But no one knows for sure because platypuses are so difficult to study in the wild. Disabling a competitor would be a big advantage, Whittington says. And someone once found in a net two males that had been fighting, one with temporary paralysis. The males might be using it in fights over territory or access to females, which would explain why only males have venom and only during breeding season. Black Devil Productionsīut what are the platypuses using venom for? Whittington says that scientists don’t yet know. A filmmaker recently captured rare footage of a platypus walking between creeks in Tasmania. Even in Australia, the animals have only been successfully bred (with the offspring reaching maturity) twice. In the early to mid-20th century, the Bronx Zoo in New York City tried keeping platypuses on display, but the animals died, and none ever mated. There are no captive platypuses outside of Australia, and it’s now illegal to move them out of the country. That’s not just because the animals are native to eastern Australia and Tasmania. If you want to see a live platypus, though, you have to go to Australia. You can find platypus specimens in lots of natural history museums. And the males have venomous spurs on their hind legs. The weirdness goes beyond your first glance at their duck bills and webbed feet: These are milk-producing mammals that lay eggs. British naturalist George Shaw, who in 1799 was the first person to officially describe the animal for science, originally thought the dead specimen he’d been sent was a hoax. Aboriginal Australian legend says that the platypus was born after a female duck mated with a water-rat. The platypus is one of the oddest animals you’ll ever see.
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