1,04 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
Visitors Most Keep Silent. 
The Head Keeper will explain everything. 
The Duck-Billed PLATYPUt 
This is the most strange and wonderful of 
It lays eggs; it has a flat bill; no teeth, and webbed feet. 
It suckles its young with in ilk, by a strange process. 
It lives in rivers', but sleeps in burrows in the hanks. 
It rarely comes upon land. 
It feeds on angle worms, grubs and very small shrimjps. 
Th is is the first specimen ever landed alive outside Australia . 
Brought to New York after nine years of experiments and efforts by 
Ellis S. Joseph, of Sydney, 
Purchased and Presented by the John L. Cactwalader Fund 
Received here July 14, 1922 . ..-»»■— 
i Open to visitors only One Moor Daily, 
From 3 p.m. to 4 O’clock. 
LABEL AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE PLATYPUS EXHIBIT 
This sign and the one on the opposite page attracted much attention, and were carefully read by 
visitors. 
by which they will he investigated to the ut¬ 
most. 
Its measurements were as follows: 
, Total length from end of beak to end of tail 
—18% inches. 
Length of upper mandible—3% inches. 
Width of upper mandible at widest point— 
' 2 y 8 inches. 
Length of spur on hind foot—% inch. 
Weight—1% pounds. 
The platypus is so odd and so unique that 
it deserves to occupy a mammalian order all 
alone, but it has been elected, from its egg- 
laying habit, to share the MONOTREMATA 
with the Echidna. To begin with, it lias the 
astounding ability to lay eggs, and hatch them 
by curling around them and giving them body- 
warmth. The eggs number either one or two, 
they are about three-quarters of an inch long, 
and the shell is leathery in texture. 
The newly-hatched platypus appears in Oc¬ 
tober, it is only about one inch in length, ab¬ 
solutely naked, and it remains hairless for the 
first two or three months of its life. The 
mother should have a good serviceable nipple 
an inch long, but in reality she has none, and 
the young animal is nourished by milk that 
seeps through the skin. It is a tough infant 
that can be nourished and reared on milk pro¬ 
cured by that very inadequate process,—the 
worst on record. 
The broad, flat tail is naked below but 
heavily haired above, and is very useful in 
swimming. 
The fur is dark brown when dry and dull 
black when wet. It consists of a coarse outer 
coat and a fine and dense under coat that is 
so much like “fur” that thousands of these 
animals have been killed by fur-hunters. Oc¬ 
casionally flat platypus skins are tucked into 
bales of other fur from Australia,—where all 
mammalian life is rapidly being swept away. 
Other unique features of the platypus are the 
broad and leathery duck-like bill, the base of 
which is a leathery margin that nicely covers 
the junction between bill and fur. The front 
feet are fully webbed, well beyond the ends 
of the toes, all of which is utilised in swim¬ 
ming. In digging and climbing, this exposed 
margin of leathery web is rolled under the 
toes, to give the claws a chance. The web 
extends half an inch beyond the ends of the 
claws. 
The platypus inhabits a very few of the 
small and quiet interior rivers of Australia 
where it seeks its food in the water, and at 
other times lives in a comfortable bank bur¬ 
row. One entrance to the burrow is under 
water, the other above it. The end of the bur¬ 
row is formed into a comfortable chamber, 
wherein a nest of dry leaves is maintained. 
