Weird Animals – A List Of The World’s Strangest Species

Platypus
Platypus
Scientific name: Ornithorhynchus anatinus

Type of animal: Mammal

Family: Ornithorhynchidae

Where found: Australia

Conservation status: Near Threatened

No list of weird animals would be complete without the platypus, an animal so strange that early scientists didn’t believe that it was real. (When presented with a preserved platypus sent to them from Australia, scientists at a British museum thought that the specimen was several different animals that had been sewn-together.)

The platypus is found only in eastern Australia. It has a bizarre appearance, with a bill like a duck, webbed feet like an otter, and a beaver-like tail.

Platypuses are primarily carnivorous, feeding on insects, crustaceans, and small fish. They are able to detect electrical fields produced by their prey, using electroreceptors in the bill.

As if that wasn’t enough, the platypus is a monotreme – an egg-laying mammal, one of only five such animals alive. (The four other monotremes are all echidnas, covered elsewhere in this list of weird animals.)

The male platypus has venomous spines on its rear ankles. A sting from a platypus is excruciatingly painful, but not fatal.