NL·0577Herbarium of the Nature Library
- Name
- Ornithorhynchus anatinus
- Family
- Ornithorhynchidae
- Native to
- Eastern Australia and Tasmania; introduced to Kangaroo Island
- Habitat
- Rivers and streams, Freshwater lakes
Platypus
Ornithorhynchus anatinus
Also calledMallangong (Dharug) · Tambreet (Aboriginal, south-east Australia) · Yāzuǐshòu 鸭嘴兽 (Chinese) · Ornitorrinco (Spanish/Portuguese)
An egg-laying, duck-billed mammal of eastern Australia's rivers and one of only five living monotremes. It hunts with its eyes, ears and nostrils shut, finding prey by the electrical fields of their muscles.
The platypus, 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 of the family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus, though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. 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. Like other monotremes, the platypus has a sense of electrolocation, which it uses to detect prey in water while its eyes, ears and nostrils are closed. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals, as the male platypus has a spur on each hind foot that delivers an extremely painful venom. Wikipedia
What it can do
- iDetects the electrical fields of moving prey with about 40,000 electroreceptors in its bill
- iiMales deliver a venom from hind-leg spurs that causes intense, lasting pain in humans
- iiiLays leathery eggs and feeds young on milk sweated from patches of skin, as it has no nipples
- ivIts fur glows blue-green under ultraviolet light
- vStores food in cheek pouches and grinds it with horny pads instead of teeth
In the field
Field marks
- aSmall brown furry mammal with a soft duck-like bill
- bFlat, beaver-like tail
- cWebbed front feet
- dDives briefly, leaving rings on the water
- Not to be confused with
- Australian water-rat (rakali) has a white-tipped tail and a rat-like head. Males have a venomous spur on each hind ankle; never handle one.
- Where to see it
- Broken River, Eungella National Park and the Atherton Tablelands (Queensland); Tasmania's rivers
- When
- Resident; best at dawn and dusk
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Life & habits
- Diet
- Carnivore: insect larvae, freshwater shrimp, yabbies, worms
- Habitat
- Freshwater streams, rivers and lakes with earth banks for burrows
- Size
- 40–60 cm; 0.7–2.4 kg
- Lifespan
- Up to ~21 years in the wild
Females dig long nesting burrows and plug them with soil to guard their eggs. Platypuses eat around a fifth of their body weight in a day.
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Native range
Eastern Australia and Tasmania; introduced to Kangaroo Island
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Ornithorhynchus anatinus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
Marginalia
When a dried specimen reached the British zoologist George Shaw in 1799, he suspected a hoax and looked for stitches joining a duck's bill to a mammal's body. In Aboriginal stories from New South Wales the platypus is the child of a duck and a water-rat.
Curiosity
The platypus has no stomach: its gullet connects directly to its intestine.
Kinship
Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 43236.