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It has a bill, similar in shape to a duck, which is very pliable, and also has webbed feet.
It has a bill, similar in shape to a duck, which is very pliable, and also has webbed feet.
Like all mammals it has fur and suckles its young.
Like all mammals it has fur and suckles its young.
The platypus is an aquatic [[mammal]], one of only five mammal species which lays eggs as opposed to a live birth.<ref>↑ The other four are types of echidnas which are also native to [[Australia]].</ref> Its natural range is in [[Australia]] and [[Tasmania]]. It has a bill, similar in shape to a [[duck]], which is very pliable, and also has webbed feet. Like all mammals it has fur and suckles its young. The platypus can find its prey in water due to its ability to detect electric fields produced by muscular contractions. The male platypus has has a spur on its hindfoot which can deliver venom - a feature which very few mammals possess.
The platypus (and its fellow [[monotreme]] the [[echidna]]) was believed to have evolved in isolation 225 million years ago when the land mass that would become [[Australia]] (Gondwana) broke away from the other continents. This idea of [[evolution]] in isolation followed the theory of [[Darwin]], whose affinity for evolution may also have been influenced by his early studies of the platypus during his time on The Beagle.
However, the isolation theory was overturned when, in the early 1990s, three platypus teeth were discovered in South America - virtually identical to fossil platypus teeth found in Australia. (Marsupials, too, were once considered to be exclusive to Australia, but their [[fossils]] have now been found on every continent). Modern adult platypuses do not have [[teeth]], but the discovery of platypus fossils in Australia had already identified that their ancestors did indeed have unique and distinctive teeth.
The platypus is featured on the Australian 20 cent [[coin]].
== Notes ==
== Notes ==
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==External links==
*[http://www.genevaschools.org/austinbg/class/gray/platypus/ The Duck-Billed Platypus]
[[Category:Egg-laying Mammals]]
==External links==
==External links==