Platypus

When scientists first saw a platypus, they thought it was a prank — a furry mammal with a duck's bill, webbed feet, and a beaver-like tail that lays EGGS. Its bill is packed with sensors that detect the electricity made by wiggling prey underwater.

Platypuses live in the rivers, streams and lakes of eastern Australia, and there is nothing else quite like them. A platypus is a mammal with fur and milk, yet it lays eggs, has a rubbery duck-like bill, webbed feet and a flat tail like a beaver's. When the first specimen reached scientists in Europe, some thought it was a hoax stitched together from different animals. Males even carry a venomous spur on each back ankle. Its dense fur traps a layer of air so the animal stays warm and dry underwater.

A platypus closes its eyes, ears and nostrils when it dives, and hunts entirely with its bill. The bill is packed with sensors that pick up the tiny electric signals made by a shrimp or an insect larva twitching in the mud, and the platypus sweeps its head from side to side to home in on them. It stuffs its catch into cheek pouches and comes to the surface to grind it up — a platypus has no teeth as an adult, and no stomach either, so food goes straight through to the gut.

A female platypus digs a long burrow into a riverbank and lays her eggs at the end of it, curling around them to keep them warm. The babies that hatch are tiny and helpless, and they drink milk that seeps through the skin of their mother's belly, because a platypus has no teats. Young platypuses stay in the burrow for months before they take their first swim. Platypuses are listed as near threatened: drought, dams and polluted rivers have shrunk the places they can live.

Here is every platypus fact from this page and the platypus quiz in one list — handy for a school project or a car-ride quiz.

1. The platypus is one of only a few mammals on Earth that lay eggs.
2. Its bill senses electricity from prey — it hunts with eyes, ears, and nostrils closed.
3. Male platypuses have a venomous spur on each back ankle.
4. Platypuses have no stomach — food goes straight to their gut.
5. Platypus fur glows blue-green under ultraviolet (UV) light.
6. Most mammals give birth to live babies instead of laying eggs.
7. Healthy rivers help keep platypus populations safe.
8. Scientists only discovered this glowing fur fairly recently.

❓ Common questions about platypuses

No — platypuses are wild animals that belong in the wild, and keeping one would be unsafe and almost always illegal. But if platypuses are your favorite, here's the closest pet you actually can welcome home:

Meet the AxolotlBecause no pet is as odd-and-wonderful as a platypus, but for a strange, aquatic, watch-in-wonder animal an axolotl is perfect. See care guide →

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