Why is platypus hard to classify

Platypuses use their nails and feet to construct dirt burrows at the water's edge. Platypus reproduction is nearly unique. It is one of only two mammals the echidna is the other that lay eggs. Females seal themselves inside one of the burrow's chambers to lay their eggs. A mother typically produces one or two eggs and keeps them warm by holding them between her body and her tail.

The eggs hatch in about ten days, but platypus infants are the size of lima beans and totally helpless. Females nurse their young for three to four months until the babies can swim on their own. All rights reserved.

Common Name: Platypus. Scientific Name: Ornithorhynchus anatinus. Type: Mammals. Diet: Carnivore. Size: Head and body: 15 inches; tail: 5 inches. Weight: 3 pounds. Size relative to a 6-ft man:.

Near threatened. Least Concern Extinct. Current Population Trend: Decreasing. Share Tweet Email. Another curious feature is that, although it can run fast, it almost never resorts to doing so, usually limiting itself to walking. This chimerical creature has the body of a mole and a starfish instead of a snout.

Except that the alleged starfish is, in fact, a sensitive organ consisting of 22 appendages or fingers arranged in a crown around the fovea or central area. The star-like organ is also ideal for making a perfect and detailed three-dimensional map of its environment. Its powerful front legs topped by curved claws, like a shovel, make this tiny, hamster-sized mammal an expert tunneler.

For a long time, pangolins were grouped together with armadillos and anteaters, due to their apparent resemblance to these species. However, they are such unique animals that they were finally classified in a separate order: Pholidota. It is the only mammal with scales, forming a sort of armour that covers the top of the head, back and tail, serving as protection against its predators.

When it feels threatened, the pangolin curls itself up into an armoured ball, tucking its face under its tail. Click Enter. Login Profile. Es En. Economy Humanities Science Technology. Multimedia OpenMind books Authors. Featured author. Matthew Liao. Latest book. Work in the Age of Data.

Start Unclassifiable Animals that Challenged Biologists. It can be classified by color red , suit diamonds , face or number card face card. While playing the game of euchre, when trump is declared, a jack of diamonds could end up being the left bower, the right bower, or just the jack of diamonds. There are multiple independent systems of classification in operation here, including one that is dynamic trump.

We often see this need for multiple classification systems with financial data in multi-national corporations. In order to accommodate what appear to be conflicting needs, systems are designed that enable users to start from the same set of leaf accounts and build trees on top that roll up independently to different roots. Each tree must account for every leaf, so that the total seen at the top of every tree is the same, but the values at intermediate summary nodes of each tree are unrelated to each other.

Further, each tree might be very different from the other trees that roll up the same leaves. One tree might be balanced—the same number of levels from its root to every leaf—while another tree might be unbalanced or ragged—a different number of levels might be traversed from its root to any leaf. Such flexibility enables these systems to adapt to changing classification criteria. We can learn a lot from these systems for financial reporting, and apply the lessons to classification systems in general.

A classification system should be designed to support multiple independent systems of classification. Customers might be classified by region, by size, by industry, by revenue, and by sales organization serving the customer. It should be easy to add, remove, or modify a classification system.

It should be possible to change the classification criteria. Often classification criteria are stored separately from the system storing the classification hierarchies. News of the latest mammal from Australia will be easy to accommodate.