WASHINGTON — When British naturalist George Shaw received a weird specimen from Australia in 1799 — one with a mole’s fur, a duck’s bill and spurs on its rear legs — he did what any skeptical ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Ancient fossil evidence reshapes the story of the evolution of echidnas and platypuses, revealing a surprising aquatic ancestry.

Platypuses are weird looking. They look like someone stitched together a duck and a beaver—flat bill, webbed feet, and a broad tail. But their appearance isn’t even the strangest thing about them. Not ...

Until recently, the fossil record indicated that the platypus lineage was unique, with only one species inhabiting the Earth at any one time. This picture has changed with the spectacular find of a ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The story of two of ...

In 1943, Australia tried to win Winston Churchill's favor with a unique wartime gift: a live platypus, named Winston, shipped for 45 days across oceans to London in a custom habitat with 50,000 worms ...

Jars of tiny platypus and echidna specimens, collected in the late 1800s by the scientist William Caldwell, have been discovered in the stores of Cambridge's University Museum of Zoology. This unique ...

I have only seen one platypus in the wild in my three-quarters of a century, despite extensive travels across Australia’s vast outdoors. It was in a pool below a waterfall on the Atherton Tablelands ...

If you’ve always thought echidnas and platypuses were distant cousins who went their separate ways on land and water, think again. A single fossilized arm bone, found in a remote corner of ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Platypuses are monotremes, one of the oldest branches of mammals, and they reproduce by laying eggs instead of giving birth to ...