The platypus and echidna, often regarded as some of the most peculiar animals on Earth, may be hiding a far more complex evolutionary story than scientists initially believed. Recent findings from a ...

Laura A. B. Wilson receives funding from the Australian Research Council Robin Beck receives funding from the UK's National Environmental Research Council, and the Australian Research Council. Camilo ...

Outliers among mammals, monotremes lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. Only two types of monotremes, the platypus and echidna, still exist, but more monotreme species were around about 100 ...

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. Jars of tiny ...

A nearly gapless genome sequence of the echidna, an egg-laying mammal with multiple sex chromosomes, helps researchers to track genomic reorganization events that gave rise to a highly unusual sex ...

Newly examined fossils suggest monotremes—egg-laying mammals—were once much more abundant in Australia than they are today. Peter Shouten Today, egg-laying mammals are rare oddballs, with creatures ...