Now becoming extinct in Australia, Platypus can still be witnessed parts of southern Australia. This monotremes and primitive aquatic burrowing animal has webbed feet, a duck like bill and brown fur. It is found in freshwater lakes, steams and billabongs and you are most likely to encounter it either in the Kangaroo Island or on the Adelaide Hills. The platypus is one of two egg laying mammals to be found in the world today, the other is the echidna. Both belong to a group called monotremes. They lay eggs with soft leathery shells, similar to those of reptiles. In size and weight, the Platypus varies quite widely according to locality, but males average about half a meter in length and one to two kilograms in weight. Females are significantly smaller than males.
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Unique in its breeding quality, Platypus will only reproduce if it is fed well with mud full of living creatures. When breeding does happen, the female Platypus digs a burrow. At the end of the burrow she builds a nest out of Eucalypt leaves. Once her burrow is complete she lays between one and three eggs, but usually she will lay two.
Platypuses are shy and wary. But in the early evening in a suitably quiet, secluded pool, they often emerge to spend some time at the surface, feeding, grooming or, sometimes, simply floating quietly as though sunbathing. | Though strongly aquatic, platypus do occasionally come ashore, or haul out on some log or boulder to groom him or herself. |
