The Platypus Challenge

Question 1 · multiple choice

Which landscape is most suitable for a wild Platypus?

woodland edges, fields, and moist ground under stones woodland, parks, orchards, and mature gardens forests, bamboo thickets, wetlands, and farmland edges freshwater rivers and streams with vegetated banks

Question 2 · multiple choice

Which description best matches the natural diet of a Platypus?

aquatic insect larvae, worms, and small crustaceans small crustaceans, insects, worms, and algae nectar and pollen collected from flowers squid, fish, and carrion taken from the sea surface

Question 3 · multiple choice

A tracking tag records the daily rhythm of a Platypus. Which pattern is the best match?

often rebuilds and hunts from dusk through night usually feeds around dusk, night, and dawn hunts mainly by day does not follow normal daylight cycles in permanent darkness

Question 4 · multiple choice

A motion camera records a Platypus. Which description should appear in the observation notes?

walks on web threads and descends on silk walks long distances and stamps prey with rapid powerful kicks paddles with webbed front feet and steers with hind feet and tail swims with body waves and walks slowly on tiny limbs

Question 5 · multiple choice

Which adaptation would a biologist correctly connect to a Platypus?

a large casque may amplify calls and strengthen the bill without being solid external gills and a finned tail allow lifelong aquatic breathing and movement mucus and fine cilia carry trapped food toward the mouth electroreceptors in the bill detect tiny muscle signals from hidden prey

Question 6 · multiple choice

What would a researcher most reasonably record during the breeding cycle of a Platypus?

the female lays eggs and feeds hatchlings with milk released onto skin eggs hatch at intervals so chicks in one nest differ in size gives birth to live young rather than laying eggs a female guards tens of thousands of eggs and stops feeding until they hatch

Question 7 · multiple choice

How is a Platypus most likely to organise its everyday social life?

gathers in large seasonal spawning groups mostly solitary outside courtship and mothers with young mostly solitary at microscopic scale mostly solitary at sea but gathers at feeding or nesting areas

Question 8 · multiple choice

A habitat manager explains why the Platypus matters. Which explanation is accurate?

links mudflat prey with birds and aquatic predators pollinates wild plants and many food crops stirs stream sediment and controls aquatic invertebrate populations connects distant ocean food webs and brings marine nutrients to islands

Question 9 · multiple choice

Which field observation would show a Platypus defending itself?

fires a hot pulsed chemical spray aimed from the abdomen retreats around the trunk and uses loud calls and drumming warns with hood, growl-like hiss, and controlled strikes adult males carry venomous ankle spurs used mainly in rivalry

Question 10 · true false

True or False: A platypus the baby echidna is called a puggle.

True False