The duck-billed platypus, who looks like a mash up of a duck and a beaver, lives in eastern Australia. This creature is not only known for it's looks, but is also known to be one of the three mammals that lays eggs. The other two species are the short and long nosed echidna, also found in Australia. These three species are the only animals that are monotremes (mammals that lay eggs).
The platypus lays at least 2 soft leathery eggs in a river bank burrow that hatch within 11 days. The babies are born blind, deaf, and hairless, much like a baby bird. However, like mammals, they are nourished by their mother's milk. Unlike most mammals who usually have some kind of nipple for their babies to latch on to, the platypus has milk glands that ooze milk from it's skin. The babies just lap it up. Unlike echidnas and a bunch of other animals that live in Australia, the platypus does not have a pouch or flap it can carry it's young in and must enter the water it lives by to search for food. Platypus moms will cover the entrance of their nests with mud before they leave.
When it enters the water, the platypus closes it's eyes and ears, making it deaf and blind in the water. To hunt, it waves it's bill back and fourth. It's bill is covered in pores that contain two types of sensory cells. One detects a slight touch of an object while another picks up electrical charges that is given off. When it finds something tasty, it stores it in pouches in it's cheeks where it will eat it later on land or floating on top of the water. Platypus have no teeth, so much like a duck, it grinds it's prey up with a hard pallet on the top of it's mouth.
Not only is the platypus on of the few monotremes, it also one of the few mammals that are venomous. Males have a barb on the back of their ankles that has enough venom to kill a dog!
Source: The Encyclopedia of Animals, 2006, Per Christiansen.
The Life of Mammals, 2002, David Attenborough.
