![]() ![]() Platypuses mature at the age of 2 years and can live as long as 25 years. ![]() The commonly used plural of “platypus” is “platypuses.” “Platypi” or “platypodes” are technically correct, but rarely used.This nocturnal hunter lives in freshwater habitats ranging from sea level at the coast into the Australian Alps at elevations of more than a mile (1600 m).Native populations are shown in red, and yellow denotes the small population introduced in Flinders Chase National Park on Kangaroo Island from 1928 to 1946. Credit: Tentotwo, CC BY-SA 3.0 Map of the distribution of the platypus (Ornitorhynchus anatinus), according to the IUCN database. The platypus is native to eastern Australia and Tasmania.And now we know the platypus fluoresces bright blue green in ultraviolet light, too. The first time European naturalists examined a specimen of this native Australian creature, they thought it was a sewn-together hoax. They are mammals that lay eggs, but they nurse their young. Platypuses hunt using electroreception and sport venomous talons on their back feet. Synopsis: One of Earth’s strangest creatures is even stranger than we thought! The platypus has a furry body like an otter, a flat tail like beaver, and a bill and webbed feet like a duck. To a platypus, we furless bipeds may be the truly odd ducks. Of course, all this weirdness is in the eye, or the bill, of the beholder. And their gene code shows ancestry from each of these animal groups! Their eyeballs are wrapped in cartilage like a bird but shaped like those of other water mammals. Their fur fluoresces under UV light like some marsupials. They then zero in, using sensitive pressure receptors that can detect tiny movements in the water-less than the thickness of a human hair. It has two types of electroreceptors, using direct current to avoid large objects when swimming and alternating current to detect the muscle activity of their prey. They close their eyes, ears, and nostrils underwater, so they rely on their bill to navigate. They spend much of their time underwater at night, making over a thousand short dives in a 24-hour period, hunting worms, crayfish, and water insects. Males have sharp spurs on their back legs that can inject poison potent enough to send a human to the hospital. But they also produce milk to nurse their young once hatched.Īnd they’re one of the few venomous mammals. Platypuses are monotremes, one of just three mammals-all in Australia-that lay eggs. They’re famous for having a duckbill and a beaver tail. We’ve talked about some weird animals on EarthDate, but the platypus may be the strangest. This photograph uses a yellow filter that reveals a “truer” color of the fur’s fluorescence. Credit: Jonathan Martin, Northland College, Anich et al., 2020 Platypuses are biofluorescent, meaning their fur glows a bluish-green hue under ultraviolet (UV) light. ![]()
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