The suggestion that they reproduced by laying eggs instead of giving birth to live young left most Victorian zoologists incredulous, and it was almost 100 years before this could be proved. Closer examination of platypuses and echidnas has showed that these are far from regular mammals. But this was just the first in a long series of zoological conundrums presented by this highly distinctive group. It was not until 1802 that an entire preserved specimen of the platypus arrived in Europe, providing unequivocal proof that it was a genuine animal. The short-beaked echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus) had been described seven years earlier, also by Shaw, but had caused much less of a stir, presumably because its superficial similarity to the European hedgehog made it easier to accept. The platypus was not the first known monotreme. He named it Platypus anantinus, which literally translated means "flatfooted duck-like." The name was changed to Ornithorhynchus anatinus when it later transpired that the genus name, Platypus, had already been used to describe a species of flat-footed beetle. After examining it carefully and failing to find any evidence of forgery, he formally described it in 1799. The English naturalist George Shaw examined the skin, and was initially dubious as to the validity of the specimen. It is an unlikely looking amalgam of parts taken from other animals, including a stout, cylindrical body covered in fur, huge webbed feet, a flat paddle-shaped tail, and a unique rubbery bill. However, the duck-billed platypus is one of those cases where fact is at least as strange as fiction. It would not have been the first time a ship arrived from the East Indies with a cleverly faked "marvel." Previous hoaxes had included supposed mermaids (half fish, half monkey) and wildly exotic birds of paradise, so the scientific community at the time can be forgiven for being skeptical. The three living species of monotreme have always been regarded as zoological enigmas, so much so that when the first specimen of a duck-billed platypus (a single skin) was shipped back to Europe from Australia at the close of the eighteenth century, it was widely believed to be a hoax, and an unconvincing one at that. Number of genera, species 3 genera 3 species Introduction Monotremata Family: Echidnas Family: Duck-Billed Platypus
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