A platypus' nostrils are located on top of its bill, allowing it to breathe when swimming at the surface. The Platypus has two layers of fur. The inner layer is short and dense and never lets water through to the skin. The platypus has keen sight and hearing, but closes its nostrils, ears and eyes underwater. It manuevuers and finds food with the help of sensors in its beak which detect movement underwater.
Water reaches the sensitive nerve endings through tiny pores in the snout's hairless leathery skin.
Its bill looks like a ducks but is really made more like our noses . . . with soft, flexible cartilage. The females have no teats and the young feed through many tiny openings in the skin of the mother's belly. Platypuses swim mainly with their forefeet. Food is probably located by touch and is stored in cheek pouches,like some rodents do, and consumed when there is a significant amount. Crushing its food with the horny plates of the bill and mouth, the platypus each day eats about half its own weight in worms,insect larvae, mollusks, crustaceans, yabbies, fish eggs, tadpoles and vegetation - all consumed underwater.