These animals are ready to mate at two years of age and often have more than one partner in their lifetime. They often travel along the bottom of a riverbed and dig through the sediment in search of things to eat. Platypuses feed on small aquatic animals and locate their food by using their highly sensitive snouts. While it can harm smaller animals, it will not kill a human. Interestingly, they can produce venom from the spurs in their feet. The streamlined design of their bodies allows them to move gracefully in and under the water, where they live most of the time. With its distinct duck-like bill, this fascinating creature is found in Tasmania and Australia. They can spend over 10 hours a night hunting for food which consists of small animals like shrimp and crayfish. Rivers and waterways are the natural habiat for the platypus, which is also nocturnal. Most of their activity happens at night when they dig for ants, termites, and other small invertebrates using their highly adapted sense of smell. The echidnas, who use their fur as camouflage, spend most of the day hiding in fallen trees or empty burrows. They are all quite elusive, so little is known about their daily habits and mating rituals. Monotremes are only found in either Australia or New Guinea.
Only five species of animals share this extraordinary egg-laying trait: the duck-billed platypus, and four echidna species, the western long-beaked echidna, eastern long-beaked echidna, short-beaked echidna, and Sir David's long-beaked echidna. In the scientific world, this is called a monotreme the two other types of mammals - placentals and marsupials - reproduce through live births. They are mammals that lay eggs and feed milk to their babies (or puggles as they're known). Similar spurs are found in many archaic mammal groups, indicating that this is an ancient characteristic for mammals as a whole, and not exclusive to the platypus or other monotremes.The following creatures all share a unique characteristic. Since only males produce venom and production rises during the breeding season, it may be used as an offensive weapon to assert dominance during this period.
The venom appears to have a different function from those produced by non-mammalian species its effects are not life-threatening to humans, but nevertheless powerful enough to seriously impair the victim. The female platypus, in common with echidnas, has rudimentary spur buds that do not develop (dropping off before the end of their first year) and lack functional crural glands. Venom is produced in the crural glands of the male, which are kidney-shaped alveolar glands connected by a thin-walled duct to a calcaneus spur on each hind limb. Oedema rapidly develops around the wound and gradually spreads throughout the affected limb. Although powerful enough to kill smaller animals such as dogs, the venom is not lethal to humans, but the pain is so excruciating that the victim may be incapacitated. The function of defensins is to cause lysis in pathogenic bacteria and viruses, but in platypuses, they also are formed into venom for defense. The DLPs are produced by the immune system of the platypus. While both male and female platypuses are born with ankle spurs, only the spurs on the male's back ankles deliver venom, composed largely of defensin-like proteins (DLPs), three of which are unique to the platypus.
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