When on land, the platypus lives in burrows on the river banks. These holes are between and long. It makes these holes in the river bank a little above the water. It likes them hidden under roots. When a female platypus is pregnant, the female makes much larger holes, up to long. She blocks the tunnel with earth at several places. At the end of the tunnel, she builds a nest out of reeds for her eggs.
The platypus lays eggs in its nest. When the babies come out of the eggs after about ten days, they hold on to the mother. The mother makes milk for the new babies. The platypus does not have nipples, but milk comes through small openings in the skin. The young platypus drinks the milk from the mother's skin while she lies on her back. At six weeks the babies have fur and are able to leave the burrow for short trips. After four months they no longer need their mother's milk.
The long period as dependent young, the provision of milk, and the way the young learn through play, are all advanced features. The monotremes share them with all other mammals. The monotremes are a mixture of primitive and advanced traits, a situation known as mosaic evolution.
The platypus lives in small streams and rivers over a large area of eastern Australia. The map above shows this with dark purple. It has been seen in alpine lakes in Tasmania in the south, and north in Queensland as far as the Cape York Peninsula in tropical rain forest rivers.
In the past, platypus lived in South Australia but they no longer do so. There are platypus on Kangaroo Island, but these were brought there in an attempt to save animals people thought might become extinct. There are very few if any platypus left in most the Murray-Darling Basin. The water there is no good because people used it to grow plants, and cleared the trees from the land. It is strange that the platypus does not live in some healthy rivers. It does live in some less healthy coastal rivers, for example the Maribyrnong River in Victoria.
Platypus are difficult to see in the wild. They dislike areas with people, spend most of their time underground or under water, and sleep during the day. At Eungella National Park in Queensland, there are spots on the river with viewing areas where wild platypus can usually be seen each evening.
The first platypus specimen arrived in England in 1799 in the form of a skin of a dead platypus, so biologists could study it. At first, the scientists thought the skin was a joke, because they thought no animal could look so strange. They thought an Asian had made it from pieces of different animals.
"National Geographic" magazine had a story on the platypus in 1939. Many people had never heard of the platypus. The story told how hard it was to raise the babies in zoos. Even today, humans have raised only few. David Fleay at the Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria had the first successful zoo-raised platypus in 1946. He nearly did it again in 1972 at the David Fleay Wildlife Park at Burleigh Heads, Queensland, but it died at 50 days. Healesville raised another in 1998 and again in 2000. Taronga Zoo in Sydney bred twins in 2003, and had another birth in 2006.
The platypus will probably not die out completely in the near future. Ecologists say that it is “secure but faces future threat” (safe now but not in the future) or common but vulnerable (there are a lot now but they are not safe). They say this because people can make the water unsafe for the platypus.
Kenya
Kenya is a country in East Africa, about halfway down, near the horn of Africa. It has the Indian Ocean to its east and Lake Victoria to its west. Kenya borders the Jubaland part of Somalia (east), Ethiopia (north), South Sudan (north-west), Uganda (west), and Tanzania (south). Kenya is about the size of France, and almost as large as Texas (U.S.).
The capital city of Kenya is Nairobi, which is the 14th largest city in Africa (after Accra, Ghana). Some cities on the seaside are Mombasa and Malindi on the Indian Ocean, Nyeri, Nanyuki, Naivasha, and Thika in the Kenyan Highlands, and Kisumu on Lake Victoria.
The first humans may have lived near the lakes of Kenya along the Great Rift Valley, which cuts Kenya from north to south.
Kenya's coast is tropical and gets very hot. Inland, it is drier and cooler where the mountains rise up. The highest mountain in Kenya is Mt. Kenya, at . Mount Kilimanjaro crosses over the south border, with Tanzania, but the highest part of Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania.
Kenya is home to many different indigenous peoples with their own cultures, languages, and histories. There are at least 44 living languages and 1 extinct language that is not spoken any more. English and Swahili are the official languages spoken in Kenya. Because of colonialism school-going Kenyans are required to learn English, and it is used in schools and universities.
Kenya was colonized by the British, who began taking land from indigenous peoples to build ranches. They also discriminated against Kenyans in their own land. Kenyans who were against this formed a group called the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, or Mau Mau that fought a war against Britain for independence. The British committed war crimes to stop the Mau Mau, but on December 12, 1963 they agreed to give Kenya independence.
For many years after independence, a single party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), ruled the country. General elections were held every 5 years. However, all candidates for election to office had to belong to the ruling party, KANU. The party used the police to harass and torture socialists and communists in Kenya, and worked closely with Britain and the United States to keep them out of politics.
Uhuru Kenyatta is currently the president of Kenya. He is the first one to belong to a party other than KANU.
All Kenyans of school-going age are required to attend Primary School. However, school fees and required uniforms often keep students away from school. The Kenyan school system consists of 8 years of primary school, standard 1 through 8, 4 years of high school (Form 1 to 4) and 4 years of university but plans are underway of changing the system to 2 years in pre-school, 6 years in primary school,3 years in junior high school,3 years in senior high school and 3 years in university (2-6-6-3) in 2018. At the end of primary school, all students sit for a standardized exam called Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE). The grades attained in this exam determine which high school the student will attend. In Form 4 (this is the last year in high school), students sit for another exam called Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). The highest achieving students are granted admission into the 5 national universities (Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenyatta University, Egerton University and Moi University). Tertiary colleges, like Globovillee college, also feed the diploma graduates to universities.
Kenya is a country of grassland, but it is not rich, but it is productive land especially in the highlands. This is a very dry grassland with poor soil. Kenya also has very few mineral resources but their main mineral is soda ash. Three-fourths of the country is covered with plains. They are low in altitude along the coast, but get higher further inland, making a large plateau. The part east of Lake Turkana is the only true desert, but the rest can be very close to desert.