Deep in Victoria’s Otway Ranges swims a cute, little riddle, wrapped in a mystery,
inside an enigma.
It’s venomous. It has a sixth sense. And it looks like it’s borrowed all of it’s body
parts from different animals. Oh, I think I see one.
I think I see one straight ahead of me.
This is the freshwater chimera. The species that confused a generation.
The result of Dr. Frankenstein’s cute streak. The Platypus.
Hi, I’m Danielle Dufault, and you’re watching Animalogic.
We covered the platypus in the first season of Animalogic, but when we got the opportunity to
film them first hand in the wild, we thought that it was the perfect way to end our fourth season.
We had to wake up at about 5:30 to get out of here for 6:30, and make it down to a boat,
The whole point is to try and find platypuses, and for me,
that’s like the animal that I want to see more than out here, so 5:30 or not, I am super excited.
I am tired I don’t have caffeine, but hopefully we’ll have platypuses.
We just got to like elizabeth and the sun is starting to rise oh can you hear that those are
kookaburras. Every morning here so far i've been woken up by these guys and i can't even be mad
cause like they're having such a good time It feels like jurassic park out here.
This hike is waking me up better than any coffee has. I'm not a morning person but uh for
the platypuses i'll do anything. Echidnas and platypuses are the
only families of uh monotremes left today so there used to be a lot more
there's five species of echidna and only one of platypus, so it’s pretty special to find one.
monotremes are something that has fascinated me for a long time
from the evolutionary perspective but also just how odd they look.
we've made it down to Lake Elizabeth and this is gonna be our best chance of seeing a wild platypus
Found in wetlands across the east and south-east coast of Australia and throughout Tasmania,
the Platypus is one of two members of the monotreme order. And they’re smaller than you
might think - only measuring about 50 cm long. Unlike placental mammals, and marsupials,
which both give birth to live young, monotremes are mammals that lay eggs.
But laying eggs is by far one of the least interesting things about the platypus.
These cuties bring it in every category of being real weird. To the point where,
frankly it’s just hard to keep track of. I think I see oneI think I see one straight
ahead of me, maybe 40 meters off so I can't see much but something swimming out there.
Oh is that a platypus!? we're going to get closer and see what we can see.
The Platypus is a perfect example of convergent evolution, when similar traits
evolve separately in different species based on similar problems the species had to solve.
For example, Flying Squirrels in North America are not at all related to Australia’s Sugar Gliders,
but they both have evolved the same means of transport.
But instead of evolving one or two traits similar to other species, the platypus is seemingly made
up entirely of parts from other animals. They platypus has a bill like a duck,
a tail like a beaver, webbed feet like an otter, electroreceptors like a shark,
they lay eggs like a turtle, they have their limbs on their sides like reptiles,
they don’t have stomachs and lack teeth like echidnas, and they have venom like a viper.
The platypus looks like what happens when evolution hits the shuffle button.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth.
While their variety of parts make them look like a fresh-water chimaera,
all of their disparate features come together perfectly to create the ultimate mash-up,
resulting in one highly effective weirdo. When british explorers first brought a
specimen of a platypus back from australia to england it was deemed too ridiculous to be real
no one could believe that this creature wasn't just a frankenstein of a bunch of different
animals stitched together so it took several more expeditions and more specimens to prove
that this thing was indeed a mammal that laid eggs with duck like bill.
Each one of their strange features serves a valuable purpose.
First up, their bill. The reason platypuses have
evolved to have a duck-like bill is because of the environment that they were able to
conquer - rivers, lakes and wetlands. Fresh-water is murky by nature,
and if you’re going to hunt in it, you need to rely on something other than your eyes.
And so the platypus has evolved a superpower; electroreception.
Commonly found in sharks, chimaera monstrosa and few other cartilaginous fish species,
platypus have bills lined with tiny dots called electroreceptors.
Platypuses don't have very good eyesight but the way that they see
the world is through electric pulses.
Whenever you move a muscle, the contraction generates an electric field. The platypus uses
the electroreceptors in the skin of their bills to calculate the voltage difference around them,
allowing them to target the electric fields of moving prey with pinpoint accuracy.
The platypus dives, heading for the bottom, shaking its head quickly from side to side,
seeking out any moving prey. If he detects anything,
he can use his sixth sense to zoom in and focus on the prey.
In this case it’s a crayfish. It holds still and he misses it on his first pass.
But it’s not long before the platypus picks up it’s presence and heads straight for it.
But their sixth sense isn’t the only trick up their sleeves,
their bills are also very sensitive. They can detect even the slightest of touches.
Their beaks are actually incredibly sensitive and capable of sensing all kinds of little changes
in the water and following those little pulses that's how they can go and catch fish you catch
all of their food and sense their environment The platypus’ bill is the perfect sensory
organ for hunting prey in the dark and murky fresh-water depths. They’re so effective that
they hunt with their eyes and nose closed. Spending about 40% of the night actively
looking for food, they need to be well equipped. While bills are great for housing large numbers
of electroreceptors, they are also perfect for their feeding strategy. Their bill allows them
to bite into the muck, and push out any excess mud and water before swallowing.
One consequence of the development of electroreceptors,
is that adult platypuses have no teeth whatsoever. In order to crunch up their meals,
they have to scoop up small rocks and press them against the top of their bills.
Platypuses also lack stomachs. Similar to Echidnas, their food is digested by going straight
from the esophagus to the intestine. Their lack of stomach is so ancient that the part of the
mammalian DNA in charge of making a stomach and the digestive compounds in it are entirely gone.
Borrowing yet another strategy, but this time from crocodiles, on top of the platypus’ bill
are two nostrils. This positioning allows them to stick a little bit of their snout, and just
the tops of the torso out of the water to breath without giving away their position to predators.
When they dive, they close their nostrils. Platypuses only dive for about 30 seconds
at a time so it's not very long to wait before they have to resurface again and the generally
there recovery times between 10 and 20 seconds before they can dive back down again
The second most iconic thing about the platypus is their wide-tail - an
adaptation that they share with a species on the other side of the world - the beaver.
These tails are perfectly evolved for a life in the water, offering the platypus both
excellent propulsion and steering. But they also have a surprising
use - carrying things. They look like they have on the cutest little backpacks.
These tails are quite dexterous, and they use them to carry reeds and sticks
to construct their burrows. When the platypus prefers not to be disturbed,
they will use these reeds and sticks to barricade the entrance,
allowing them to snooze in peace. The entrance to their den it's usually
just under water but they can extend upwards up the bank, up to 5 meters. Apparently they
can spend about 20 hours a day and they're just coming out to take a swim to go hunt for food
Next up we have the platypuses’ rather unusual feet. They resemble otter feet
in that they are heavily webbed, but the closer you look, the weirder they get.
Their webbing extends well beyond the tips of their fingers,
leading to their claws being in a very strange place - halfway up their feet.
This offers a good compromise for both digging and swimming.
Their feet are similar to scuba fins, as the webbing extends beyond where the actual bone is.
This allows them to be much larger than they would be if the webbing stopped at
the fingertips as it does in most webbed-footed species.
Spending much of their time floating around looking for food, you may have noticed something
strange about their legs - they’re located on the sides of their body, rather than underneath them.
This is strange in the mammalian world, and is usually only seen in reptiles.
This adaptation makes them more hydrodynamic, a must for an aquatic mammal.
They don’t come up on land too often, but when they do, it’s absolutely adorable. These small
stumpy limbs offer them little support on land, though they get the job done when need be.
But beyond strange webbing, male platypuses have an extra weird adaption on their hind limbs,
They have sharp spurs. Sharp, venomous spurs. Male platypus use their venom primarily during
the mating season in combat with other male platypuses.
Interestingly, the venom, while it does share chemical properties and
effects with reptile venom, is not meant to kill or even permanently damage tissue.
Platypus venom is meant to subdue competing males while they mate with prospective females.
While it may seem strange for a mammal to have venom, they’re not the only ones that do,
some shrews have it too! Venom
actually used to be much more common place in the mammalian world, and platypuses,
being a very old lineage, feature a lot of adaptations that while seem strange to us,
were quite common back in the day. platypuses quite solitary animals
and prefer to stay in their own company, they claim territory that was that to kilometersI
like to keep that to themselves they're very solitary animals they only really
socialize for the sake of mating and raising their young beyond that they like to be solo
Once the battle for mating rights is won, females will dig out their burrow in preparation for their
young. After 4 weeks of gestation 2 to 3 eggs are laid, and will hatch after about 10 days.
Since the mom has no teats, the young, called puggles, will lap up milk from
her mammary glands for about four months before they’re old enough to eat solid meals.
In their ecosystem platypuses are quite hardy animals and can live lives of up to
about 11yearsin the wild and 17 in captivity Unfortunately they're extremely sensitive to
the health of their environment so if there's a lot of pollution in their lakes and river systems
then they get all of that. So that's been decreasing their survivability for quite some time
at least now there's a lot more conservationa lot more conservation efforts to bring them back.
It's been something really so special to be out here on lake elizabeth looking for
platypus in their territory you know this this lake here is kind of the perfect place for them.
The platypus is listed as a near threatened species and with their numbers decreasing,
it will take a concerted effort from all of us to maintain the wetlands they call home.
Because the world needs more weirdos, and weirdos with painful,
venomous spurs aren’t the weirdos you want to piss off by destroying their homes.
So what should I talk about next? Please let me know in the comments
and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of Animalogic every week. Thanks for watching.