Emus can grow up to six feet tall and weigh an average of 60 kilograms. They cannot fly, but they can race at speeds of 40 mph/60 kmh in short bursts. Their diet consists of leaves, grasses, fruits, native plants, and insects. They need 2–4 gallons of water daily. Emus are curious and docile creatures, unless provoked.
The female dominates the male during pair formation, and they stay together for about five months. The hens lay the dark green eggs which weigh 1-1 1/2 pounds each then wander away, leaving the male to perform the incubation. Sometimes she will find another mate and breed again.
The male incubates the eggs for 55 days without leaving the nest to drink or feed. Later, it guards and raises the young chicks. At 20 months, the chicks are ready to start their own families.
The emus do not face extinction. Their numbers have increased since European settlement.
The platypus was first discovered at the banks of a lake near the Hawkesbury River in 1797. The British Museum received a specimen in 1798, but it was thought the creature with a duck's bill and webbed feet, a wooly furred coat and a beaver's tail had to be a hoax. It must have confounded many when it was discovered the platypus was real and that it was an egg-laying mammal too.
The platypuses live aside freshwater rivers or lakes along eastern Australian seaboard from Queensland south to Tasmania. They create burrows for shelter, protection and breeding. They spend up to 17 hours a day resting out of the water. They can stay under water for up to fifteen minutes each time, feeding on insect larvae, tadpoles, snails, yabbies, worms or other freshwater insects. They can consume their own body weight in food in a 24 hour period. They weigh between 1 to 2.5 kilograms and live some 12 years. Young platypuses have molar teeth to chew their food but these are replaced by the horny ridges as they mature.
Platypuses are solitary animals that only come together to mate. Egg-laying, incubation and hatching take place in the nesting burrow. Although the mother does not have nipples, milk seeps from the mammary pores and the young suck it from the hair. After four months, the young emerge from the burrow. Two weeks later they are independent.Male platypus do not help to raise the young.
The platypus is wholly protected throughout Australia. Still they are prey to hawks, eagles, owls, pythons, goannas, water-rats, foxes, dogs and cats. But man poses the biggest threat of all in polluting the waterway and by the wilful destruction of platypus' habitat in the name of economic progress.