Beastfile · Mammals
Platypus
Ornithorhynchus anatinus
Lays eggs, detects electricity, has venom, and glows under ultraviolet light.
Overview
The platypus was assumed to be a hoax when the first specimen reached Britain, and the animal has kept adding to the case ever since. It is a mammal that lays eggs. It hunts with its eyes, ears and nostrils shut, navigating entirely by electroreceptors in its bill that pick up the muscle activity of prey buried in silt. Males carry a venomous spur on each hind ankle, capable of causing pain severe enough to resist morphine. It has no stomach, so the oesophagus runs straight to the intestine. Its fur fluoresces blue-green under ultraviolet light, and nobody yet knows why.
Origin
Freshwater rivers, streams and lakes in eastern Australia and Tasmania, denning in burrows dug into the bank.
Habitat
FreshwaterNotable Traits
- •A mammal that lays eggs
- •Hunts by electroreception with eyes and ears closed
- •Males have a venomous spur on each hind ankle
- •No stomach at all
- •Fur that fluoresces under ultraviolet light
Conservation
Near Threatened and declining. Drought, river regulation, land clearing along banks and drowning in illegal net traps are the main pressures, and the range has already contracted.
