These animals can stay underwater for up to five minutes, although normally, their dives last only about a minute. During their dives, they hunt for insect prey, employing a specialized behavior to make use of their electroreception and sensitive somatosensory system. Platypusses construct two different burrows on the banks of the water in which they live and hunt. One shelter is built and maintained by the male during the breeding season. Platypusses mate during the period from August to October.
Actual copulation takes place in the water with the animals swimming in slow circles.
Two weeks after breeding, the female gives birth to one to three eggs in her burrow, in a specially constructed nest of wet leaves. The eggs are about 16 to 18 mm in length, and 14 to 15 mm in diameter, and fairly spherical. After approximately ten to twelve days of incubation during which the female curls around the eggs, the young hatch. The newborn young are about 25 mm long, blind and naked. The platypus leaves early in the morning, and hunts by swimming along the bottom of the body of water, attempting to fill its cheeks with captured prey.