10 Facts About Platypus

Platypus, sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania.

Platypus can determine the direction of an electric source, perhaps by comparing differences in signal strength across the sheet of electroreceptors.

Platypus is semiaquatic, inhabiting small streams and rivers over an extensive range from the cold highlands of Tasmania and the Australian Alps to the tropical rainforests of coastal Queensland as far north as the base of the Cape York Peninsula.

Platypus is no longer found in the main part of the Murray-Darling Basin, possibly due to the declining water quality brought about by extensive land clearing and irrigation schemes.

Platypus is an excellent swimmer and spends much of its time in the water foraging for food.

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Platypus is a carnivore: it feeds on annelid worms, insect larvae, freshwater shrimp, and freshwater yabby that it digs out of the riverbed with its snout or catches while swimming.

Platypus is not considered to be in immediate danger of extinction, because conservation measures have been successful, but it could be adversely affected by habitat disruption caused by dams, irrigation, pollution, netting, and trapping.

Platypus has been a subject in the Dreamtime stories of Aboriginal Australians, some of whom believed the animal was a hybrid of a duck and a water rat.

Platypus is used by some Aboriginal peoples as a totem, which is to them "a natural object, plant or animal that is inherited by members of a clan or family as their spiritual emblem", and the animal holds special meaning as a totem animal for the Wadi Wadi people, who live along the Murray River.

Platypus has often been used as a symbol of Australia's cultural identity.