57 Fun Facts About Platypus

The platypus is one of only five living species in which group of mammals?

Monotremes: the name means 'single opening', for the one passage these mammals use for eggs, urine and droppings alike.

Which other animals are the only egg-laying mammals alive alongside the platypus?

Echidnas: unlike the platypus, these spiny anteaters live on land, and the mother carries her single egg in a pouch until it hatches.

What did some European scientists suspect the first platypus pelt sent from Australia to be?

A stitched fake: some suspected a taxidermist had joined a duck's beak to another animal's body, and George Shaw, who first described it, admitted he could not help having doubts.

Which sense do platypuses use to find prey with their eyes, ears and nostrils shut underwater?

Electrolocation: receptors in the bill sense electric fields, and are thought to pick up the faint currents from the muscles of prey buried in the stream bed.

Where is the male platypus's venomous spur located?

On each hind foot: the horny ankle spur delivers the venom, which males are thought to use on rivals in the breeding season, not to catch prey.

The name 'platypus' shares its Greek ending with 'octopus' and means what?

Flat-foot. George Shaw gave it in 1799 as the animal's scientific name; scientists soon had to rename the genus, yet his discarded label stuck as the everyday name.

Why was George Shaw's original genus name Platypus dropped in favour of Ornithorhynchus?

A beetle already had it. A genus of beetles carried the name Platypus first, and in zoology the earlier use wins, so the mammal is a platypus only in everyday speech.

The scientific name Ornithorhynchus anatinus literally means what?

Duck-like bird-snout. The name misleads: a duck's bill is hard, but the platypus's is covered in soft, pliable skin with a suede-like feel.

What unofficial name is used for a baby platypus?

Puggle. No official term exists: the word spread after Taronga Zoo used it to publicise the platypus twins it reared in 2003.

What colour does platypus fur glow under ultraviolet light?

Cyan and green. The glow was first reported in 2020 from museum specimens whose fur looks plain brown in ordinary light, and biologists still argue over whether it does the animal any good.

Which mammals hold the record for the densest fur, ahead of the thick-coated platypus?

Otters. A sea otter can pack up to a million hairs into a square inch; platypus fur comes close, and its waterproof coat traps a layer of air that keeps the animal warm underwater.

How does the platypus's tail differ from a beaver's?

It is furry rather than scaly. The tail is also the platypus's larder: fat is stored there as an energy reserve.

How does a platypus protect its front webbing when walking on land?

Folds it up and knuckle-walks. The webbing extends well past the claws for paddling, so on land the spare skin tucks under the foot, freeing the claws for walking and digging.

Adult platypuses have no teeth, so what do they use to grind their food?

Heavily keratinised pads. Young platypuses do grow a few molars, but these fall out about when they leave the burrow, and the horny pads take over.

Which internal organ does the platypus lack a functional version of?

A stomach. The platypus has lost the genes for stomach acid and the enzyme pepsin, but a small pouch remains where the organ should be, so some biologists object to calling it stomachless.

How does a platypus's body temperature compare with a human's?

5 °C lower. Low as that is, the platypus is no cold-blooded animal: it holds steady near 32 °C even after hours in near-freezing streams.

Roughly how much does an average male platypus weigh?

1.7 kg. A platypus is only about half the size of a house cat, small enough that eagles, pythons and foxes all prey on it.

Platypus venom contains an unusually stable form of the hormone GLP-1, which researchers hope could improve treatments for what?

Type 2 diabetes. In people the hormone breaks down within minutes, but the platypus's version resists that breakdown, probably because it also has to work as an ingredient of the venom.

Wild platypuses are native to which part of Australia?

The east. Platypuses thrive from steamy Queensland rainforest streams to icy Tasmanian highland lakes, yet they have never been found living naturally in the country's west or centre.

At its worst, how long can the pain from a platypus sting last in humans?

Months. The venom is not known to kill people, but the pain is so stubborn that morphine does little for it, and doctors block the nerves instead.

Where in the male platypus's body is its venom produced?

In glands in the thighs. Venom output peaks in the breeding season, which is why the spurs are thought to be weapons for males competing over mates.

Which Australian island has an introduced platypus population, first released there in 1928?

Kangaroo Island. Platypuses were released in Flinders Chase National Park in 1928, 1941 and 1946, and their descendants became South Australia's only established population after the mainland animals died out.

How does a platypus propel itself through the water?

With its front feet only. It rows with alternating strokes, which is why the front webbing spreads well past the claws, while the hind feet and tail just steer and brake.

In one study, how long did platypus dives last on average?

35 seconds. A platypus comes up as its oxygen runs low, chews its catch and breathes for 10 to 20 seconds, then dives again, for hours on end.

The dinosaur-age jaw of Steropodon, an early platypus relative, was preserved as which gemstone?

Opal. The jaw turned up at Lightning Ridge, an Australian mining town known for its black opal, where the gem had replaced the original bone and its three molar teeth.

When are wild platypuses most active?

From dusk until dawn. A platypus hunts through the night, then sleeps the day away in a burrow dug into the riverbank.

A newly hatched platypus is about the size of what?

A lima bean. The hatchling is blind, hairless and helpless, and it lives on its mother's milk for three to four months before it can swim on its own.

A mother platypus lines her nest with what?

Wet leaves. She carries them home tucked under her curled tail, and their damp is thought to keep the eggs and hatchlings from drying out.

A hatching platypus breaks out of its shell with the help of what?

An egg tooth. The hatchling slits its shell from the inside with a small temporary tooth, helped by a bump on the tip of its snout, much as a chick does.

How does a mother platypus deliver milk to her young, given she has no teats?

Through pores in her skin. The milk oozes onto two patches of fur on her belly, and the young lap it up from there.

A mother platypus seals her nesting burrow behind her with what?

Soil plugs. She blocks the tunnel in several places each time she comes or goes, which is thought to keep predators and rising water away from her young.

A platypus that feels threatened makes which sound?

A low growl. Platypuses seldom make a sound at all, but an animal that is disturbed or handled gives a low-pitched growl.

One of the platypus's ten sex chromosomes closely matches a sex chromosome found in which animals?

Birds. A male platypus carries five X and five Y chromosomes, and their bird-like genes suggest that the X and Y of other mammals arose only after the platypus line had split away.

The rakali, often mistaken for a swimming platypus, is told apart by which mark on its tail?

A white tip. Spotters check the tail first: a rakali's is long and narrow with a pale end, while a platypus's is broad, flat and dark all over.

A giant extinct platypus, about twice the size of today's, is known from a single what?

Tooth. From one fossil molar found at Riversleigh in Queensland, scientists worked out the animal's size, and its crushing wear suggests a diet that may have included turtles.

Fossils show that early relatives of the platypus once lived on which other continent?

South America. The fossils turned up in Patagonia, a relic of the time when Australia, Antarctica and South America were joined and animals could spread overland between them.

How did the IUCN categorise the platypus in its 2016 assessment?

Near Threatened. The listing reflects a decline in numbers that may approach 30 percent, and two Australian states have listed the animal as vulnerable or endangered.

The platypus gets more of which kind of sleep than any other mammal studied?

REM sleep. A sleeping platypus spends hours a day in the twitching stage in which humans dream, a hint that this kind of sleep goes back to the earliest mammals.

Which yabby nets are banned in several Australian states because they drown platypuses?

Opera house nets. A funnel at each entrance lets a platypus swim in but not find its way out, and as an air-breather it soon drowns.

As of 2019, the only platypuses in captivity outside Australia were at which zoo?

The Bronx Zoo received three in 1947; one female, Penelope, had a false pregnancy.

During World War II, a live platypus sent as a gift to which leader died en route?

Winston Churchill. The platypus, itself named Winston, died four days short of Liverpool; its keeper blamed the blasts of a submarine attack, but the ship's logbook has since cast doubt on that story.

The platypus was a mascot at which Olympic Games?

Sydney 2000. The platypus was called Syd, short for the host city, and stood for water and the environment; a kookaburra named Olly was one of his two fellow mascots.

Stuart Devlin's platypus design has appeared since 1966 on which Australian coin?

20 cents. Devlin designed the backs of Australia's first decimal coins, so when the 20-cent piece replaced the florin in 1966 it carried his platypus.

Perry the Platypus, secret agent, is a character in which animated series?

Phineas and Ferb. To his owners Perry is a mindless pet, but as Agent P he slips away in every episode to foil the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz.

John Hunter, who sent the first platypus pelt and sketch to Britain in 1798, held which office in New South Wales?

Governor. Hunter was a keen naturalist who drew the colony's animals himself and regularly shipped specimens home to Sir Joseph Banks.

Which visiting naturalist watched wild platypuses at play in Australia in 1836?

Charles Darwin. During the Beagle's stop he wrote of his 'good fortune' in seeing several diving and playing, and he judged one that a companion shot 'a most extraordinary animal'.

The platypus's shoulder girdle contains an interclavicle, a bone it shares with which group?

Reptiles. Its legs also splay out from the body like a lizard's, a build that makes walking on land hard work for an animal shaped for swimming.

What does a platypus mostly collect in its cheek pouches to eat later?

Insect larvae, worms and shrimp. It probes the stream bed with its bill, packs its cheeks with the catch, then floats at the surface to grind it up.

How does the male platypus grip the female during mating?

He grabs her tail with his bill. Courtship is an underwater chase of circling, rolling and diving that the pair may repeat over several days.

What did naturalist Harry Burrell call the portable artificial habitat he invented for keeping platypuses alive on show?

A platypusary. The word outlived his portable original: later zoos borrowed it for platypus enclosures of their own, and dictionaries now list it.

Penelope, a platypus who made headlines in the 1950s by faking a pregnancy, lived at which American zoo?

The Bronx Zoo. She arrived from Australia in 1947 with a mate called Cecil, and in 1953, after months on double rations, keepers dug up her burrow and found no young at all.

Going strictly by the Greek roots, what would the plural of 'platypus' be?

Platypodes. The familiar 'platypi' bolts a Latin ending onto a Greek word, so dictionaries settle for 'platypuses', or simply 'platypus'.

Johann Blumenbach gave the platypus a scientific name that called it a what?

A paradox. He named it Ornithorhynchus paradoxus; his genus name is still in use, but his species name gave way to anatinus, which had been published first.

The platypus follows Bergmann's rule, meaning individuals get larger the farther they live in which direction?

South. In Australia the cold lies to the south and a bigger body holds its heat better, so a large Tasmanian male can weigh three times as much as an average male from the tropical north.

As of 2024, the oldest wild platypus on record was recaptured at about what age?

24 years. Tagged as a one-year-old in 2000, the male was caught again in 2023 in a suburban Melbourne creek; a female in captivity has reached 30.

Which Australian state had legally protected the platypus by 1890, over twenty years before the last?

Victoria. Its Game Act of 1890 protected the platypus all year round in a schedule otherwise made up of native birds, and every state had followed by 1912.

William Caldwell, who proved in 1884 that platypuses lay eggs, found them with the help of about 150 of whom?

Local Aboriginal people. Camped on Queensland's Burnett River, the team found a platypus with one egg laid and another on the way, ending 85 years of argument among European naturalists.