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What animal group is a Platypus?

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Flibert | 15:48 Wed 16th May 2007 | Animals & Nature
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I've wanted to know this because I always thought it was a mammal, but then my friend Micheal said it wasn't because it lays eggs, Can anyone help me?
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The duck/billed platypus belongs to a group called monotreme which include the echidnas they are mammals you are correct,for all they lay eggs.
they also suckle their young and have fur/hair.
I believe that from my school years (hundreds of years ago)
that a platypus suckles thier young, so I would say that a platypus is a mammal.
To put the above together. The platypus and echidna are a branch of the mammals called monotremes - which means 'single ending', refering the the single opening for defecating and sexual reproduction, called a cloaca in english. All birds also have a cloaca. For reproduction the cloacas are pressed together and sperm is thus transfered.

Both lay eggs but the platypus incubates the eggs with its body warmth whereas the echidna has a primitive pouch like a marsupial (kangaroo etc).
Feeding the young is also an unusual affair. They have no nipples as such, the milk just oozes from modified sweat glands and the young just lap/suck it up from the fur.
The platypus is also the only mammal to produce venom with can be injected in enemies via a spur grown on the back legs of the male. A human can become very ill from the venom but it is not fatal.
Monotremes are a very interesting branch of the mammals.

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