{"id":42951,"date":"2024-10-18T09:19:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T07:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ff6fb4ee-22c3-4067-86f4-d8edc62ab9dd"},"modified":"2024-10-18T09:27:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T07:27:38","slug":"its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s venomous, has an electric organ, glows in the dark and sweats milk \u2013 meet the world’s most confusing animal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The animal in question also has a fleshy bill, webbed feet and sharp claws. Can you guess what it is yet? <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Friday, 18 October 2024 at 07:19 AM<\/p>

\n\n

In 1799, George Shaw, a curator in the natural history department of the British Museum, received a strange skin in the mail. It looked, he wrote, like nothing so much as \u201cthe beak of a Duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>

So unusual was this creature that Shaw suspected \u201csome deceptive preparation by artificial means.\u201d Legend has it that you can still see scissor marks on the specimen\u2019s beak, where he checked for stitches.<\/p>

It wasn\u2019t a prank \u2013 it was a platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus<\/em>). But it\u2019s easy to understand Shaw\u2019s befuddlement. Even to 21st-century beholders, the platypus\u2019s grab bag of attributes can seem a little fudged. <\/p>

The platypus is sometimes called a duck-billed platypus, for obvious reasons\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Guide to monotremes: the only group of living mammals that lay eggs<\/a><\/li><\/ul>
What is a platypus?<\/h2>
These animals lay eggs but nurse their young, are fur-covered but live underwater, and have fleshy bills, webbed feet, sharp claws and venom<\/a>-filled ankle spikes. <\/p>
We are beginning to see how these traits serve platypuses well in the streams and rivers where they live. They paddle with their webbed front feet, steer with their back ones, and dig ovular burrows with their claws. <\/p>
Females lay round, leathery eggs and lactate without nipples; when the young hatch, they lap milk directly off their mother\u2019s body. <\/p>
Males likely use their poison spurs to spar for dominance during mating season.<\/p>
Platypus live in rivers and streams on the east coast of Australia, Tasmania and the Western half of Kangaroo Island\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>
What do platypus eat?<\/h2>
Platypuses hunt crustaceans and other prey with the help of electrosensory receptors in their beaks, which allow them to tune in to movement in the mucky water. When they walk on land, they retract the webbing on their feet to expose claws and get a better grip. <\/p>
Do platypus really glow in the dark?<\/h2>
A few years back, researchers discovered that they glow a soft blue green under blacklight \u2013 which may be a by-product of a camouflage strategy involving UV absorption, although it\u2019s hard to say for sure. In other words, even as we come up with new ways to study platypuses, they continue to blur our categories and confuse our boundaries. <\/p>
Platypus are monotremes \u2013 the only group of living mammals that lay eggs\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Recent genetic analyses suggest that, along with their cousins the echidnas, platypuses are closest of all to the original mammal ancestor whose descendants branched out into the creatures we now find more familiar, from dogs to whales to humans. Strange though they may seem, platypuses may not be an anomaly but the blueprint. <\/p>
How to see platypuses<\/h2>
Latrobe, Tasmania, is known as the platypus capital of Australia \u2013 try the Warrawee Forest Reserve there. Be there at dusk or dawn on a cloudy day, and stay quiet \u2013 they\u2019re very shy.<\/p>
This article is excerpted from\u00a0Atlas Obscura: Wild Life:\u00a0An Explorer\u2019s Guide to the World\u2019s Living Wonders<\/em>\u00a0by Joshua Foer & Cara Giaimo. Workman Publishing, 2024.<\/p>
$\"Atlas$ <\/figure>
More fascinating stories from the world of wildlife<\/strong><\/p>
Bison snot holds the American prairie together. Here’s how, according to an ecosystem expert<\/a><\/li>
Mummified seals are appearing in Antarctica\u2019s ice deserts. Explorers just found tracks leading to one of the bodies<\/a><\/li>
There\u2019s a bizarre animal in Oregon that looks and smells like a sock \u2013 and scientists are feeding it sardines. Here’s why<\/a><\/li>
Vampire finch: how this blood-thirsty bird rules the roost on a remote outpost of the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands<\/a><\/li><\/ul> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The animal in question also has a fleshy bill, webbed feet and sharp claws. Can you guess what it is yet? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":42952,"template":"","categories":[1,241],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal.jpg",1875,1250,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/its-venomous-has-an-electric-organ-glows-in-the-dark-and-sweats-milk-meet-the-worlds-most-confusing-animal.jpg",1875,1250,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The animal in question also has a fleshy bill, webbed feet and sharp claws. Can you guess what it is yet?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/42951"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

What do platypus eat?<\/h2>Platypuses hunt crustaceans and other prey with the help of electrosensory receptors in their beaks, which allow them to tune in to movement in the mucky water. When they walk on land, they retract the webbing on their feet to expose claws and get a better grip. <\/p>

What do platypus eat?<\/h2>
Platypuses hunt crustaceans and other prey with the help of electrosensory receptors in their beaks, which allow them to tune in to movement in the mucky water. When they walk on land, they retract the webbing on their feet to expose claws and get a better grip. <\/p>