The platypus is one of the strangest animals in nature and worth spending a few words to a mammal so special and so little regarded even by scientists themselves. Wrong to consider almost a mammal Series B, presents many peculiarities rather curious that link them to birds and reptiles, making it one of the most interesting animals to study. The platypus is a small semi-aquatic mammal endemic to Australia, mainly distributed in south-east of this continent. Together
all'Echidna, is the only living representative of the monotremes. How do reptiles lay eggs with abundant yolk and keep for a lifetime single cloacal opening, which uses both for reproduction and to eliminate waste. It has no external ear, and three middle ear bones are more like those of ancient mammals that are currently covered. The
ornitorninco has a beak like that of birds, has no teeth (except as a puppy) and has an extra bone in the shoulder girdle, the interclavicola, absent in all other mammals. Proceeds at a brisk reptilian as he placed his paws on either side of the body and not below like all mammals.
This curious animal also has no nipples, but it produces a kind of milk to be modified sweat glands, which flows through tufts of hair placed in a kind of abdominal pocket.
Although warm-blooded, the temperature is less stable than other mammals and in tune with is around 32 ° C, compared to 38 ° (average) of other mammals.
The platypus is about 30 cm long, covered in fur, has all the flat tail and webbed feet wide where it accumulates fat reserves. Spends almost all his life in the water, where swimming with only front legs, using its tail and hind legs as a rudder.
It feeds on shrimp larvae and molluscs found in the muddy. In the water he keeps his eyes closed and locate prey with its beak and with a sensitive system elettrolocalizzazione much more sensitive than the bat. This animal burrows
builds long as 18 meters near the rivers, are usually open to the water, but those built specifically for the rearing of children have an opening to the air, to have more exchange of oxygen and the escape route in case of flooding.
The male platypus has, on each of the hind legs, an empty spur that used to inject a poison, which is useful for defense against predators or fighting for the territory. It is yet another unique feature of this animal, because it is the only known venomous species of mammal. This poison is lethal to small animals, not humans.
As I said, the platypus lays eggs, which have an incubation period of 10 days or so. At birth the young are free of hair and climbing up into the pocket where the mother's belly licking milk.
After 3-4 months spent in the den, children are ready to explore the world.
Another unique feature is the presence of 10 platypus sex chromosomes instead of 2 (X, Y) of most mammals. The system is very similar to that of birds, so that both the chromosome which is believed to decide the sex of unborn children is almost identical. The
oritorinco was discovered at the end of 700, but you have to wait until 1939 to ensure that the scientific world to notice him, as the stuffed specimens hitherto known were always considered a kind of false.
The platypus is a mammal not less, is the ancestor of placental mammals. It 'a survivor of a branch of ancestral mammals had its own history. Other mammals, marsupials and placentals, were developed later in a separate branch.
last grains: According to a legend of Australian aborigines, the platypus (which they called boonaburra) is the unique intersection, happened a long time ago, between a duck and a rat solitary water that kidnapped her. The duck, after the violence, gave birth to "two to four cubs but webbed feet, with the beak and fur."
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