Any animal which can't quite make up it's mind which species it belongs to deserves the title of 'weird', and the duckbilled, warm blooded, egg laying, fur covered Platypus must be one of the weirdest! In fact, is is so strange, that for many years, scientists believed that skeletons and sketches of the animals were elaborate hoaxes .
The Platypus , which makes its home in eastern Australia, is a special type of mammal, known as a monotreme, which is a mammal that gives birth by laying eggs. But its species confusion doesn't end there, as this animal has the traits of a reptile, bird, fish, and furred animal all rolled into one.
They eat crayfish, shrimp, insect larvae, worms and a variety of other freshwater insects, usually foraging at night by digging in the mud at the bottom of the water. They look for food with their distinctive Duck-like bills, rather than their paws, and store the insects in special pouches behind their bill, (now it's a squirrel!) When they come to the surface they eat the food that they found. 
Platypi certainly like the all-you-can-eat buffet style of dining and they can consume their own body weight in food in a 24 hour period! (What a pig!)
Their bills are not used just to find food. Platypuses are one of the few mammals that have a sense of electroreception that lets them locate prey by detecting electric fields generated by muscular contractions. The electroceptors located in the platypus bill are incredibly sensitive, and they rely on their bills much in the way that we humans rely on our hands.
Mating takes place once a year between June and October. The females lay two to four eggs (again, like a bird) and incubate them for two weeks. When a baby is born it feeds on its mother’s milk, (ok, it's a mammal again) which she secretes from large glands under the skin.While they look cute and harmless, these animals are one of the only mammals to be able to inject poison into a predator (like a snake, or spider). The males possess spurs on the insides of their hind legs which contain a particularly nasty type of venom. The poison is strong enough to kill a small dog and can cause serious pain to humans. Luckily, the animals are not prone to unprovoked attacks.
As with many Australian animals, there are concerns over the survival of this species , as man encroaches on their natural habitat.
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