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Monotremes (/ ˈ m ɒ n ə t r iː m z /) are mammals of the order Monotremata. They are the only group of living mammals that lay eggs, rather than bearing live young. The extant monotreme species are the platypus and the four species of echidnas. Monotremes are typified by structural differences in their brains, jaws, digestive tract ...
This category contains articles about all taxa below the subclass/order Monotremata - the platypus, the echidnas, and extinct species which are only known via fossil evidence. Subcategories This category has the following 5 subcategories, out of 5 total.
The class Mammalia is divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: egg-laying mammals (yinotherians or monotremes - see also Australosphenida), and mammals which give live birth . The latter subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals ( metatherians or marsupials ), and placental mammals ( eutherians , for which ...
Ornithorhynchoidea is a superfamily of mammals containing the only living monotremes, the platypus and the echidnas, as well as their closest fossil relatives, to the exclusion of more primitive fossil monotremes of uncertain affinity.
Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. [6] Like other monotremes, the platypus has a sense of electrolocation , which it uses to detect prey in cloudy water. [ 7 ]
In 2024, Flannery et al. described Opalios splendens as a new genus and species of early monotreme based on these fossil remains. They erected the new monotypic family Opalionidae within the Ornithorhynchoidea —the superfamily also containing modern echidnas and platypus —to house Opalios due to its similarity to both of these extant lineages.
Australia is home to two of the five extant species of monotremes and the majority of the world's marsupials (the remainder are from Papua New Guinea, eastern Indonesia and the Americas). The taxonomy is somewhat fluid; this list generally follows Menkhorst and Knight [ 1 ] and Van Dyck and Strahan, [ 2 ] with some input from the global list ...
Today, there are only five surviving species of monotremes which live in Australia and New Guinea, consisting of the platypus and four species of echidna. Fossils of yinotheres have been found in Britain, China, Russia, Madagascar and Argentina. Contrary to other known crown mammals, they retained postdentary bones as shown by the presence of a ...