Detachment single pass. Basic information echidnovye family of the detachment of monotremes. in the same detachment, along with echidnas, there is a platypus. the family contains three genera of real echidnas - presentation Tips on how to make a good presentation presentation or project

Echidnas are a family of monotremes. The same detachment, along with echidnas, includes the platypus. The family contains three genera, true echidnas, prochidnas, and the extinct genus Megalibgwilia. The range of the family Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, islands in the Bass Strait. BASIC INFORMATION

Echidnas look like a small porcupine, as they are covered with coarse wool and quills. The maximum body length is approximately 30 cm. Their lips are beak-shaped. Echidna limbs are short and rather strong, with large claws, so they can dig well. The echidna has no teeth, its mouth is small. The basis of the diet is termites and ants, which echidnas catch with their long sticky tongue, as well as other small invertebrates, which echidnas crush in their mouths, pressing their tongue against the palate. BASIC INFORMATION

For most of the year, with the exception of the mating season in winter, echidnas live alone. Each individual guards its territory in which it hunts. Echidnas have no permanent home. Despite their thick and clumsy body, echidnas swim well and cross large bodies of water.

Echidnas have sharp eyesight, and they are able to notice the slightest movements around them. In case of any threat, echidnas quickly hide in thickets or in rock crevices. In the absence of such natural shelters, echidnas quickly burrow into the ground, and only a few needles remain on the surface. If the terrain is open and the ground is solid, then the vipers simply curl up into a ball, resembling a hedgehog. Only a few predators cope with such protection: experienced dingoes and foxes can kill an adult echidna by catching it on a hard, flat surface and attacking from the side of the belly (the ball into which the echidna folds is not full). Sometimes monitor lizards also hunt young echidnas. BEHAVIOR AND LIFESTYLE

The female echidna, three weeks after copulation, lays one soft-shelled egg and places it in her pouch. "Incubation" lasts ten days. After hatching, the cub is fed with milk, which is secreted by pores in two milk fields (unitremes do not have nipples), and remains in the mother's pouch from 45 to 55 days, until its needles begin to grow. After that, the mother digs a hole for the cub, in which she leaves him, returning every 4-5 days to feed with milk. Thus, the young echidna is taken care of by the mother until she reaches the age of seven months. BREEDING

Platypus (lat. Ornithorhynchus anatinus)- This is an egg-laying mammal, one of those rare animals that make up the unique fauna of Australia.

The length of its body is about 30 cm, together with the tail - up to 55 cm, the weight of an adult is about 2 kg. Like many other animal species, male platypuses are noticeably larger than females. Squat, with a large tail, something like a beaver, he got his eloquent name thanks to the soft beak, covered with elastic skin.

Its five-toed paws are excellent for both swimming in warm Australian waters and digging. For swimming, he mainly uses his front paws, equipped with characteristic webs.

Platypus- This is a nocturnal animal, and it spends a fairly large part of its life in the water. Its habitat is the shores of lakes and small rivers in eastern Australia. Every year before the mating season (August-November), they fall into a short hibernation for 5-10 days. They mate in the water after a fairly lengthy courtship ritual. Males are polygamous.

The average life expectancy of a platypus in captivity is about 10 years, life expectancy in the wild is still unknown. Some time ago, they were the object of a wide trade, and their unique fur was the object of hunting, but at the beginning of the last century, the Australian government issued a decree banning hunting for them.

Today, this species is no longer threatened with extinction, but the pollution of their natural habitat and the gradual industrialization of the sparsely populated areas of Australia are doing their job: platypuses are gradually becoming less and less.

In Australia, there are special reserves specially equipped for their safe living. The most famous among them are Hillsville and West Burley.

Only males are known to have venomous spurs on their hind legs. The poison contained in these spurs can cause severe pain to a person and kill a medium-sized animal, such as a dog.

The main sign of mammals, which include the platypus, is the presence of mammary glands in animals, with the help of which they feed their offspring with milk. Platypuses do not have nipples, but there are glandular areas of the skin that are able to secrete milk through the pores (milk is high in fat, sugar and proteins).

The female "brings" two or three eggs, rich in yolk, leathery, with a soft shell. She lays eggs deep in her hole, after 10 days the cubs hatch, which feed on milk, through the modified sweat glands of the female. As mentioned above, the female does not have nipples, so it flows down the wool, from where the cubs already lick it.

It turns out that the platypus is also unique in that it has as many as 10 sex chromosomes, while other animals have only two. For example, it is known that a person's gender is determined by a combination of chromosomes X and Y. If XX, then it turns out to be a girl, if XY is a boy. Sex is determined in almost the same way in birds, only the chromosomes are called differently Z and W. But in platypuses, a male is born with a combination of XYXYXYXYXY, and a female is XXXXXXXXXX. For the entire animal world, this is simply unique.

By the beak it can be said that it is a relative of the duck, by the hairline it is closer to the bear, by the tail it can be attributed to beavers, and the webbed feet are more reminiscent of the feet of an otter.

And so far, evolutionists have not found an explanation for the origin of platypuses, one thing is clear - this is an animal creation of hands not from this world.

Platypus animals of Australia All about platypuses

PLATUS-ANIMAL OR BIRD?

For a long time, scientists argued who the platypus is. Either a bird or an animal. The animal platypus combines the qualities of both.

Beast? After all, he feeds the cubs with milk and has a short brown-brown coat.

Bird? He has a wide beak, like a duck, a cloaca, like all birds, for which he was attributed, like a viper, to monotremes.

Or maybe a reptile or a fish? He is an excellent swimmer and his body temperature is low, maybe only 25 degrees. And he puts his paws when walking, like they are, on the sides of the body. Just some unknown fairy-tale animal. In the end, this unique animal, living only in Australia, was classified as a mammal and named the platypus.

Here I am!

Appearance Features

Platypuses have a slightly elongated, round body. It ends with a wide and flat tail, like a beaver's. Both the tail and the membranes stretched between the fingers of short paws help him swim. The eyes are quite small. The ears are simple holes. Hearing and vision are poor, but the sense of smell is excellent.

The unusual beak of the platypus has almost nothing in common with the beak of birds. He has the usual jaws of a beast, no teeth. But on the other hand, there are such sensitive receptors along the edges of the beak that, like sharks, they can pick up slight electrical vibrations from moving prey. Females are smaller, up to 45 cm long, weighing slightly more than 1 kg. Males can be up to 2 kg, and the body is elongated up to 60 cm. Females do not give birth to cubs, they, like reptiles, lay eggs. Only they are covered not with a shell, but with a dense cornea. As such, there are no mammary glands. Milk simply flows from special ducts into a crease on the stomach.

But the amazing features of platypuses do not end there.

Males protect themselves from enemies with spurs located on their hind legs. Their length is about 2 cm, and they are not only sharp, but also contain a strong poison.

Platypus poisonous spur Lifestyle of platypuses

The whole life of platypuses takes place near small calm rivers with low banks. It is on the shore that they dig a hole-lair for themselves, where they live permanently.

These animals are nocturnal, sleeping in a hole during the day. They can fall into a short, 10 days, hibernation before the mating season. The purpose of hibernation is most likely to accumulate strength for reproduction.

Platypuses are very cautious and rarely show themselves to humans, hiding in burrows.

They go out in search of food early in the morning or closer to night. Basically, they look for food at the bottom of the reservoir, shoveling a lot of silt deposits with their beak. They capture worms, mollusks, tadpoles, any crustaceans, but do not immediately eat them. They store all living creatures by the cheeks, and already on land they grind them with their jaws. The ability to electrolocate helps not to grab inedible objects.

They live alone and do not form pairs.

The tail of the female plays an important role. With it, she wears soft grass for bedding in the hole, and with it she closes the entrance to the hole with earth. So for 2 weeks, while she incubates the eggs, she ensures her safety.

There are few eggs, one or 2. After 7 days, the cubs hatch, just as small, about 2 cm. They are completely helpless and blind. It is not clear why, but they are born with teeth that fall out after the end of milk feeding.

As many as 11 weeks, small platypuses remain blind. And in the hole are 4 months. The mother feeds them with milk, only occasionally getting out of the hole for food. During this period, she is unusually gluttonous, she can eat as much as she weighs. Live in nature for about 10 years. The main enemies are wild dingoes, monitor lizards and pythons. The platypus defends itself from them with its poisonous spur.

For people who have hunted platypuses for their skins, the poison is not lethal, but a spur sting causes severe pain.

Due to the disturbed ecology, these amazing animals began to disappear, so they are specially bred in nature reserves and zoos.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION END

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Echidna family ECHIDNA Echidna, a relative of the platypus, does not look like him at all. She, like the platypus, is an excellent swimmer, but she does it only for pleasure: she does not know how to dive and get food under water.

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Another important difference: the echidna has a brood pouch - a pocket on its belly where it places an egg. The female, although she raises her cubs in a comfortable hole, can safely leave her - an egg or a newborn cub in her pocket is reliably protected from the vicissitudes of fate. At the age of 50 days, the little echidna already leaves the bag, but for about 5 months it lives in a hole under the auspices of a caring mother.

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Echidna lives on the ground and feeds on insects, mainly ants and termites. Raking termite mounds with strong paws with hard claws, it extracts insects with a long and sticky tongue. The body of the echidna is protected by needles, and in case of danger it curls up into a ball, like an ordinary hedgehog, exposing the enemy with a prickly back.

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WEDDING CEREMONY From May to September, mating season begins for the echidna. At this time, the female echidna enjoys special attention from males. They line up and follow her in single file. The procession is led by the female, and the suitors follow her in seniority - the youngest and most inexperienced close the chain. So, in a company, echidnas spend a whole month, looking for food together, traveling and relaxing.

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Platypus family Platypus A wonderful animal, the platypus seems to be assembled from parts of different animals: its nose is like a duck's beak, its flat tail looks like it was taken from a beaver with a shovel, webbed paws look like flippers, but are equipped with powerful claws for digging (when digging, the membrane bends, and when walking - it gathers in folds, without interfering with free movement). But for all the seeming absurdity, this beast is perfectly adapted to the way of life that it leads, and has hardly changed over millions of years.

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At night, the platypus hunts for small crustaceans, mollusks and other small aquatic animals. The tail-fin and webbed paws help him to dive and swim well. The eyes, ears and nostrils of the platypus close tightly in the water, and it finds its prey in the dark under water with the help of a sensitive "beak". On this leathery "beak" are electroreceptors that can pick up weak electrical impulses emitted by movement of aquatic invertebrates. Reacting to these signals, the platypus instantly searches for prey, fills the cheek pouches, and then slowly eats the caught on the shore.