Duckbill platypus are one of the few monotremes- these are an ancient lineage of mammals that still lay eggs like the ancestors of marsupials and placental (Eutherian) mammals. Monotremes get their name 'ONE HOLE' bc they lay eggs, pee, & poop all through the same plumbing. #2025MMM - ThreadSky

ldurgavich.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Duckbill platypus are one of the few monotremes- these are an ancient lineage of mammals that still lay eggs like the ancestors of marsupials and placental (Eutherian) mammals. Monotremes get their name 'ONE HOLE' bc they lay eggs, pee, & poop all through the same plumbing. #2025MMM

Comments

natickbobcat.bsky.social•7 days ago

AND YOU CAN MAKE A SINGLE SPECIES CUSTARD!

#2025MMM

ldurgavich.bsky.social•7 days ago

TODAY the long monsoon season is winding down in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Malaysian Borneo. Forest Tortoise forages close to a nearby stream (Natchev et al. 2015) #2025MMM

ldurgavich.bsky.social•7 days ago

MEANWHILE, in a stream flowing into Lake St. Clair, Tasmania, a male Platypus is hunting freshwater shrimp & other invertebrates with his eyes, ears, and nostrils closed... he hunts by detecting the electrical signals & movements of prey! (aka electroreception & mechanoreception) #2025MMM

tcastanea.bsky.social•7 days ago

I WAS JUST AT LAKE ST. CLAIR!!! I didn’t see a platypus there but saw lots of wonderful habitat!

ldurgavich.bsky.social•7 days ago

In March, Platypus has little use for his spurs. His crural gland that makes venom is currently shrunken, but will enlarge for mating season and male-male combat in August & September (Grant & Temple-Smith 1998) #2025MMM

ldurgavich.bsky.social•7 days ago

BACK IN BORNEO, the forest canopy is dense with little sunlight reaching the forest floor. Forest Tortoise stands up on her back legs, nearly vertical, to reach the lowest leaves of a flowering plant in the elephant ear genus Alocasia (Høybye-Mortensen 2004) #2025MMM

scriath.bsky.social•7 days ago

nononono please do not fall backwards

littlemisswoolly.bsky.social•7 days ago

Ahh, a tortoise on his tippy toes #2025MMM

ldurgavich.bsky.social•7 days ago

Forest Tortoise stretches her face forward to grasp the last leaves with her jaw, her bite much like an aquatic turtle, instead of using her tongue to help grasp her food item as more terrestrially-adapted tortoises do. (Natchev et al. 2015) #2025MMM

ldurgavich.bsky.social•7 days ago

#MMMagic translocates Platypus to the thick shrubbery beside Forest Tortoise, but on the side furthest from the stream. Still, the water seems less daunting than this new forest! #2025MMM