Duck-Billed Platypus

Platypus by the river's edge.

Platypus rolled up.

       The duck-billed platypus also called ornithorynchus, the lowest of the mammals, a peculiar creature, living in the quiet streams of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. It is about twenty inches long, rather slender and covered with brown hair. Its head is small  and instead of a nose it has a horny bill, resembling a duck's with nostrils, however, at the extreme end, enabling the animal to breathe with only the tip of his bill out of the water. The male  has on each heel a sharp, horny spur, which he uses for defense. Duckbills usually live in large colonies in the banks of streams, each pair inhabiting its separate burrow. The food consists chiefly of insects and worms, which the animal comes out to get at night. On land, duckbills walk about very clumsily on their short legs and webbed feet, but in water they move very rapidly.

More About Platypus From The Web:

• The Strange Platypus
• 7 places to see platypus in the wild
• Rare platypus at San Diego Zoo