The Platypus By: TSA

Fun Facts

• The male Puck-Billed Platypus has poison gland on its heels that can easily kill a full size dog.

• The Duck-Billed Platypus lays its young in holes 20-30 meters deep in holes under water.

• Platypus eat half there body weight in one night.

•  The Platypus is one of the few mammals that  lay eggs. 

Classification

• Kingdom- Animalia -Multicultural, omnivorous, can digest food, lacks a cell wall. They have tissue and organ systems.

• Phylum- Chordata- Segmented body, brain, hollow nerve cord, heart, tail, blood vessels, closed blood system, cartilaginous exoskeleton present.)

• Class- Mammalia- Ability to produce milk, they have 4 chamber hearts and teeth that fall out and grow back in eventually. 

• Order-  Monotremata- They lay eggs instead of bearing young, the eggs are small and are covered with a leathery material, also, they have no teeth.)

• Family- Ornithorhynchida- Ability to sense things close to them, highly aquatic, webbed feet, highly water resistant fur, Beak is very soft, leather-like and flexible. They also have a spike on the back of there feet for defense. when they use this spike it injects poison into the victim.  

• Genuis- Ornithorhynchus- Eats crustations and small plants, live in burrows on the bank  or shallows of water. They are excellent digger because of very sharp claws. Sometimes there holes can be up to 20-30 meters deep, in these holes they lay there young. They plug these holes up to warm the water inside so it acts like a incubator. There young hatch in 12 days.

• Species- Ornithorhynchus anatine- See, Genus. This also is the scientific name for the Duck-Billed Platypus.

References:

  www.animaldiversity.umm2.umich.edu

www.pbs.org/kratts/world/aust/plat 

Haiku On a Platypus

They live in a stream,

They eat small water  dwellers,

They are Platypus

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