Image credit: Martin Pelanek/shutterstock Platypus take cover in earth banks and botanical vegetation near the edges of waterways. An ideal home for the platypus is a river or stream with earth banks and botanical vegetation that provides shade and cover near the edges of the waterway. Their habitats range from the tropical rainforest lowlands and plateaus of Far North Queensland to the cold, high altitudes of the Australian Alps and as far south as Tasmania. Platypuses make their home in freshwater rivers, wetlands, and billabongs across Australia. Platypus are well suited to semi-aquatic life. And if this rare amalgamation of animal parts isn’t enough to impress the toughest animal enthusiast amongst us, the fact that the male platypus is also listed as one of the world’s few venomous mammals, just might. With a bill and webbed feet like a duck, a flat tail like a beaver (where it stores fat reserves) and the furry body of an otter, the platypus is well suited to semi-aquatic life. Along with the echidna, the platypus has a classification all its own, and is considered a monotreme which is an order of mammal that lays eggs. The end result? A unique Australian species that once had scientists stumped as to what it really was. One of the more unusual animals on record, the platypus is a true combination of bits of this and bits of that. Ranging in size depending on their location, males are larger than females and can measure over 60cm long with females ranging between 37 and 55cm long Average of 12 years in the wild and 17 in captivity
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