The first time, and only time I have ever seen a Platypus is when touring on a family holiday to Victoria in South Eastern Australia. I remember quite clearly seeing this small yet slender animal with a leathery type duck like beak swimming through a creek bed near Bendigo in Victoria.

They are a very secluded animal living in burrows along banks of a slow moving stream. For many years the animals were hunted for their fur by their human enemy over the decades, of early European settlement almost wiped them out. Natural life along the banks of slow moving streams, they found enemies of large fishes, and perhaps even snakes. But now under strict regulations the Platypus is fairly common in Eastern Australia, and Tasmania, and protected. This interesting animal was first found in 1797 and for a number of years thought to have been a hoax. Scientist could not believe this animal existed, especially being a mammal with a duck-like beak and poison spurs on the hind legs of a male. Male Platypuses grow too about two feet in length; a female will grow to about one and a half feet, with their weight ranging from two and one half pounds to about four pounds. A Platypuses fur is short velvety, dark grayish brown above and lighter below.

Living in slow moving streams, the female lays her eggs, one and sometimes maybe three at a time and incubates them in a leaf lined nest for a week to ten days. The eggs can be about the size of white grapes , with a leathery shell. A young Platypus is born with elongated lips, nature doing its best work designed the baby platypus for suckling milk, that is exuded from the nipples of the female Platypus. The young leave the nest about seventeen weeks after hatching. These animals live on earthworms, grubs freshwater crayfish, and water dwelling in sects. More than a pound of food will be consumed in one night.

The Platypus has been called one of the truly wonderful mammals in the world. This mammal is a true mammal with milk glands for suckling its young but it differs from other mammals except for the Spiny Ant Eater or Echidna. The difference being the Platypus, lays and incubates its own eggs.

A Platypus has an enormous appetite, which makes them difficult to maintain in captivity, there is only one platypus known to have survived for seventeen years in captivity. One Platypus was bred and hatched in Australia during 1943, with the first living specimen ever seen outside Australia was exhibited in the New York Zoological Gardens in 1922. There were three other Platypuses purchased by the same zoo in 1947.

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