Platypus - description, habitat, lifestyle

The platypus is a very special way of evolutionary development, and it is possible to talk about it quite a lot, which, in fact, will be addressed further. Indeed, in this beast there are a lot of paradoxes and amazing features.

At first, when the remains were brought to European animals, which had previously been a platypus, they did not believe at all in the existence of such an animal and considered it brought as a joke. They attached a duck beak and some strange tail to the fur of the beaver - this is what the platypus looks like. However, in the future the fact of the existence of this animal was confirmed and it began to be studied in more detail.

Who is the platypus?

As you know, scientists for convenience classify all animals. Strict division allows us to understand what features different animals have, who came from whom, and much more.

As said earlier, the platypus is a separate branch of evolution, so at first they could not at all understand which class it belongs to.

1. It has a beak and could very well be called a bird, but it has fur like animals.
2. It has one outlet (cesspool) like reptiles or birds, but the female feeds the children with milk, like animals.
3. Females, although they are mammals (while the mammary glands as such are absent, and the female simply secretes milk on the surface of the abdomen, from where the platypus licks it), but they lay their eggs, again like birds and reptiles.

Thus, there are signs that point to different classes of living beings and generally confuse and initiate a logical question - how can such a thing exist. By the way, many for this reason consider this animal to be a manifestation of a peculiar sense of humor in nature and evolution.

However, we will not be distracted by the humor of nature, but return to the classification of scientists who created platypuses and echidnas (also quite strange animals, also from Australia, where there are quite a lot of strange representatives of the animal world), a separate detachment in the classification. Now the platypus and echidna are representatives of the ovipositing order (also single-pass, cloacal, or subclass of the first animal), which have a set of characteristics characteristic only of them.

The most interesting thing in oviparous is the presence of many reptilian traits. However, they are not the ancestors of either marsupials or any other animals. They developed completely separately and thus became something amazing, not like any other living creatures.

Features that the platypus has

Many did not see this beast even in zoos, only in pictures or videos. Therefore, often people do not even represent some basic facts about the platypus:

1. Its beak is actually soft and represents the skin, which, as it were, stretches between two arcuate bones that go along the sides.
2. The beak is used for a special feeling - electroreception, which is the recognition of electromagnetic field pulses from other animals, in particular, the platypus is thus looking for various intervertebrates in the water and feasts on these creatures - also with the help of the beak.
3. He puts paws on the sides of the body like reptiles, and not animals that keep their four legs under the body while walking. By the way, thanks to this, the testicles of the male duckbill do not need a scrotum, since the surface of the body remains cool and spermatogenesis (which requires a temperature slightly cooler than the general body temperature) can proceed normally.
4. Male platypuses have a bifurcated penis - also like reptiles, and females have only one ovary, from which a pair of eggs hatch, which ten days after being in the platypus burrow produce small platypuses.
5. Individuals open the shell of their own eggs with a special tooth on their beak, which is called the egg and falls off after a certain amount of time, like milk teeth in humans, for example.
6. The platypus is a poisonous animal, and such a state of affairs is a rarity for a mammal. A spur on its hind legs may well send an animal the size of a dog, and if a platypus hits such a spur of a person, then it (that is, a person, not a platypus) will experience significant pain for a couple of days in a row, and these pain sensations do not removed even with strong anesthetics. Therefore, do not anger the platypus (especially males, in females, these spurs disappear with age).
7. The platypus can growl like a terrible predator and also makes other sounds, which are also quite original.
8. The platypus bald with age, mainly in the tail area. Young males also have teeth that wear off with age.

Generally speaking, the platypus is a combination of incongruous, it has a beaver tail, otter paws and a duck-like beak. He lays eggs, and feeds the young with milk, it’s right to say about this - a miracle of nature.

More seriously, such creations of nature make it possible to see how many different paths evolution can take and how many variants of living things nature can create. Such creatures allow you to dream and learn a lot. Based on this, it is easy to understand - the possibilities of nature are endless.

Body structure

The platypus is a fairly compact creature that weighs up to 3 kilograms with a body length of up to 60 centimeters, a tail takes a quarter of this length. Females in size, usually smaller than males, do not have a spike on their hind legs after the first year of development.

They have rather small eyes, but they see a lot and also hear well, but these feelings do not work under water. Therefore, when diving, they use electroreception (such a feeling allows you to catch, for example, the impulses that come from the contraction of the muscles of other animals) and move their heads to the sides in order to look for their prey like a slope or sharks. Its fur is soft, thick, dark color. Eyes and ears are located in hollows that close when immersed in water, and the nostrils also close with special valves so that water does not penetrate into these cavities.

Special attention should be paid to duckbill paws, which have a hybrid structure and can be effectively used both in water and on land. In order to swim normally, there are membranes between the toes that are especially folded on land and allow claws to protrude. On the ground, the platypus not only moves quite rapidly, but also digs the earth very well and builds a variety of minks for its own residence.

In conclusion of this section, we should note the physiological feature, which consists in the ability to regulate the temperature of one's own body. In fact, the platypus combines the abilities of reptiles and animals. On land, he maintains a temperature of a little over 30 degrees, but if he dives in a lot of cold water, he reduces his own temperature to 5 degrees Celsius and thus perfectly adapts to external conditions.

Habitat and behavior

The platypus lives mainly in Australia and Tasmania, it is a rather shy creature, so it’s quite difficult to see how the platypus walks or swims.

This amazing beast spends much time in the water, where it feeds on various worms and crustaceans.He eats in huge quantities, since he does not have a stomach. This is how the platypus can eat food approximately equal to its own weight, because the incoming "products" are not digested in the stomach (which is absent) but are immediately in the intestine.

The platypus is part of a kind of symbiosis with the Australian cormorant. During his bathing and diving to the bottom, he raises silt and scares away fish that float to the surface and thus lend themselves to cormorants. Therefore, if the platypus simply swims and does not dive, the cormorants sometimes slightly “cheer” it with its beak, hinting, so to speak, that it again dives and drives the fish to the surface.

These animals prefer clean reservoirs, but on the whole are not particularly demanding, and therefore inhabit almost any reservoirs of eastern Australia more or less meeting the required conditions. Although animals are quite shy, one should not take advantage of the availability of duckbills and flirting with them.

The most active are wonderful animals at night. Dive for prey 75 times every hour and remain under water for about 40 seconds. Thus, they are quite active and have little rest, continuing to constantly “work” in search of food.

In the morning, the platypus returns to its own mink, where it rests throughout the day. In order to be dry in his home, he makes a narrow entrance to the hole and, when he crawls in, he wipes his own wool against the edges, freeing himself of the excessive moisture that has fixed on his fur.

Video: platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)