Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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, reproductive tract, and other body parts, compared to the more common mammalian types.
Echidnas and platypuses are the only egg-laying mammals, the monotremes. The average lifespan of an echidna in the wild is estimated at 14–16 years. Fully grown females can weigh about 4.5 kilograms (9.9 lb), the males 33% larger, at about 6 kilograms (13 lb). [12]
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 ...
Echidnas are monotremes, which means they are part of the only group of living mammals that lays eggs instead of bearing live young, he explained. There are only five existing species of ...
The egg-laying mammal, named after broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, was last seen by scientists in 1961. It was spotted using camera traps set up in the Cyclops Mountains of Indonesia’s Papua ...
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), [4] sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, [5] 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 ...
Species of the Tachyglossidae are egg-laying mammals; together with the related family Ornithorhynchidae, they are the only extant monotremes in the world. [13] The five subspecies of the short-beaked echidna are each found in different geographical locations.
Most mammals are viviparous, giving birth to live young. [1] However, the five species of monotreme, the platypuses and the echidnas, lay eggs. The monotremes have a sex determination system different from that of most other mammals. [2] In particular, the sex chromosomes of a platypus are more like those of a chicken than those of a therian ...