Platypus Tea Towel

The platypus is one of the strangest of all mammals. It is so strange, in fact, that many European naturalists dismissed it as a fraud at first. Not only does it have a duck bill, but it also lays eggs instead of giving birth to live young (making it a monotreme, a class of egg laying mammals). It is one of only a few venomous mammals, the males being able to deliver it through a spur on their hind legs. The venom is not fatal, but can cause incapacitating pain. They are found only in Australia and Tasmania. Platypuses were once hunted for their fur but not anymore.