tail of the female he likes, after which the animals circle each other in the water for some time. They do not have permanent pairs; platypus children remain only with the female, who herself raises and raises them.

Waiting for the Cubs

A month after mating, the platypus digs a long, deep hole, filling it with armfuls of wet leaves and brushwood. The female carries everything she needs, wrapping her paws around her and tucking her flat tail under. When the shelter is ready, the expectant mother lies down in the nest and covers the entrance to the hole with earth. The platypus lays its eggs in this nesting chamber. The clutch usually contains two, rarely three, small whitish eggs, which are glued together with a sticky substance. The female incubates the eggs for 10-14 days. The animal spends this time curled up in a ball on the masonry, hidden by wet leaves. At the same time, the female platypus can occasionally leave the hole in order to have a snack, clean itself and wet its fur.

Birth of platypuses

After two weeks of residence, a small platypus appears in the clutch. The baby breaks the eggs with an egg tooth. Once the baby emerges from the shell, this tooth falls off. After birth, the female platypus moves the young onto her abdomen. The platypus is a mammal, so the female feeds its young with milk. Platypuses do not have nipples; milk from the enlarged pores on the mother’s belly flows down the fur into special grooves, from where the young lick it off. The mother occasionally goes outside to hunt and clean herself, while the entrance to the hole is blocked with earth.
Up to eight weeks, the cubs need the warmth of their mother and can freeze if left unattended for a long time.

At the eleventh week, the eyes of small platypuses open; after four months, the babies grow up to 33 cm in length, grow hair and completely switch to adult food. A little later they leave the hole and begin to lead an adult lifestyle. At the age of one year, the platypus becomes a sexually mature adult.

Platypuses in history

Before the first European settlers appeared on the shores of Australia, platypuses had virtually no external enemies. But their amazing and valuable fur made them an object of hunting for white people. The skins of platypuses, black-brown on the outside and gray on the inside, were at one time used to make fur coats and hats for European fashionistas. And the local residents did not hesitate to shoot the platypus for their own needs. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the decline in the number of these animals acquired alarming proportions. Naturalists sounded the alarm, and the platypus joined the ranks. Australia began to create special reserves for amazing animals. The animals were taken under state protection. The problem was complicated by the fact that the places where the platypus lives must be protected from human presence, since this animal is shy and sensitive. In addition, the massive spread of rabbits on this continent deprived platypuses of their usual nesting places - their holes were occupied by long-eared aliens. Therefore, the government had to allocate huge areas, fenced off from outside interference, in order to preserve and increase the platypus population. Such reserves played a decisive role in preserving the numbers of these animals.

Platypuses in captivity

Attempts have been made to introduce this animal into zoos. In 1922, the first platypus arrived at the New York Zoo and lived in captivity for only 49 days. Due to their desire for silence and increased timidity, the animals never mastered zoos; in captivity, the platypus lays eggs reluctantly, and only a few offspring were obtained. There are no recorded cases of human domestication of these exotic animals. Platypuses were and remain wild and distinctive Australian aborigines.

Platypuses today

Now platypuses are not considered. Tourists enjoy visiting places where the platypus lives. Travelers willingly publish photos of this animal in their stories about Australian tours. Images of poultry animals serve as a distinctive feature of many Australian products and manufacturing companies. Along with the kangaroo, the platypus has become a symbol of the Australian continent.