Jack Ashby

I think it's so weird that so few mammals... A conspiracy of dentists that keep the whole teeth thing going, perhaps?

Only one mammal, as far as we know, has evolved ever-replacing teeth, and actually that's a species of wallaby.

Super versatile.

So...

They, you know, they live in three worlds.

They live underground as burrowing mammals, they live on land as walking mammals, and they live in the water as swimming mammals.

And they do that because of their front feet.

And I like to describe them as transformers or sesame knives.

They pop out these tools or fold them away depending on what they're doing.

So in the water, they can fold out this big fan of skin that goes beyond their fingers and kind of held by the struts of their fingernails, their claws.

And that makes a great paddle.

So they're very good swimmers.

On land, they fold up this webbing and walk on their knuckles.

They kind of bunch up fists and they walk like that.

And then when they're digging, they fold out like a garden fork.

So they fold back the webbing, but their claws are really long for an animal of their size.

And a female platypus can dig over 10 metres long.

It's amazing because if you watch a platypus for any length of time, after a little while it will start preening itself.

So they'll start grooming and they're super flexible.

Their hind feet can kind of reach over their heads.