This requires the Platypus to spend an average of 12 hours each day looking for food. The Platypus needs to eat about 20% of its own weight each day. It utilizes cheek-pouches to carry prey to the surface where they are eaten. The Platypus is a carnivore: it feeds on annelid worms and insect larvae, freshwater shrimps, and yabbies (freshwater crayfish) that it digs out of the riverbed with its snout or catches while swimming. The hind feet (which are held against the body) do not assist in propulsion, but are used for steering in combination with the tail. Uniquely among mammals it propels itself when swimming by alternate rowing motion with the front two feet although all four feet of the Platypus are webbed. The Platypus is an excellent swimmer and spends much of its time in the water foraging for food. The unique features of the Platypus make it an easily recognizable and iconic symbol of Australia it has appeared as a mascot at national events and is featured on the reverse of the Australian 20 cent coin. The bizarre appearance of this egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first saw it, with some considering it an elaborate fraud. The picture below shows the venom spur on the platypuses’ leg. Although it is a mammal, it lays eggs instead of giving birth to live young. The platypus is a semi-aquatic mammal that lives in eastern Australia and Tasmania. It is one of the few venomous mammals the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that injects venom capable of killing small animals and causing severe pain in humans. If you have any interesting or funny facts about animals or would like to find out more information about a particular animal, please fill up the Feedback form and we will be happy to add it to our list of animal facts. Which is strange, but even stranger are the people who keep putting them under UV lights. No one knows why, but when these small brown creatures are put under UV lights, they give off a biofluorescent green-blue glow. In this page we will look at the platypus. The platypus spends about 12 hours every day underwater looking for food.
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