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The platypus is one of the few living mammals to produce venom. The venom is made in venom glands that are connected to hollow spurs on their hind legs; it is primarily made during the mating season. [1] While the venom's effects are described as extremely painful, it is not lethal to humans.
Male platypuses have sharp spurs on their back legs shaped like a canine tooth. These hollow spurs measure 0.59 to 0.71 inches long and connect to crural glands in the animal’s upper thighs.
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus , though a number of related species appear ...
The platypus has an average body temperature of about 31 °C (88 °F) rather than the averages of 35 °C (95 °F) for marsupials and 37 °C (99 °F) for placentals. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] Research suggests this has been a gradual adaptation to the harsh, marginal environmental niches in which the few extant monotreme species have managed to survive ...
Despite their awkward appearance, the platypus has a superpower-like sixth sense that it uses to hunt. With a beaver’s tail, webbed feet, and a duck’s bill, platypuses are one of the world’s ...
Platypus – There are a few cases of people being envenomated with platypus venom, including in 1992 and 1994. [154] Possum – A day care centre out on a field trip was attacked by a group of possums in the Oxford Falls suburb of Sydney, 1994. A family was also attacked by one in the Warrnambool suburb of Dennington in 2008. [155]
The Ornithorhynchidae / ɔːr ˌ n ɪ θ ə ˈ r ɪ ŋ k ɪ d iː / are one of the two extant families in the order Monotremata, and contain the platypus and its extinct relatives. The other family is the Tachyglossidae, or echidnas.
Among the monotremes, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) has the most acute electric sense. [37] [38] The platypus localises its prey using almost 40,000 electroreceptors arranged in front-to-back stripes along the bill. [34] The arrangement is highly directional, being most sensitive off to the sides and below.