The platypus lays eggs, has a venomous spur, hunts with electricity, has no stomach and glows under ultraviolet light. When the first specimen reached Britain, scientists thought it was a fake. Here are 18 weird facts about platypuses, Australia’s strangest animal.
Platypus at a glance
Scientific name: Ornithorhynchus anatinus
Lives: rivers and streams of eastern Australia and Tasmania
Size: males average about 50 cm and 1.7 kg, females about 43 cm and 0.9 kg
Status: Near Threatened (IUCN, since 2016)
1Scientists thought the first one was a hoax.
When a platypus skin was sent from Australia to Britain in 1799, the zoologist George Shaw reportedly checked for stitches, suspecting someone had sewn a duck’s bill onto a mammal’s body. It was real, and it remains one of the most unusual animals ever described.
2It’s one of only five mammals that lay eggs.
The platypus and four species of echidna are the only living monotremes, the egg-laying mammals. A female platypus usually lays two small, leathery eggs, about the size of a grape, in a sealed chamber at the end of a long burrow, and keeps them warm curled around them for about ten days.
3Mothers have no nipples.
Female platypuses feed their young milk, but they have no teats. Instead, milk seeps out of patches of skin on the mother’s belly, and the babies lap it up. The young stay in the burrow for three to four months before they swim out for the first time.
4Males are venomous.
Male platypuses have a sharp spur on each hind ankle connected to a venom gland. The venom has been known to kill dogs and causes humans severe, long-lasting pain that ordinary painkillers barely touch. Venom production increases in the breeding season, so scientists think males use it to fight rivals.
5They hunt with their eyes, ears and nose shut.
When a platypus dives, folds of skin close over its eyes and ears and its nostrils seal shut. It finds its food entirely with its bill.
6Their bill senses electricity.
The soft, rubbery bill is covered in around 40,000 electroreceptors, which pick up the tiny electric fields made by the muscles of shrimps, worms and insect larvae. Combined with touch sensors, this lets a platypus locate prey hidden in mud and gravel.
7They have no stomach.
A platypus’s gullet connects straight to its intestine. Over millions of years it lost the genes for the digestive enzymes a stomach normally makes, so it has no true stomach at all.
8Adults have no teeth.
Young platypuses have a few teeth, but they fall out. Adults grind their food with hard pads in the bill, helped by bits of gravel they scoop up with their prey.
9They store food in their cheeks.
A platypus doesn’t eat underwater. It stuffs its catch into cheek pouches, swims to the surface and eats it there, floating on the water.
10They spend up to 12 hours a day hunting.
Hunting is hard work in cold water, so platypuses spend 10 to 12 hours a day foraging, mostly at night, and can eat around a fifth of their own body weight in a day.
11Dives are short but frequent.
Each dive lasts only about 30 seconds to just over two minutes. A hunting platypus dives again and again, resting only briefly at the surface in between.
12They glow under UV light.
In 2020, scientists discovered that platypus fur glows blue-green under ultraviolet light. Nobody is yet sure why, though it may help them avoid predators that can see UV light.
13Their webbed feet fold away on land.
The webbing on the front feet stretches well past the claws to make powerful paddles. On land, it folds back so the platypus can walk and use its claws to dig.
14They dig their own burrows.
Platypuses rest in burrows dug into riverbanks, usually with the entrance just above the waterline. Nesting females dig long, winding tunnels, and block the tunnel with plugs of soil to keep out predators and floods.
15Their tails store fat.
The flat, beaver-like tail is used for steering and as an energy store. A platypus with a fat, plump tail is in good condition, while a thin tail is a sign it is struggling to find food.
16Platypuses in the cold are bigger.
Those living in Tasmania and the cold Australian Alps are bigger than those in the warm north of Queensland. Their thick, waterproof fur traps a layer of air that keeps them warm even in icy streams.
17A prehistoric platypus was more than a metre long.
A fossil tooth found in Queensland belonged to a giant platypus, Obdurodon tharalkooschild, which lived between 5 and 15 million years ago and was probably more than twice the size of today’s platypus.
18They’re more at risk than people think.
In 2016 the IUCN moved the platypus to “Near Threatened”. Drought, dams, land clearing and fishing nets have shrunk its range, and a 2020 study found it has disappeared from about a fifth of the areas it once lived in.
FAQs about platypuses
Is a platypus a mammal?
Yes. It has fur and feeds its young on milk, but it lays eggs, which makes it a monotreme.
Can a platypus kill a human?
No. A male’s venom is extremely painful, but no human deaths have been recorded.
Can you keep a platypus as a pet?
No. Platypuses are protected in Australia, and it is illegal to keep one as a pet.
Where can you see a platypus?
In the wild in eastern Australia and Tasmania, usually at dawn or dusk. Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria and Taronga Zoo in Sydney also have them.
Sources and further reading
- Australian Museum: Platypus
- Australian Platypus Conservancy: conservation status
- Britannica: platypus
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Platypuses are fluorescent
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