

Baby platypuses hatch after 10 days and nurse for up to four months before they swim off and forage on their own. The female platypus lays her eggs in an underground burrow that she digs near the water’s edge. It has no teeth, so the platypus stores its "catch" in its cheek pouches, returns to the surface, mashes up its meal with the help of gravel bits hoovered up enroute, then swallows it all down. The bill also comes equipped with specialized nerve endings, called electroreceptors, which detect tiny electrical currents generated by the muscular contractions of prey. The watertight nostrils on its bill remain sealed so that the animal can stay submerged for up to two minutes as it forages for food. The platypus is a bottom-feeder that uses its beaver-like tail to steer and its webbed feet to propel itself through the water while hunting for insects, shellfish, and worms. Both tails aid in swimming because of their similar shapes and are likely another instance of convergent evolution however, the beavers tail is scaly and. Just in time for holiday cookie season, we’ve discovered that the vanilla flavoring in your baked goods and candy could come from the anal excretions of beavers. While the platypus generally inhabits freshwater rivers, wetlands, and billabongs Down Under, it is also known to venture into brackish estuaries (the combined fresh-and saltwater areas where rivers meet the sea). many other animals: a ducks bill, a beavers tail, an otters feet - and it lays eggs Fun fact: the male platypus has a venomous spur on his back foot. If its appearance alone somehow fails to impress, the male of the species is also one of the world’s few venomous mammals! Equipped with sharp stingers on the heels of its hind feet, the male platypus can deliver a strong toxic blow to any approaching foe.

(Image credit: worldswildlifewonders / ) With the bill and webbed toes of a duck, tail of a beaver and body of. The platypus is a duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed, egg-laying aquatic creature native to Australia. An Australian duck-billed platypus swims in a rainforest creek.
