Life cycle and reproductionDespite their abundance, little is known about the life cycle of the platypus in the wild, and few of them have been kept successfully in captivity. The sexes avoid each other except to mate, and they do not mate until they are at least four years old. Males often fight during the breeding season, inflicting wounds on each other with their sharp ankle spurs. And take place in the water from late winter through spring; timing varies with, mating occurring earlier in the more northern parts of the range and later in the more southerly regions.
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Mating is a strenuous affair; in one recorded session the male was seen tightly grasping the tail of the female with his bill as she led him on an exhaustive chase.Males take no part in rearing the young. Females construct specially built burrows, where they usually lay two small leathery. Is at least two weeks (possibly up to a month), and incubation of the eggs takes perhaps another 6 to 10 days. The female incubates the eggs by curling around them with her tail touching her bill.
Each tiny platypus hatches from the egg with the aid of an and fleshy nub (caruncle), structural holdovers from a reptilian past. The young suck from special mammary and remain protected in the burrow, suckling for three to four months before becoming independent. Hatchlings, whose weight often increases by a factor of 20 during their first 14 weeks of life, possess vestigial teeth that are shed shortly after the young platypus leaves the burrow to feed on its own.Males and females become fully grown between ages 12 and 18 months, and they become sexually mature at about age 18 months.
They are long-lived for small mammals. Some studies have documented individuals living more than 20 years in the wild.
The platypus can survive for nearly 23 years in captivity. Evolution, paleontology, and classificationAquatically adapted platypus-like probably evolved from a more-generalized terrestrial. The first occurrence in the of a platypus-like monotreme is from about 110 million years ago, in the early, when was still connected to. Until recently this Cretaceous monotreme ( Steropodon galmani, known by a stunning jaw) was placed within the platypus family, but, partly on the basis of molecular studies and partly on dental structure, it is now classified in its own family, Steropodontidae.The living platypus family ( Ornithorhynchidae) includes the extinct genera Monotrematum (which dates to the some 61 million years ago) and Obdurodon (which may have first emerged near the boundary of the and some 23 million years ago) and the living Ornithorhychus.
The discovery of M. Sudamericanum in 62-million-year-old sediments confirmed that platypuses were once distributed through the southern continents that were once linked geographically.
Species of Monotrematum and Obdurodon retained functional teeth and were more than the living platypus, Obdurodon measuring up to 60 cm (24 inches) long.